You can use Amex Membership Rewards points for flights in two main ways: booking directly through the Amex Travel portal, or transferring points to an airline loyalty program and booking award flights there. The portal is simpler, but transfers often unlock significantly more value per point. Which route makes sense depends on how much effort you want to put in and how many points you have to work with.
Booking Flights Through Amex Travel
The most straightforward option is booking through the Amex Travel portal, where your points are worth exactly 1 cent each. A $210 flight costs 21,000 points. You can also split the cost, paying part in points and part with your card.
To use this method, log into your American Express account and navigate to the Amex Travel section. Search for flights the same way you would on any booking site. At checkout, you’ll see the option to pay with points. The portal shows most major airlines, so you’re not limited to a single carrier. This is the best route if you want a quick, predictable redemption without managing airline loyalty accounts or worrying about award seat availability.
The downside is that 1 cent per point is considered a baseline value. You can often get 1.5 to 2 cents or more per point by transferring to airlines instead, especially for premium cabin seats on long-haul flights.
Transferring Points to Airline Partners
Amex has roughly 20 airline transfer partners, including Delta SkyMiles, Air Canada Aeroplan, British Airways Avios, ANA Mileage Club, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, JetBlue TrueBlue, and several others. Most transfer at a 1:1 ratio, meaning 1,000 Membership Rewards points becomes 1,000 airline miles. A few partners transfer at different ratios, so check the specific rate before you move points.
The process works in three steps. First, link your airline loyalty account to your Membership Rewards account (you’ll need your frequent flyer number). Second, choose how many points to transfer. Third, once the miles land in your airline account, search for and book an award flight through that airline. Transfers to most partners are instant or take a few minutes, though some can take up to a few days.
One important detail: when you transfer points to a U.S. domestic airline, American Express charges a small fee to offset the federal excise tax on the transaction. The fee is $0.0006 per point, capped at $99. So transferring 50,000 points to Delta would cost $30 on your card. Transfers to international airlines don’t carry this fee.
Why Transfers Can Be Worth More
Airline award charts price flights in miles, and those prices don’t always track the cash cost of the ticket. A business class flight from the U.S. to Tokyo might cost $5,000 or more in cash but only 75,000 to 90,000 miles through certain partner programs. If you transferred 80,000 Amex points to book that seat, you’d be getting roughly 6 cents per point in value, six times the portal rate.
Even in economy, transfers can beat the portal. A domestic round trip that costs $400 cash would require 40,000 points through Amex Travel. The same route might be bookable for 25,000 miles through an airline partner, saving you 15,000 points. The savings are most dramatic on international premium cabin flights, but they show up on shorter trips too if you check award availability before committing.
The tradeoff is complexity. You need to find available award seats (which airlines release in limited quantities), understand each program’s pricing, and sometimes book through less intuitive airline websites. Amex recommends finding and verifying your flights before transferring points, since transfers are one-way and non-reversible. If you move 50,000 points to an airline and can’t find the flight you wanted, those miles are stuck there.
Transfer Bonuses
Amex periodically runs transfer bonuses with specific airline partners, temporarily boosting the ratio. For example, a 25% bonus means transferring 100,000 points nets you 125,000 airline miles. A 30% bonus on the same transfer gives you 130,000 miles. These promotions typically last a few weeks to a month and rotate among different partners throughout the year.
These bonuses can dramatically increase the value of a redemption you were already planning. If you know you want to book a trip on a particular airline, it’s worth checking whether a transfer bonus is active before you pull the trigger. Amex doesn’t follow a fixed schedule for these, but they tend to appear several times a year across various partners. You can find current bonuses listed on the Membership Rewards transfer page.
Which Cards Earn Membership Rewards
Not every Amex card earns Membership Rewards points. The program is tied to specific cards, including the Amex Gold Card, Amex Platinum Card, Amex Green Card, Blue Business Plus, and Business Gold and Platinum cards. Cards that earn “cash back” or are co-branded with a specific airline (like the Delta SkyMiles cards) use separate point systems and don’t have access to the full range of transfer partners.
If you hold multiple Membership Rewards cards, your points pool together in one account. You can also transfer points between Membership Rewards accounts in the same household, which makes it easier to combine balances for a bigger redemption.
Choosing the Right Approach
For a straightforward domestic economy flight, the Amex Travel portal is perfectly fine. You get a clean 1 cent per point, no fees for international transfers to worry about, and the booking experience feels like any other travel site. If you’re sitting on a large balance and planning an international trip, or you’re eyeing business or first class seats, transfers are where the real value is.
Before transferring, search award availability on the airline’s website to confirm the flight you want is bookable with miles. Note the exact number of miles required, add in any taxes and fees the airline charges on award tickets (these vary widely by carrier and route), and then decide whether the redemption beats what you’d get through the portal. A quick way to check: divide the cash price of the ticket by the number of points you’d use. If the result is above 1 cent, you’re beating the portal rate. Above 1.5 cents is a solid redemption. Above 2 cents is excellent.