American Express Partners

 In my last post, I doted on the Personal Gold card and why I love it....and in my beginner post, Rule No.3 is to Know Thy Partners, so in this post, I'm going to focus on American Express transfer partners to help you figure out how to maximize your hard earn points and get more value!

American Express Transfer Partners

Similar to Chase, each bank has their own set of travel partners (airlines and hotels; Chase listed here) that they pair with in order to allow you to transfer your points directly to a travel affiliate to book travel; often for less points than the fixed point redemptions you'll find on Amex Travel Portal.

One really nice thing about American Express is that if you hold multiple point earning cards, they automatically pool your points together for you!

Hotels:

Amex has 3 hotel partners; note that Hilton transfers at a 1:2 ratio, which doubles your Amex points into Hilton points when you transfer to Hilton (this what I used to book Tabacon Resort in Costa Rica!)

Airlines:

Amex has 17 airline partners! If you don't see an airline you want to book listed, then the next step is to see if the airline is in an airline alliance and can be booked through a partner (for example: Amex doesn't transfer to United, but United is in Star Alliance with Air Canada. Amex transfers to Air Canada; so you may be able to book your United flight through Air Canada's website and get to use your Amex points).

Not all of these airline partners transfer as a 1:1 ratio, and a few have changed recently. Refer to Amex Transfer Partner page directly for the current points ratio.

Remember: for each transfer partner, you will need to have created a loyalty account directly with the partner, and then will link your loyalty account to your Amex account.

How to Transfer Points

1. Log into your account and locate your Membership Rewards Points. From the menu across the top, click "Earn and Redeem"

2. On the drop-down menu, under Redeem, select "Transfer Points"

3. This will bring the up the home page with all of the Transfer Partners. Find the company you want to transfer to and select "Show Details"

4. Ensure your loyalty account is linked and input the amount of points you want to transfer. NOTE: not all points are instant transfer. The points transfer page shows the estimated time, but you can google for accuracy.

Summary

I hope you found this post helpful! Some of the ways I've recently used Amex points are:

• Transfer to Hilton (at 1:2 ratio) for Tabacon Resort, Costa Rica
• Transfer to Air Canada to book business class flight on Edelweiss Air from Denver to Copenhagen
• Transfer to Air Canada to book economy flight on Lufthansa from Copenhagen to Denver
• Transfer to Singapore Air to book business class flight to Singapore
• Transfer to Qatar Air to book economy flights from Maldives to Doha
• Transfer to Qatar Air to book business class "QSuites" flights from Doha to US

Looks like I'm overdue for some documented points use/travel posts! But as you may read into, I really value my Chase points for Hyatt and Southwest; on the flipside, I really value my Amex Points mostly for international flights - but I wouldn't hesitate to use them domestically (it's just that with Southwest Companion Pass, that's primarily who we fly domestic right now!)

Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!