I'm freaking out due to Amex shutdowns as I have 1.7m points. Don't live in NY/CA so my points would be gone. I did some Pepper rewards last year up to $15k/month and some modified link NLL offers, so I'm at a risk.

I have Amex Biz Plat, so I can do the 35% rebate. I value business class flights between Europe, US and Asia (can start in Europe). Also aspirational hotels.

I have Amex checking which might survive credit card shutdown.

My current thinking is to dump them to FlyingBlue, ANA, Hawaiian to Alaska, Aeroplan, Avios (can be transfered between Oneworld) and maybe Hilton if there's a bonus soon.

Any other suggestions?

If just dumping your points elsewhere, pay attention to those plans which have expiration policies. For example, Flying Blue points will expire in 2 years if you don't fly or otherwise have activity.

I'm aware of expiration policies. Just dumped 300k to Aeroplan and added a reminder in 17 months to refresh those. I'd rather have the hassle of refreshing points than lose what's basically $20k worth of points.

I'm a fan of using miles with Singapore Airlines for Asian travel. One way biz is roughly 125K miles. Miles expire in 3 years.

There is a limited window of moving points to Hawaiian Airlines and from Hawaiian to Alaska. I have found redemption on Condor a current sweet spot. It takes 70K miles if booking a single flight on Condor; adding connecting flights within Europe bumps it to 110K. Long may it last but who knows. This window will close roughly in July. I've already moved a few hundred K from AMEX to Hawaiian but may move more in the next month.

AS and AC are good options for decent premium cabin partner redemptions. One caveat is that both have been devaluing recently and AC is adding more and more dynamic pricing. There is no great place to park these - you can always redeem them at a 1 cpm value to purchase premium cabin tickets with Amex travel and then you get your 35% back - I'd say that's a pretty good option in particular when you have good IAP pricing

I would have cashed them out a 1.5cpp via the AMEX travel ticket refund method.

Can you please give a TLDR of this method?

Book a refundable plane ticket on AMEX travel. Pay with points. Cancel ticket.

Since there is the 35% rebate you really need to book about 4 or 5 flights:

Flight 1: ~$17,000 flight
Flight 2: ~$5,950 flight
Flight 3: ~$2082 flight
Flight 4: ~$728 flight
Flight 5: ~$255 flight

Once you’ve booked them all, you can cancel them. You’ll end up with statement credits on your account as they don’t refund points. AMEX probably claws back the 35% rebate points, putting you into the negative, but since you’re nuking the account/relationship with AMEX there’s really no downside.

Amex doesn't shutdown accounts when doing this?

OP is proceeding as if his account is going to be terminated.

In the OP. 🙂

Yes, I'm worried of a shutdown, but I don't want to give additional reasons to Amex for a shutdown.

I get it... based on posts on reddit and elsewhere, it does seem that AMEX "randomly" closes accounts, though almost always, posts raging about AMEX screwing someone have tons of missing info. AMEX, generally, doesnt shut down the accounts of valuable cardholders they find profitable. They shutdown accounts of people who intentionally (and maybe sometimes unintentionally) are NOT profitable for them or fit into certain other risk criteria which AMEX deems not worth the trouble for. Of course, yes, I am sure there is the occasional totally innocent person who just gets screwed, but I'd say thats a very small % of overall shutdowns.

That said, if you are that concerned here, and truly are looking to cash out, moving them to HA -> AS is a strong move. As would FB or BA for certain redemptions (only you would know if that makes sense based on your travel patterns). You're of course risking a sudden deval in that particular currency but I guess thats the tradeoff.

As a side note, I also happen to be sitting on about 1.8Mil AMEX MR right now. Short of moving about 500k to HA -> AS before that availability disappears, no plans to do anything with them until I'm ready for a specific redemption.

It appears this has changed. read recent discussion here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...35-2024-a.html

Agree, and just adding that in contrast to other programs, Flying Blue does not have any easy "refresh" options (such as donate miles, shopping portal etc.). You have to take a flight using your FB number -- could be a Delta flight or other SkyTeam partner, but pretty much has to be a flight.