AMEX MR points, how do you use them?

[Anonymous]

I need someone to explain this to me like I'm 5.

I have an AMEX platinum.  I have MR points.  I understand that the points can be transferred to various travel partners to use for flights (among other things, but I understand that flights are typically the best value).  I understand that the number of transfer partner points that the MR points are worth varies slightly by the transfer partner, and that the points, once transferred, can have a drastically different value for different flights/seat class.  Here's where my understanding stops.  How do I find the best partner/specific flight to transfer the points to?  While there's one specific trip I had planned this year, it was cancelled because of COVID, and I don't know if the event will be rescheduled.  I just want to travel (when things open back up a bit).  I don't even care that much where.  So I'm fairly free to find the best use of the points, and use them in that way.  But I really don't understand how to find that "best use", or even a reasonably good use.

[dragontears]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I need someone to explain this to me like I'm 5.

I have an AMEX platinum.  I have MR points.  I understand that the points can be transferred to various travel partners to use for flights (among other things, but I understand that flights are typically the best value).  I understand that the number of transfer partner points that the MR points are worth varies slightly by the transfer partner, and that the points, once transferred, can have a drastically different value for different flights/seat class.  Here's where my understanding stops.  How do I find the best partner/specific flight to transfer the points to?  While there's one specific trip I had planned this year, it was cancelled because of COVID, and I don't know if the event will be rescheduled.  I just want to travel (when things open back up a bit).  I don't even care that much where.  So I'm fairly free to find the best use of the points, and use them in that way.  But I really don't understand how to find that "best use", or even a reasonably good use.

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It can take a lot of looking to get the cpp that you see people tossing around. 

To start, go to the airlines website that are both transfer partners and fly out of your airport. 

Start looking for award seats for locations/dates you are interested in. Be prepared to be extremely flexible to get the best "deal".

[K-in-Boston]

It's really a tough question to answer without knowing which airport(s) you would be flying out of, where in general you want to go, around when you want to go, and which class of service you want to be in.

I might say for instance that you can get insane value (10 cents per point plus) by waiting for a Delta award sale and booking Delta One business class roundtrip to Europe, but if your plans weren't really to get a $10,000 flight to Paris for free and you'd have rather gone to 5-10 destinations in the Americas for the same amount of points, that really changes the conversation.

[Remedios]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

It's really a tough question to answer without knowing which airport(s) you would be flying out of, where in general you want to go, around when you want to go, and which class of service you want to be in.

I might say for instance that you can get insane value (10 cents per point plus) by waiting for a Delta award sale and booking Delta One business class roundtrip to Europe, but if your plans weren't really to get a $10,000 flight to Paris for free and you'd have rather gone to 5-10 destinations in the Americas for the same amount of points, that really changes the conversation.

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OP said "Like I'm five" 

[Loquat]

To be honest, understanding transfer partners, alliances, who goes where and when is extremely time consuming and can be an exhausting learning experience.  I'm not going to lie and tell you that it's easy to understand because it isn't.  I've been at this for years and I still have a hard time trying to find what I want sometimes.

The first thing that you must come to terms with is that award availability is a constant moving target.  Award seats typically exist because data has proven that the seat was probably going to go unsold anyway...hence the reason the availability opens.  

A good rule of thumb is that if the destination you want is popular and folks are willing to pay for it due to location and/or season (a trip Hawaii in the summer), the award availability is going to be VERY limited and if you do find it, expect to pay a PREMIUM in points to get a seat. 

If you don't mind flying in the back of the house then traveling on points get A LOT easier.  Those spaces tends to be more widely available.

Another thing to know is that even if you find space it doesn't always mean that it'll be released to the carrier to plan to book with.  I can tell you from years of traveling that I can typically see better award space on British Airways vs Qantas and both are OneWorld partners.  American, in my experience, seems to open up their space to BA a earlier than they do with Qantas.  I can't tell you why but in my experience that always seems to be the case...especially on domestic routes.

Also know that not all alliance partners will be able to see the same thing.  Not all miles are created equally.  Where I can fly short haul first class domestic via BA on AA for 15k (although I did see chatter today that it's increasing by 750 avios) that same route if I can see it on Qantas will cost me 18.4k.  Same day, same time, same plane, yet different amounts based on who you book with.

The best advice I can offer is to first figure out where you want to go and who goes there.  Build your search around that carrier by determining if they're part of an alliance and who works best for the route.  Keep in mind, often when flying on points and miles you're not always going to get the best route.  There can be a non-stop going in your direction but when you decide to use points/miles rather than cash, you may find yourself in an long exhausting loop of connecting flights with long layovers. 

Chase, Citi, and Amex has portals that allow you to use your points as cash when booking air travel but keep in mind that trying to use a portal for business/first class seats will cost you a PREMIUM...usually to the tune of 6 figures per person. 

I could go on for days but hopefully this helps to start the learning process.  I'm sure you'll get a lot of great responses but know that in order for you to really get the best value for your points and miles, you're going to have to be flexible and sometimes that includes repositioning yourself to a different airport from that of your home city. 

Having an open mind and being flexible will serve you well as it relates to traveling on points and miles. 

[PointsBonus]

Schwab 1.25% Cash Out 

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much.  I think this is one of those "you don't know what you don't know" situations.  I honestly haven't traveled much outside of the US.  And a lot of my travel domestically has been road trips.  I have flown more in the last two years than I have in my entire life up to that point.  It's a whole thing, but I've finally come to the conclusion that my husband is not ever going to travel with me.  He says that he wants to, but he doesn't.  So I have been going on my own.  That's honestly my main restriction, it has to be a location that's safe for a single woman traveller.  Outside of that... I want to go EVERYWHERE.

My home airport is Omaha.  I know that is a definite restriction, and I expect that I would likely have to pay for a flight to a much larger airport to effectively use points out of Omaha for international flights (which is what I would prefer to use points for, rather than domestic flights).  We only really have the main domestic airlines here, it's not a very big airport.  I definitely don't have any specific plans at the moment, just trying to get an idea of HOW I'm supposed to research this.  I'm also flexible on service class, though i think some sort of happy medium is generally ideal for me.  I really worry about long flights, because I don't just "sit" well at all, so I had the thought that a higher service class might make that a bit easier for me.  But I've always flown coach before (though those were mostly short flights), because I'm also a bit cheap.

Loquat, I think I understand the majority of what you're saying. The supply/demand part makes a lot of sense, since obviously the airlines would prefer to actually sell the seats.  You mentioned that alliance partners open up their space at different times, and are available at different amounts.  Is this determined by literally just searching their sites for the flights using their own points?  I know that seems like such a basic question, but we circle back to the "you don't know what you don't know".  You also touched on something I've seen mentioned elsewhere, transfering the points to one airline, to actually use with a totally different one that is a partner.  Is that just figuring out the math between how those points transfer between those partners?  Or is there more to that?

Thank you!!

[NRB525]

I don't think I've actually transferred out any of my MR points, except for a few Amazon uses to leverage a handful of points. This is because I've had points with Delta, United, Alaska and American earned from flying or credit cards, and it always seems best to use those first. 

One aspect of the transfer game; you must have a frequent flyer account with the airline you intend to transfer points too. I would suggest creating a British Airways account, and use that to explore how that system works. Theoretically BA is a good transfer partner, but from what I read it may require a phone call when the booking actually is done.  

And so the Schwab option is on my radar.  The simplicity factor has value to me

[Loquat]

@Anonymous Every airline who has a loyalty program has their own award chart for their very own program as well as one for their alliance partner.  Each program determines how much if their currency will be needed for any given flight.  Some programs are distance based and some are dynamic, meaning they price their award flights based on the actual ticket price.  For those who use dynamic charts, award pricing is a constant moving target as it changes based on supply, demand, and load factor.  

For programs that are distance based (a dying breed) you still deal with price changes known as devaluations around these here parts.  This is when a the carrier requires more points to do what you were doing previously for less.  Some announce devaluations but other don't.  You usually find out it has happened by sticking around these here parts or reading any travel blog that dives into points and miles.

To address your question about transferring points to one program to fly on another airline other than the one you transferred points to is what makes up airline alliances.  These are groups of airlines that allow loyalty members to use their currency on each others flights (think code share).  It would take a novel to explain how it all works but I'll give you a few examples.

Transferring MR points to...

Brisith Airways, Qantas, or Etihad Gust will allow for flights on American Airlines. (OneWorld)

KLM, AirFrance, AeroMexico will allow for flights on Delta (SkyTeam)

Avianca, Air Canada, ANA will allow for flights on United (Star Alliance)

There are a lot more but just an idea of how other loyalty programs allow for their currency to be used on U.S. domestic partners.  But you also have those one offs just as Virgin Atlantic which I don't believe is part of SkyTeam officially but their loyalty miles can be used for flights on Delta.

Start first with reading about alliances, who their partners are, and go from there.  Once you get a firm understanding of alliances and how they work, then dive into the math of them all.  Crunching the numbers required for a flight without understanding how they work will cause a lot of frustration.  And lastly, NEVER, EVER, transfer points into a program until you know for sure you want to take the trip and that award availability actually exist.  Nothing worst than transferring lots of points into a program for the seat to disappear.  Then you're stuck with miles you can't use in a program you're not flying with.  Transfer are one way...one you've moved MR points into a program it's near impossible to get it reversed and in all of my time in this space I've never seen it happen.