A guide to Amex Membership Rewards: What they are and how they work

If you’re new to the world of points and miles, you may be wondering what American Express Membership Rewards® points are. Also known as Amex points or even “MR points” in casual conversation, these rewards are highly coveted by travelers who know how to extract maximum value from them. But even infrequent and novice travelers can benefit from using their rewards points strategically to book almost-free or highly discounted award travel. 

Here’s everything you need to know about earning and redeeming American Express Membership Rewards points, including which Amex cards offer them as rewards. 

What are Membership Rewards?

Membership Rewards is the proprietary award program of American Express. Membership Rewards points are the “currency” that customers accrue from spending on eligible American Express credit cards, and can be redeemed in a variety of ways, including statement credits to your card account or for gift cards. You’ll typically get the most value from your points, however, when you book travel in the Amex portal or transfer points to one of Amex’s airline and hotel partners. 

How do you earn Membership Rewards?

As one of the best-known card issuers in the world, American Express offers dozens of consumer and business credit cards within the United States alone. In addition to cash-back credit cards and co-branded airline credit cards, Amex issues a handful of cards that allow you to earn and use Membership Rewards points. 

To participate in this rewards program, you must either hold an American Express checking account, or have at least one Amex credit card that earns Membership Rewards.

Once you hold a Membership Rewards-earning credit card, you can accrue points in many ways, including:

• Making purchases on a Membership Rewards-earning card.
• Earning a welcome bonus when opening an eligible Amex card (note that Amex has a once-per-lifetime rule, so if you’ve earned a bonus on a card previously, you can’t again).
• Adding an authorized user on your Membership Rewards-earning card and allowing them to make purchases.
• Referring a friend who applies for an eligible Amex credit card.
• Making eligible purchases through the Rakuten shopping portal after linking your Amex Membership Rewards account.
• Buying Membership Rewards points from American Express under select circumstances.

Which cards earn Membership Rewards?

American Express offers five consumer cards that earn Membership Rewards points (terms apply):

• The Platinum Card® from American Express
• American Express® Gold Card
• American Express® Green Card * The information for the American Express® Green Card has been collected independently by Blueprint. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
• Amex EveryDay® Credit Card * The information for the Amex EveryDay® Credit Card has been collected independently by Blueprint. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
• Amex EveryDay® Preferred Credit Card * The information for the Amex EveryDay® Preferred Credit Card has been collected independently by Blueprint. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

American Express also offers four business cards that earn Membership Rewards points (terms apply):

• The Business Platinum Card® from American Express * The information for the The Business Platinum Card® from American Express has been collected independently by Blueprint. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
• American Express® Business Gold Card * The information for the American Express® Business Gold Card has been collected independently by Blueprint. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
• Business Green Rewards Card from American Express * The information for the Business Green Rewards Card from American Express has been collected independently by Blueprint. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
• The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express * The information for the The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express has been collected independently by Blueprint. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

How do you redeem Membership Rewards?

There are a number of different ways that you can use your Membership Rewards points. Here’s a breakdown:

REDEMPTION OPTION	VALUE PER POINT
Book travel	Flights, flight upgrades and fine hotels and resorts bookings = 1 cent; Most other travel 0.7 cents
Transfer points	Varies by partner and redemption
Pay with points at checkout	0.7 cents in most cases
Statement credit	0.6 cents
Redeem for gift cards	0.5 – 1 cents
Shop with points	0.5 cents

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You’ll typically get the best value out of redeeming your points for airfare expenses or transferring them to loyalty partners. You can see the exact value for each gift card merchant using the issuer’s rewards calculator. 

American Express Membership Rewards travel portal

You can book flights, hotels, rental cars and other travel purchases with Amex Membership Rewards via Amex Travel through your customer account online or through the Amex mobile app.

Once you’re logged into your account, select the “Explore Rewards” button

This will take you to a screen showing you a summary of your points and your rewards-earning activity. About halfway down the page you’ll see the various ways to use your points.

Select “Book or Upgrade Travel” and then select the reservation you wish to make. After you’ve made your travel booking, select the option to “pay with points” at checkout. This is the most straightforward way to use Amex points for travel. As noted in the chart above, your travel redemption value per point will vary depending on the type of travel you’re booking.

American Express Membership Rewards travel transfer partners

Transferring your Membership Rewards points to one of Amex’s airline and hotel partners is another way to use your points toward travel, and can often net the best value-per-point for savvy travelers willing to keep an eye on multiple loyalty programs. 

One area this redemption option particularly shines is the value you can often get when using your rewards for business-class flights or expensive hotel stays. 

This is because award flight and hotel redemption values do not always correlate to their cash prices, so you may be able to find a much better deal by transferring points to your airline or hotel of choice and booking directly through the company instead. 

American Express currently has nearly 20 airline partners that accept Membership Reward point transfers:

• Aer Lingus
• AeroMexico
• Aeroplan
• Air France KLM
• ANA Mileage Club
• Avianca LifeMiles
• British Airways Executive Club
• Cathay Pacific
• Delta Air Lines
• Emirates Skywards
• Etihad Guest
• HawaiianMiles
• Iberia Plus
• JetBlue TrueBlue
• Qantas Frequent Flyer
• Qatar Airways Privilege Club
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

American Express also has the following Membership Rewards hotel partners:

• Choice Privileges 
• Hilton Honors
• Marriott Bonvoy

How to transfer Membership Rewards points to a travel partner

If you want to transfer your points to one of the airline or hotel partners, you’ll first need to log in to your card account. Then, select the loyalty program you want to transfer your Membership Rewards to. If you don’t already have a frequent traveler account with the partner you want to transfer to, you can set one up to do the transfer.

Next, choose the number of points you wish to transfer. Each partner determines their own minimum and maximum number of points eligible to transfer. With many partners, you can transfer points at a 1:1 rate in increments of 1,000 points.

Additionally, each partner has an estimated amount of time it will take for your transferred Membership Rewards points to appear in the account you selected. This can range from a near-instant transfer to a few hours to up to a week, depending on the partner, so be sure to factor that in when transferring points to book travel. Amex provides estimates for expected transfer times — for example, transfers to Delta Air Lines are estimated to take 48 hours.

After the transferred rewards appear in the account you moved them to, you can complete your booking as you normally would through that loyalty program. While it takes a little extra work to monitor award travel pricing through multiple loyalty programs, doing so can yield stellar value.

Bottom line

Whether you’re a frequent traveler or just take the occasional trip, the Membership Rewards program should be on your radar. With the right American Express card, you’ll earn points that can be used for travel in the Amex portal or transferred to airline and hotel partners to be redeemed at potentially outsized value. Alongside programs such as Chase Ultimate Rewards® and Capital One miles, Membership Rewards is one of the top transferrable rewards currencies around. 

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)