How To Redeem Amex Points For MAX VALUE (Beginner’s Guide)

so when i first got into american express credit cards and membership rewards points i was definitely overwhelmed with all the options that i had for redeeming those points and maybe you're feeling that way too but once i looked into the details and did a little bit of research i started to learn some of the good ways to redeem these points and some of the not so good ways that you really should stay away from that's why in this video we're gonna go through a full guide to redeeming amex points for things like statement credits gift cards online purchases and of course travel we'll go over how to get maximum value and what to avoid and we're gonna break this down in a very simple way that'll be helpful to anyone including beginners so as always let's get right into this with the first way to redeem membership rewards points and this is going to be one of the worst ways and that is redeeming for a statement credit now my target goal is to get at least one cent per point in value at a minimum for my amex points that way for a card like my amex gold card which gets 4x points per dollar at grocery stores and restaurants that 4x points per dollar is going to be equal to 4 back in value so for anyone that's not familiar with how this works a 100 grocery purchase at 4x mr points per dollar is equal to 400 points and 400 mr points at a value of one cent per point is equal to four dollars so therefore four dollars worth of points is the same thing as four percent back in this 100 example at a one cent per point valuation but with redeeming points for a statement credit to pay off charges on your credit card statement you're only going to be getting 0. 6 cents per point in value well below my target of one cent per point for what could be considered okay that means in that same 100 grocery purchase with your amex gold you'd still earn 4x points per dollar which is still 400 points earned but then at 0. 6 cents per point that makes those 400 points worth only two dollars and 40 cents which is 2.

4 back on that 100 expense looking at this side by side you'd much rather redeem those points to get at least four dollars or four percent back with some of the redemption options that we'll go through in this video rather than two dollars and 40 cents or 2. 4 back as a statement credit now that's pretty basic stuff but i just wanted you to remember that when it comes to redeeming american express membership rewards points we really want to try to get at least one cent per point in value and no less but ideally we want to try to get above one center point in value when there's redemptions that make sense for our own travel plans which we'll get to a little bit later because generally redeeming for travel especially for certain flights is going to be your best option my mindset has always been that most of us are likely to travel at some point and we would expect to pay cash for things like flights so instead of using cash to book those flights we might as well just use credit card points instead because we know that many times those credit card points are going to give us much better value for those bookings that way we can save our money for other things now even though i do not recommend redeeming your points for a statement credit if you do want to do this it's really as simple as going to the top and going to rewards and benefits then earn and redeem and then select cover your card charges you can see here that if we take this 86. 94 trader joe's purchase it'll take 14 490 points to pay off this charge and then when we do the math here that values those points at that 0.

6 cents per point value that we talked about before so statement credit redemptions are not going to be a good option and i'd also say that this next method of redeeming points is pretty bad as well and that is shopping with your points through the amex website now normally shopping online through amex with points is going to get you about 0. 5 cents per point in value so for example if something normally costs you 100 in cash through the amex shopping portal that would cost 20 000 membership rewards points and 100 divided by 20 000 points equals 0. 5 cents per point but sometimes amex might run special promotions where it sounds like a good deal because you can use less points like this one on the screen right now as i'm filming this video there's an offer for mother's day where you can use 25 less points for a limited time now i actually think this is just a cheap trick being done by amex to try to get you to use your points that way you don't redeem them for something that has more value later on like travel which we're gonna get to in just a bit but if we go back to our membership rewards home and then click on earn and redeem again we can go down to go shopping which is going to take us to this shopping portal where we can look through a bunch of different items so if we look at this apple watch as an example it cost a total of 454.

74 cents after taxes and it says that normally it would cost 90 948 points but now it only cost 68 177 points and that is nice that the cost is less in points right now but still if we go ahead and do the math again that 454. 74 total cost and cash divided by the 68 177 points it would take to redeem for this that comes out to about 0. 67 cents per point which is only slightly above that statement credit option and still well below our minimum of one cent per point that we should be aiming for with amex point redemptions so overall i'd say to stay away from statement credits online shopping and this next redemption method as well which is going to be very similar to those other two and that is paying with amex points at checkout now this is where you can actually go to check out amazon or through paypal and a few other select websites as well and you're going to see an option to use your amex points balance to pay for that purchase so to show you why this is another bad option let's say that i wanted to buy this like button pillow here on amazon to remind you to go ahead and tap the like button down below to get this video pushed out to more people first of all if we get 1 000 likes here then i'll go buy that pillow and put it in the background of my next video because i think it's gonna match perfectly with this old subscribe pillow that i have as well so make sure to go subscribe down below but second this pillow cost a total of 12.

70 and you can see that my amex gold card is linked as a payment method where it says that i could use 1814 membership rewards points instead for this purchase now when we do that quick math 12. 70 divided by the 1814 points it would take comes out to a value of 0. 7 cents per point again still well below that one cent per point minimum target redemption value you're gonna find a similar outcome of around 0.

7 cents per point when you pay with amex points at checkout at a few different options like paypal best buy grubhub and some other places so since that's also not a great option for redeeming membership rewards points let's move on to sort of the last cash equivalent option that we have on basic amex cards and that is going to be redeeming points for gift cards now this is still usually going to be an option that gets you below one cent per point in value but sometimes it might be a little bit higher than that sometimes it might be a little bit lower than that it really all depends on different special promotions going on and what stores gift card you're looking at so here this tj maxx and marshall's gift card which is where i buy most of my henley shirts from this 100 gift card costs 11 765 points when we do the math that's a value of about 0. 85 cents per point so not great but it's getting better compared to some of our previous options that we've gone over but then i saw this 100 best buy gift card for 14 286 points which is valued even less at about 0. 7 cents per point so in both of these gift card examples i would say it's not worth it to get these gift cards just because you're getting below one cent per point in value and as i'm looking around this website i'm not really seeing that many offers where i'm getting one simple point so gift cards is kind of a hit or miss thing where i don't think it's the best option but it's definitely not the worst option either so with all the redemption methods that we've gone over so far in this video if you're looking to see if something is a good deal or not all you have to do is use that simple formula that i've been using throughout the video just take the cash price in dollars and divide it by the points amount to get a cents per point value then anything below one cent per point stay away from anything at one cent per point or higher is what we want to aim for depending on how you want to use your points now there are some other options that you could have for redeeming your points for cash back using features on specific versions of other amex cards like the charles schwab version of the amex platinum so with the schwab amex platinum you can redeem your membership rewards points into your schwab brokerage account at a value of 1.

1 cents per point that means that if you had 100 000 mr points you could redeem that into your brokerage account for eleven hundred dollars compare that to getting 0. 6 cents per point for a statement credit those 100 000 mr points would only be worth six hundred dollars so that's why a lot of people like to have the schwab platinum card because that is going to effectively raise the floor value of those membership rewards points in your account to a much more acceptable level also as a quick side note here i can't go over every single version of every amex card out there like the amex business platinum card or the amex centurion card but those cards are going to have other features that give you more value for those amex points as well those credit cards are a lot less common for the average person to have so i'm just gonna make separate videos about all those cards and those features now next let's get into redeeming these points for travel because that is where we're gonna see the value of these points get much better so we'll start with a few travel options that are not so good for redeeming points then we'll go over to one travel option that might be just okay and then we'll finish by talking about transfer partners which are going to offer the best value we're gonna go through some examples here as well the compare booking travel in the amex portal versus booking and cash versus using transfer partners so let's get into all of that now first there's the option to book hotels cruises and car rentals directly through the amex portal i'm grouping these things together because booking these through the portal is still only gonna get you around 0. 7 cents per point so still below one cent per point and not the best value to show you an example here let's go over to our amex homepage and select rewards and benefits then earn and redeem and then down to redeem for travel we'll go to book and then hotels and then from there let's just search for a hotel in my home city of philadelphia so for this marriott in old city we could stay for one night at 371 dollars or use 53 000 10 amex points in the portal which basically values these points at 0.

7 cents per point like i mentioned now marriott is actually a transfer partner with american express so we can transfer points at a one-to-one rate and if we look at marriott's website for this same night it only cost 40 000 marriott points so that means it only costs 40 000 amex points if we transfer them now after considering taxes and fees the cash price of 371 dollars through the amex portal is still going to be our cheapest option here so if we take 371 dollars and divide that by 40 000 transferred points that would value these points still at only about 0. 92 cents per point there is a special limited time promotion going on right now where actually if you transfer amex points over to marriott you're gonna get 25 percent more marriott points but we're just going to ignore this for right now just because for the next example with transferring points over to book a flight there is something similar going on that i'm gonna go over in more detail so for other high-end hotel options in philly the fine hotels and resorts program in the amex portal here gives us one cent per point so this ritz carlton cost 629 per night or 62 900 points at that one center point value but this is going to be out of the price range for a lot of people so i'd argue that this is not a good use of points and that's the takeaway here with hotels no matter how you're trying to book a hotel whether that's through the amex travel portal or by using transfer partners you're typically not going to find great value for those amex points unfortunately of course there's always going to be exceptions to this where you can find certain sweet spots and get above one cent per point in value but for me i usually do not find myself using my amex points to book hotel states now i'm not gonna go through an example here but basically the same thing is going to apply when booking cruises and car rentals through the amex travel portal as well you're only going to get that 0. 7 for point value on average so not that great but next let's go over redeeming points for flights because i think that this is where most people are going to be best off using those points so first looking at the amex portal let's say that i wanted to fly from philly to chicago which is generally a pretty short domestic flight that's just about two and a half hours here's a one-way american airlines flight at around 6am that costs 190 through amex which is actually slightly cheaper than the 198 cost that you can see here through the american airlines website now amex also gives me the option to book with membership rewards points in their portal and we see that it says 18 971 points for this flight doing the math there a 190 cash price divided by 18 971 points means that values these points at about one cent per point and that redemption value is what you're going to get for most flights in the amex portal that means that you're better off booking flights in the portal at one separate point compared to booking hotels and some other things at 0.

7 cents per point so that's a decent deal right we're getting one cent per point in value so going back to the beginning of this video when i was talking about the amex gold and how it gets 4x points per dollar on groceries and restaurants that means with one cent per point in value that 4x points per dollar becomes 4 back when we use those points towards flights booked in the amex portal which is the minimum value that we're looking for but thanks to a cool little trick with amex and a transfer partner they have we can actually do better than this one cent per point for the same flight from philly to chicago by using half as many points so let's go over that now unfortunately american airlines is not a direct transfer partner with american express but i know that amex points transfer to british airways at a one-to-one rate to become obvious and british airways is actually a part of one world alliance just like american airlines which means that i can book certain american airlines flights using british airways obvious now this is all going to depend on award availability so you should always be doing your own research for these things but if we go ahead and take a look on british airways website i found the exact same american airlines flight and it only costs 9 000 obvious plus an extra 5 and 60 cents for taxes and fees that means instead of booking that flight through the amex portal for 18 971 points i can just go ahead and transfer over 9 000 points over to british airways and then book the exact same flight here and pay only an extra five dollars and 60 cents so now comparing the 190 cash price divided by the 9 000 points it would take by transferring to british airways to book this american airlines flight that comes out to about 2. 1 cents per point in value plus at 5 and 60 cents but actually if we go through the steps to transfer these points you can see here that amex is running a promotion right now to get 40 more obvious when transferring over membership rewards points they'll run these promotions from time to time with certain transfer partners so it's always a good idea to look out for these but that means it would only take 7 000 mr points to book this 190 flight which values those points at about 2. 7 cents per point plus at five dollars and sixty cents fee so to transfer these points we just have to go up to rewards and benefits then earn and redeem and then transfer points and here we can see that normally 1 000 points transfers into 1 000 obvious but with that 40 bonus that now becomes 1400 avios so we click on that verify the amex card that we want to connect and then enter our british airways account number if you don't have an account with british airways yet or any other program that you're transferring points to then just go create an account for free and it should only take a few minutes then we can enter that 7 000 points to transfer now technically i think when you do the math it only cost maybe 6 400 points or a little bit above that to transfer over into 9000 avios at this rate but we can only transfer over points in 1 000 point increments which is why we're gonna round up to seven thousand points and then transfer that over and then we should have enough obvious to go ahead and book that american airlines flight now this is one option for booking flights with amex points and transfer partners that is going to make a lot of sense for many people out there and that is booking shorter distance american airlines flights through british airways now this method is going to depend on a number of factors and deals like this are not always going to be available that's why when it comes to amex points you're gonna have to learn about this stuff and research these things on your own this is what makes amex points less user-friendly than chase points in my opinion but trust me once you do get the hang of it and you learn what you're doing it doesn't have to be that hard to take advantage of transfer partners and if you take the time to learn this stuff you'll definitely find ways to get between 1.