American Express (AMEX) Transfer Partners Guide

AMEX’s Transfer Partners

American Express has 17 airline and 3 hotel transfer partners, totaling 20. AMEX has some unique partners (like ANA) which can offer some incredible value, and some partners that are widely available across many other issuers (e.g. Air France, Singapore Airlines).

What Card Do I Need To Earn and Transfer My Points?

Several AMEX cards earn Membership Rewards points. It’s important to note that not all AMEX cards earn points that you can transfer; for example, AMEX’s Delta and Hilton cards earn Delta miles and Hilton points, respectively. Additionally, unlike Chase, cashback cards do not earn Membership Rewards points either EVEN if you have one of the following cards. The cashback earned is considered entirely separate from these points cards altogether.

• American Express® Gold Card ($325 annual fee): Earn 4x at restaurants worldwide, 4x at U.S. supermarkets (up to $25k per year, and then 1x), and up to $240 in dining + Uber credits annually (See Rates and Fees)
• The Platinum Card® from American Express ($695 annual fee): Earn 5x on flights (up to $500k per year), access over 1,400 airport lounges, get up to $15 in Uber Cash per month (and an additional bonus $20 in Dec), use up to $200 in airline incidental fees, and more (See Rates and Fees)

Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.”

American Express® Gold Card

As high as 100,000 Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $6,000 in eligible purchases on your new Card in your first 6 months of Card Membership. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer. Apply to know if you’re approved and find out your exact welcome offer amount – all with no credit score impact. If you’re approved and choose to accept the Card, your score may be impacted.

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Examples of High Value Transfer Partners

Not all transfer partners are built similarly. Some are generally recognized as providing better value than others. We’ll highlight some good and bad examples for you to maximize the value of your points.

All Nippon Airways (ANA)

AMEX is ANA’s exclusive credit card transfer partner, enabling you to transfer your Membership Rewards points 1:1 to their frequent flyer program. Notably, ANA has some fantastic redemptions that truly make the most of your hard earned points. The primary catches are that you can only book round-trip award bookings, ANA typically passes on fuel surcharges to customers for some airlines, and award availability for premium classes can be difficult to find. For instance, a partner business-class booking on Lufthansa might run over $1,000 in taxes & fees ontop of the points.

Nevertheless, ANA can still provide tremendous value for many of its award redemptions.

One of the best redemption opportunities is flying East Coast to Tokyo, where roundtrip business class flights in ANA’s premier “The Room” seats only cost 85,000 points and ~$600 in USD taxes. A quick Google Flights search reveals this route to typically cost more than $1,300 with stops in economy. Business roundtrip typically costs about $6,000. The value you can get from your AMEX points here is ridiculous.

Air France/KLM Flying Blue

The Flying Blue rewards program has become a top choice for award travelers, given its high value redemption opportunities. While Flying Blue uses a dynamic award pricing system (meaning they can realistically price their flights however they want), it’s one of the rare programs that decided to actually decrease the price of its business class redemptions.

One of Flying Blue’s best redemptions is its West Coast to Paris/Amsterdam (CDG/AMS) flights. When searching this flight on Google Flights, the cheapest nonstops are typically over $1,000. With layovers, the flight can drop as low as $600. However, this flight only costs 20,000 points in each direction (economy) with about $250 in taxes/fees

For nonstop, that easily brings the point valuation to over 3 cents per point (CPP). In comparison to the options with layovers, you’re closer to 1 cent per point. While it’s not necessarily a good comparison to compare the nonstop and layover flight costs, it gives you a good sense of the opportunity cost of using points vs your cash.

However, many card issuers run notable transfer bonuses with Flying Blue. For example, Amex has both run 20% transfer bonuses in the past, making this flight actually cost just 16,666 points in each direction. With this transfer bonus in mind, the award cost seems like a fantastic deal, as the CPP increases higher.

On top of that, Air France sometimes runs “promo sales” every month where routes are discounted by an additional 25%. Therefore, it’s possible for this route to just cost 15,000 points—with a transfer bonus, this would make the flight bookable with just 12,000 points. An absolute no brainer if you ask me.

Examples of Low Value Transfer Partners

Since transfer partner value can vary significantly, it’s important to realistically compare your options closely to make sure you’re getting the best deal.

Aeromexico

Aeromexico is the flag carrier of Mexico and is a transfer partner for major card issuers like American Express, Citi, and Capital One. However, Aeromexico point redemptions rank amongst the worst out there despite the fact that AMEX transfers to them in a 1:1.6 ratio (meaning 1,000 AMEX points becomes 1,600 Aeromexico points when transferred).

For instance, this MEX to LAX economy flight costs $204.26 USD with full fare cash, but has a $134.23 USD tax/fee associated with it for the award redemption that already costs a whopping 18,000 Aeromexico Points (or 11,250 AMEX points before a transfer). This implies that your AMEX points are only worth about 0.6 cents per point when used for an Aeromexico award redemption—pretty bad when Jetblue & Delta redemptions can easily net you about 1.2-1.4 cents per point.

Even though Aeromexico has an around the world redemption ticket option, its SkyTeam alliance is pretty weak in business class redemptions and its known to be extremely difficult to even book the around the world ticket successfully. Generally speaking, we suggest you avoid Aeromexico where possible.

Conclusion

American Express points are valuable for a reason, but can also be used poorly. It’s important to consider the variety of options available and to make sure you’re getting decent value out of your points. Getting AMEX points isn’t too difficult given the number of card options available, but just be wary of AMEX’s limitations of how often you can get their cards.

The Platinum Card® from American Express

You may be eligible for as high as 175,000 Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $8,000 in eligible purchases on your new Card in your first 6 months of Card Membership. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer. Apply to know if you’re approved and find out your exact welcome offer amount – all with no credit score impact. If you’re approved and choose to accept the Card, your score may be impacted

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