You have lots of options to choose from when it comes to earning Amex Credit Card Points. American Express offers a large range of personal and business credit cards with a range of bonus categories to boost up earning.
To take the benefit of the ways that can acquire you the most Amex points, you’ll have to make sense of which cards are ideal for you. Then, with simple planning, you’ll be on your way to collect credit card points. You can transfer these over 10 airlines and 3 hotel loyalty program partners that make booking a trip on points much easier.
Let’s explore some best ways.
Table of Contents
Personal Cards & Membership Rewards Points
The Amex Everyday Credit Card
Through Amex everyday credit card you can earn 10,000 Membership Rewards points after spending from the new card to make $1,000 in purchases within the first 3 months.
- The annual fee is Zero.
- You can get 2 points per dollar spent at U.S. supermarkets. It is up to $6,000 in purchases annually.
- And get 1 point per dollar spent somewhere else.
- For 15 months, on purchases and balance transfers its low intro APR is 0%. It charges no annual fees.
The Platinum Card
You can earn 60,000 Membership Rewards points after using your new to make $5,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. Moreover, 5X Membership Rewards points can be earned on flights booked directly with airlines. You can also access more than 1,100 airport lounges across 120 countries. It charges $550 fees annually.
Premier Rewards Gold Card
- You can earn 25,000 Avios points after using your new card to make $2,000 in purchases in 3 initial months. Moreover $100 airline free credit can also be earned.
- 3x points for flights booked directly with airlines and 2x Amex points can be earned at US restaurants, gas stations and supermarkets. It charges No annual fee for the first year.
Earn Points With Welcome Bonuses
Many American Express cards offer profitable introductory bonuses. Amex offers a variety of cards so you can choose the card that is right for you based on your spending habits. You have to consider the annual fee. For your ease, here is a list of credit cards making Amex rewards.
Blue Cash EveryDay Preferred
You can get $200 statement credit points after spending $1,000 in purchases on your new card in the first 3 months. It also gives 6% cash back at U.S. supermarkets, its annual fees are $95.
Blue Cash EveryDay
$150 statement credit points can be earned after spending $1,000 on purchases on your new card within the first 3 months and 3% cash back at U.S. supermarkets. Its Low intro APR is 0% for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers. It charges NO annual fees.
Earn Reward via Amex Business Cards
If you are a business owner, American express gives you several options to select from Amex Business cards to earn the highest rewards.
The Blue Business Plus Credit Card
You can earn 10,000 extra Membership Rewards Points after you spend $3,000 purchases on the card in your first 3 months of card membership. Offer has closed on 9/26/2018.
You can also, earn 2X points on everyday business purchases, introductory APR is 0% on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months, then a variable rate is 12.99%, 16.99% or 20.99%. its annual fee is ZERO.
Simply Cash Plus Business Credit Card
It gives a SPECIAL OFFER: you can save on interest with a 0% intro APR on purchases for 15 months; after that, your APR will be a variable rate. Currently, it is 13.99% – 20.99 %. 5% cash back on wireless telephone services which are purchased directly from U.S. service providers and from U.S. office supply stores. Its Annual Fee is $0.
Get it with Category Bonuses
By just arranging your spending and knowing which Amex cards earn you an extra bonus on what kinds of buys, you can wisely earn Amex credit cards points on each purchase.
If you are interested in buying groceries regularly, a card like Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card would be the best choice for you since you earn 3x points on all purchases at U.S. supermarkets.
However, there are some category restrictions like supermarkets mostly do not contain wholesale superstores as Costco and Sam’s Club. Also, likely restaurants do not always contain eateries inside hotels or resorts.
Moreover, computer and electronic items, just consider hardware, software, and cloud computing purchases which are from selected providers listed on the rewards site.
Business Gold Rewards Card 3x Category
Remember, for The Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express OPEN, you must specify 1 category to earn 3 points per dollar. If the category is not specified, you will only earn 2x points per dollar spent on gas, shipping, computers, and electronics, purchased directly from the airline.
For Selecting 3x Category
- Open.com/businessgold
- see your card and the categories listed
- Select the option next to the category where you want to receive 3x points per $1 spent
- see Terms and Conditions
- click “I agree, submit”
Now, you can earn 3 points per dollar spent in your selected category and 2 points per dollar in the other bonus categories.
Amex Offers
Often, credit card companies have an online shopping mall where you can earn bonus points for every dollar spent. These online shopping portals offer special points to their customers. 2 points per dollar on purchases from clips made by the portal.
Unluckily, the online Amex shopping portal was terminated a few years ago. Rather they started Amex Offers. You can affix special offers to your card which earn extra Membership Rewards Points.
Business Platinum Big Spend Bonus
The Business Platinum Card from American Express open gives 1.5 points per dollar on all solo purchases of $5,000.
Frequent Transaction Bonuses
If you purchase much with your card, you should choose the frequent transaction bonuses of the EveryDay line of cards. Choose The Amex EveryDay Credit Card and get 20% more points for making 20 or more purchases in 1 billing cycle. Receive 50% more points on each of those 30 or more purchases after making 30 or more purchases in 1 billing cycle.
Amex Points by Referring Friend
You can earn Amex bonus points by referring a friend to a credit card you currently have. If they qualify for the card using your referred link, you will get bonus points and both you and your friend will take benefit; special bonus points offer will be offered for you and welcome offer for them.
Book Travel
Travel is a reward category for a few American Express credit cards that can supercharge your profit on travel purchases.
By Airfare Purchases
If you fly more often, you have to look at the Amex that offer bonuses on travel purchases. Extra points will be given on purchasing flights. If you want to earn bonus points, it is preferred to book and purchase your travel directly through the airline’s website instead of using a travel site.
Note: bonus and extra points are only for buys on passenger airlines; charter flights and private jet flights are not included.
For The Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express, you must state airfare as your 3x the points earning category. If you do not specify the airfare category ahead of time, you will only earn 2x points per dollar spent on your airfare purchase.
Tip: You can also earn Amex credit by points by using The Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express OPEN. Any other Membership Rewards card can also get you extra 1x points for airfare purchases.
American Express Green Card, will earn 2x points for every $1 spent on airfare and travel packages if you book through Amex Travel.
Note: You ought to register your American Express Green Card with Membership Rewards online prior to your purchases to guarantee the extra points are credited to your account.
Other Amex Travel Purchases
The American Express Green Card offers extra points for travel buys besides airfare. In fact, this is not a great card choice as Amex doesn’t offer a welcome bonus for the American Express Green Card.
However, it offers 1 point per dollar on all purchases and 2 points per dollar for airfare, hotels, vacation packages, or cruise reservation bookings that are made through Amex Travel.
To get these extra points, make sure the following
- Register your American Express Green Card with the Membership Rewards program online ahead of time.
- Must purchase airfare, hotel, vacation package, or cruise travel on amextravel.com.
- Wait 10-12 weeks for the points to be credited to your account.
It is easy to earn reward points or membership the same as Avios points if you make some strategy. Even if there isn’t an online shopping portal, there are many other methods to earn maximum points. Take benefit of the points-earning strategies that are suitable for your spending habits.
The Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express OPEN
Welcome Offer: You can Earn 50,000 American Express Rewards Gift Card Membership points once spending $5,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 3 months of Card Membership.
- In the first year, the annual fee is Zero, then $175.
If you spent annually at flights: booked directly from airlines, US buys for advertising in media, at Us gas stations, US shipping purchases or at US computer and different software purchases, you will get 3 points per dollar on up to the first $100,000 spent annually. You can also get 2 points per dollar on up to the first $100,000 spending on the other categories and 1 point per dollar spent somewhere else.
The Platinum Card from American Express
- You can Earn 60,000 American Express Rewards Gift Card Rewards points after spending your Card to make $5,000 in buys within your first 3 months.
- It charges $550 annual fee and gives 5 points per dollar spent on airfare that is booked directly with airlines or by American Express Travel.
- You can also earn 5 points per dollar spent on eligible hotel bookings by American Express Travel and 2 points per dollar on other qualifying travel that is booked through American Express
- 1 point per dollar spent somewhere else.
The Business Platinum Card from American Express OPEN
- You can earn 50,000 American Express Rewards Gift Card points after spending $10,000 and you can get an extra 50,000 points after spending an additional $15,000 on qualifying buys in your first 3 months of Card Membership. Its annual fee is $450.
- You can earn 5 American Express Rewards Gift Card points per dollar spent on eligible flights and on prepaid hotels that are booked through American Express and you can get 1.5 points per dollar spent on solo purchases of $5,000 or more.
- 1 point per dollar spent somewhere else.
Redeem Earned AMEX Membership Rewards
When it comes to redeeming Amex Credit Card Points, your points and miles have all the possibility to take you to most goals on the planet. There are poor value and high-value option to redeem membership rewards.
Poor Value Options
Unluckily, a few of the choices for redeeming points represent less value and must be avoided. These poor value options include:
Redeem Amex Credit Card Points for Charges
This resembles a cash back choice for covering eligible charges on your billing statement. American Express can change whatever charges it estimates without any notification.
You’ll just get 0.6 cents for every point with this alternative, so it is anything but a decent return.
Shop on Amazon
In the wake of connecting your Amazon and Membership Rewards accounts, you can utilize points to pay for your buys at a marginally better (yet poor) estimation of 0.7 cents for every point.
How to shop with Points at Amazon.com
You need to do is linking your American Express Card to your Amazon account and redeem your existing Membership Rewards Points all the time you purchase.
For this, complete the shop with the points registration process and agree to the terms and conditions. Your Membership Rewards program account will be connected to account by the selected card.
American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. and its affiliates (“American Express”) could provide Amazon Services LLC and/or its affiliates (“Amazon”) with information regarding your linked Account. American Express will debit the number of points that you have chosen to redeem from your Account.
You should ensure this alternative to stop and unapproved use of your points.
Redeem Amex Points for Free Uber Rides
Redeem points for Uber rides of the value of 1 penny each. It includes an eligible Membership Rewards American Express card as your instalment method, and the Uber app will give you a “Use Points” alternative to pay for the ride.
The capacity to acquire 2x points on Uber rides is unluckily finished on February 1, 2018. At last, utilizing your focuses on the expectation of free rides yields minimal comparable price.
Members Give
American Express gives $10 to a charity of your choice for every 1,000 points redeemed. You can look through all charities to get gifts through the Members websites. There are an utmost 500,000 points every year, after which the recovery value for giving turns into half to $5 for every 1,000 points redeemed.
Shopping with Membership Rewards
You can get anything via the Membership Rewards online shopping mall except the value, as your points typically have a value of 0.5 cents when redeemed this way.
Redeem for Travel
There are some options which have different values, like pay for travel with points. You are given a value of 1 cent per point toward airfare with this option, and 0.75-0.85 cents per point for cars, hotels, vacations & cruises.
In case you have The Business Platinum Card from American Express OPEN, you can gain redeem points for the desired airline and receive 35% of your redeemed points back.
Redeem High-Value Options
Transferring points to partner hotel and airline loyalty programs is the best way to redeem membership rewards. Here are some examples.
Utilize Etihad Guest Partner Award Bookings
Etihad has recently added transport partners of the Membership Rewards program. The variety of partner awards you can book by the Etihad Guest program and the individuality of the individual partner award charts pave the ways of valuable routings you can fly for some miles.
Fly Singapore Airlines Premium Classes
After Singapore KrisFlyer’s minor reduction, utilizing your miles for any Singapore-operated flight is a big deal. Fly the new first class on the A380 for 80,000 Rewards on booking Singapore to Sydney. As for the US, you can avail a suite on the LAX-NRT route for 95,000 points. You can avail JFK-FRA for 76,000 points, but you have to find saver accessibility which can be difficult.
Choice Hotels/Points + Cash for Preferred Hotel Luxury Properties
The Choice Privileges program is a Membership Rewards transfer partner, and it raises many properties across luxurious European cities. As, for award nights, these hotels start at 8,000-25,000 points. This programme is useful when visiting Ireland, a country with a few chain hotels.
Choice points can also be used to book Preferred Hotel properties that are a group of luxury hotels around the world. Points + Cash can be used bookings for Preferred Hotels.
Redeem by British Airways Avios
American Express augmented the transfer ratio for Avios, but the American Airlines short-haul costs still high and BA.com tries not to show AA operated domestic legs that must be there, but you should n’t ignore this currency.
For instance, Boston to Ireland can be flown on Aer Lingus for just 26,000 Avios round-trips. And you can still fly short-haul within other countries like Japan for 4,500 Avios each way.
Maybe you want to redeem Avios points in flying from the West Coast to Hawaii on American or Alaska Airlines for 12,500 Avios both ways.
Note: you’ll have to call the service centre as Alaska Airlines flights are not bookable on BA.com
Fly Round – Trip on American via Iberia Avios
Transferring your Membership Rewards to Spanish partner airline Iberia can represent savings in both Avios and fuel surcharges. It depends on the route through which you fly.
Contrary to British Airways, Iberia charges for partner flights on the basis of a total round-trip mileage, not per segment. So you have not to pay an additional 7,500 Avios to have to American hub in the US from your home city.
Redeem Amex Points by Transferring to ANA
You can put together an amazing award ticket itinerary using ANA’s Mileage Club because of reduced fuel surcharges on flights operated by ANA and lose routing policies. Flying during off-peak dates have attractive pricing like 40,000 miles round-trip from North America to Japan in economy on ANA metal and 75,000 round-trips in business, that is really economical. This is including fairly priced around-the-world tickets that permit eight stopovers for as little as 100,000 miles in business class.
Note: Confirm availability before transferring points
30% Pay With Points Rebate for Business Platinum Cardholders
If American Express Business Platinum Card holders use points to pay for economy airfare with the airline of their choice or any business/first class airfare, they will receive 35% of those points back. Means a $1,000 ticket will then cost 70,000 points making them worth 1.54 cents each when redeeming for airfare.
Redeem for gift cards
Enjoy additional ways to pay your points by shopping for a gift card of your alternative from the American Express Rewards Gift Cards points and redemption. You can choose from a wide range of shopping category and can exchange and redeem your Gift Card Points.
How to get more American Express Membership Rewards
There are mainly three ways you can get more American Express Rewards Gift Card points:
- Get a new American Express credit card and spend the requisite amount and collect a welcome bonus.
- Integrate your expenses to American Express card to earn Amex points.
- Buy extra points through your American Express portal.
Purchasing points is the most expensive. Membership Rewards point’s price 2.5 cents each and are generally worth 1 cent or fewer when redeemed. You can purchase them in 1,000-point increments, up to an utmost of 100,000 points per year on most American Express gift cards.
Note: American Express Rewards Gift Card Points don’t expire, as long as your account stays open And Once you redeem your rewards, you can’t cancel the order or get a refund.
Lisa is a passionate travelers. She spends 3 months every year visiting different places worldwide. She has visited almost every famous place in the world. She herself is an affiliate blogger
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