In this post, I’ll show you easy step-by-step instructions on how you can redeem your Amex points for travel.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know that redeeming your credit card points for cash is a dummy move. So let’s see how we can redeem your points for travel instead so you can maximize your money.

In particular, I’ll show you 2 things:

1. How to redeem your points for travel/hotels.
2. How to transfer your points to travel partners so you can get even better deals for your points.

How To Redeem Your Amex Points For Travel

Step 1: First, go to americanexpress.com and login.

Step 2: Click on Travel on the top and click Book A Trip if you’d like to book a flight/hotels.

Step 3: Click on the appropriate tab (Flights, Hotels, Flight + Hotel, Cars, Cruises) for your travel needs. Then, just fill in the appropriate information as needed. Finally, click search. In my example, I’m searching for hotels in SFO. But you can search for flights to anywhere if you’d like.

Step 4: Click on the listing you like. In my case, I’ll just pick the first one by clicking Select. Note that they give you pricing in both USD and in points. AMEX platinum gives you 5X points if you book hotels directly through their platform, so it might be a good deal if the price is the same as if you were to book it through the hotel directly.

Step 5: Click on the details you need to be able to book your flight/hotel. In my case, I need to choose a room. Then click “Pay Now” as it pops up. Don’t worry if you can’t directly pay with points on the pop up. Click on it as if you’d be paying with USD.

Step 6: Finally, they’ll take you to the page where you enter your payment info. Scroll all the way down and you can choose your payment method. In my example, I can combine points + USD. In the example below, if I use 5000 points, I get a whopping $35 back. This is a very bad deal. This is even less than cash back, which is ridiculous.

That said though, you might be able to find a hotel with a better points-redemption deal.

Normally though, you might want to just pay for these hotels with an AMEX platinum card to maximize your points, and then transfer your points to a travel partner.

With travel partners, points are generally worth more than $1 per 100 points. So let’s see how to do that.

How To Transfer Your AMEX Points To Travel Partners

Step 1: First, login to your amex account.

Step 2: Click Rewards > Membership Rewards Home.

Step 3: Then, click Transfer Points.

Step 4: Click View All to see all their travel partners. I’m not sure why they only show 2 partners.

Step 5: Click on the travel partner you want to transfer points to. In my case, I’ll pretend to transfer points to AsiaMiles.

Step 6: Then, fill in your details as required, and then press Link Account.

Step 7: Assuming you didn’t enter your numbers wrong multiple times like me, you don’t have to get on the phone with AMEX. But if you do, it took me 3 mins for them to unlock the account. Anyway, once you link your account you can transfer points like the below. Simply pick the number of points you’d like to transfer and click Confirm & Transfer Points. In my example, I “transfer” 100K points.

And you’re done!

Wrapping It Up

In this step-by-step tutorial, we’ve learned:

• How to redeem points for hotel/travel bookings via the Amex Travel portal.
• How to transfer your Amex points to travel partners

Transferring your points directly to a travel partner will give you better bang for your buck for your points (most of the time). For example, Singapore Airlines when they offered first class flights, gave $12K USD worth of first-class flights for 120K points. Every 100 points is worth around $10, instead of the normal $1 that you’d get in cash back in that case.

And as you saw in the example above, using points within the Amex Travel portal can give you less than what you would get with cash back. This is a waste of money. If exploring the Amex travel portal you find that you’re actually getting a lot of bang for your buck (i.e. 10k points/night for a $200/night stay), then you should book it. Other than that, you shouldn’t trust Amex Travel blindly and should always shop around for the best use of your points.