Business and First Class airfares can be expensive. Buying miles or points can be a much better approach to flying premium class, much of the time.
This report focuses on the American Express Membership Rewards loyalty program, because it offers a gigantic advantage: A very high ceiling—up to 500,000—on the number of points you can buy annually.
Points can be transferred to 18 different airline loyalty programs. You only need an American Express Card that offers Membership Rewards as part of the deal, of course, but you never even have to use it after that.
See Amex’s Rules For Yourself
Screenshot taken from this page:
Key Pointers
- The cards that get you into the program: Amex Platinum, Amex Business Platinum, Amex Business Gold, among many others. For a complete list go here.
- How to buy points: Call the number on the back of your card and when prompted, say, “Membership Rewards points” and you’ll be connected to a representative. (You cannot buy points online.)
- When you can buy points: Only when you are going to transfer them immediately to a Membership Rewards partner airline. In other words, you can’t just stock up on points. All you need to do is tell the representative that you want to buy X number of points to be transferred to Y airline partner.
- The buying limit: It depends on the card you have. Amex EveryDay, Amex Platinum Card, and Amex Centurion have the 500,000-point ceiling. To find out the ceiling offered by the other cards, go here.
- The cost to buy points: 2.5¢ per point, but you must buy them in increments of 1,000 points ($25).
- Before transferring points: Check and see if the airline is offering a sale on miles. At times, that’s a cheaper way to go.
- Before buying points for a specific trip: Make sure that award space is available. Also, have a cluster of dates, not just one, as that ups your chances of finding space. Also, factor in the point transfer time, which can be posted instantly or take 48+ hours.
List of Transfer Airlines with Amex Rewards from Points to Miles
Aer Lingus, AeroMexico, Air Canada, Air France/KLM, All Nippon Airways, Avianca (LifeMiles), British Airways, Cathay Pacific (shown as Asia Miles), Delta, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, Iberia, JetBlue, Qantas, Qatar, Singapore, and Virgin Atlantic.