What is the true value of Membership Reward Points? How do you guys maximize it?

[Aim_High]

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@redpat wrote:  " ...stick to one or two reward programs depending on spend and if you have heavy spending you may stretch it to three.  Having a lot of cards is counter productive IMO and just dilutes rewards that are allocated all over the place.

Travel rewards will offer you more cents per dollar spent than straight cashback cards, if you redeem them correctly........

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+1

Exactly.  Which takes some time and  work and patience.  If you're not the kind of person who wants to have to search to find the best use of points or miles, you're must better off with straightforward cash-back cards.  It makes collect points or miles and then squander them without maximizing their value. 

And definitely, whether you're doing cash-back or miles or points, it's always best to focus your efforts on a few programs than getting too diversified where your spending rewards are diluted. 

[iced]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I got the Amex gold recently and it had a 50k MR sign up bonus. I intend to use it on 4x dining but apparently the points are worth a lot less when redeemed for cash/amazon. 

Whats the best way to maximize the points? I'd like to at least get 1:1 ratio on it. The only way I saw online was by travel, but I don't fly often. 

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The true maximum value for MR cannot be determined for you because nobody else is you. That said, transfers to airline partners for premium cabin international flights are frequently the best redemption value, but given you don't fly often, that may not be the best value for you.

[iced]

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@redpat wrote:

If you don't stay at Hyatt or fly SW or UAL, MR and UR points are now basically the same.  The one caveat is Amex has more transfer partners bonus offers than Chase and MR points are easier to accumulate quicker than UR points.  CSR does offer 1.50x on their travel portal.

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This is situational and certainly nowhere near universal. I accrue UR faster than I do MR because I have significant non-airline travel purchases (hotel, rental cars, etc) that lack a 3x accrual equivalent on MR. When I fly to Europe for vacation, I may spend $3,000 on a ticket for 15k MR, but then I have another $6,000 in hotels, tours, train/uber, and misc travel expenses that all collect 3x. When Gold gets 4x on international dining, it may balance things out, but with American Express' acceptance overseas, UR will probably still win out on dining too.

As for the transfer breadth, it really comes down to alliance program. *A will benefit more from UR, SkyTeam will benefit more from MR, and OW can go either way.

[Anonymous]

I mostly use for gift cards for 1cpp. But recently transfer to Hilton for 2.6 Hilton points per MR points. Worked out to be about 2 cents per point for my redemption.

[Anonymous]

With the 50K MR bonus, and if a significant portion of your spend is dining/grocery, you can still beat out the annual fee on the Gold and cash out a decent amount the first year, even if you just redeem against purchases. After that, you may consider closing the card and cutting your losses.

As others have said, generally travel transfer will get you the best redemption value. I saw another in this thread mention the huge savings at Amazon that will pop up once in a while. If you keep an eye on Amazon and have your Amex linked to your account, things of that nature will come up occasionally. Gift cards will get you anywhere between .07 and 1 cent per MR. I use Uber often and a few months ago was getting 1 cent per MR there, though I'm currently banking all my MR at the moment so am unsure if this still holds true.

Amex is my first "points" card, mainly because my father used them for ages so I came in with a decent understanding of how to get good value out of it.

Sounds like you may benefit from more of a cash back strategy. The Savor or Blue Cash Preferred may suit your needs good. I think the Savor could be good if more if your spend is on the dining side. And Blue Cash Preferred if it's more grocery based and you can take advantage of any of the other categories. If you wanted to dodge the annual fee all together, the Savor One or Blue Cash Everyday might make sense.

[redpat]

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@iced wrote:

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@redpat wrote:

If you don't stay at Hyatt or fly SW or UAL, MR and UR points are now basically the same.  The one caveat is Amex has more transfer partners bonus offers than Chase and MR points are easier to accumulate quicker than UR points.  CSR does offer 1.50x on their travel portal.

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This is situational and certainly nowhere near universal. I accrue UR faster than I do MR because I have significant non-airline travel purchases (hotel, rental cars, etc) that lack a 3x accrual equivalent on MR. When I fly to Europe for vacation, I may spend $3,000 on a ticket for 15k MR, but then I have another $6,000 in hotels, tours, train/uber, and misc travel expenses that all collect 3x. When Gold gets 4x on international dining, it may balance things out, but with American Express' acceptance overseas, UR will probably still win out on dining too.

As for the transfer breadth, it really comes down to alliance program. *A will benefit more from UR, SkyTeam will benefit more from MR, and OW can go either way.

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I’ve used Rocketmiles for some hotel stays and my MR point ranged from 15x - 22x per dollar spent.  Also Ebates in store purchase have given me additional MR points.  Today staples purchase $40 for 1k points.  

I just added spend $800 FHR for 5x plus 16k MR points offer and perhaps hotel status points.  I’ll see if I could squeeze some value out of that one.  If not I’ll let die on the vine.

Where Amex makes up on UR points is grocery at 4x and 3x or 4x on gas.  5x only only $1,500 on Freedom doesn’t cut it.

[Anonymous]

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   @iced wrote:
   

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   @redpat wrote:
   

   If you don't stay at Hyatt or fly SW or UAL, MR and UR points are now basically the same.  The one caveat is Amex has more transfer partners bonus offers than Chase and MR points are easier to accumulate quicker than UR points.  CSR does offer 1.50x on their travel portal.

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   This is situational and certainly nowhere near universal. I accrue UR faster than I do MR because I have significant non-airline travel purchases (hotel and I can get , rental cars, etc) that lack a 3x accrual equivalent on MR. When I fly to Europe for vacation, I may spend $3,000 on a ticket for 15k MR, but then I have another $6,000 in hotels, tours, train/uber, and misc travel expenses that all collect 3x. When Gold gets 4x on international dining, it may balance things out, but with American Express' acceptance overseas, UR will probably still win out on dining too.

   As for the transfer breadth, it really comes down to alliance program. *A will benefit more from UR, SkyTeam will benefit more from MR, and OW can go either way.

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   I leave for Europe in a week for 11 days.  3 airline tickets with miles with main cabin extra for the taxes. 10 of 11 nights for free in 5 and 4 star hotels.  .  Worrying about points on spend is silly that isnt wher the value is.  3rd trip to Europe in last 14 months and I have actually have paid less than zero dollars for airfare.  

Only reason I am paying for a hotel night was the hotel I wanted to stay at wasnt on travel portals

[kdm31091]

As others have stated travel is the best bet generally. If you’re going to redeem for 1 cent per point or less (gift cards, shopping etc) you may as well skip the Gold annual fee and just use a cash back card instead.

I also agree with the reward dilution comment. Using too many cards just defeats the purpose of rewards and you end up with nothing to redeem on a dozen cards.

[Anonymous]

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@kdm31091 wrote:
As others have stated travel is the best bet generally. If you’re going to redeem for 1 cent per point or less (gift cards, shopping etc) you may as well skip the Gold annual fee and just use a cash back card instead.

I also agree with the reward dilution comment. Using too many cards just defeats the purpose of rewards and you end up with nothing to redeem on a dozen cards.

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I don't entirely agree with dilution part.

For a cheapo like me, I don't travel international business, which mean each of my redemption, either using bank travel portal, or using airline miles, doesn't require a lot of points. Plus, both UR and GF portals allow partial points redemption.

I am in 3 programs now, UR, MR, GF, I don't feel particularly stretched.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I got the Amex gold recently and it had a 50k MR sign up bonus. I intend to use it on 4x dining but apparently the points are worth a lot less when redeemed for cash/amazon. 

Whats the best way to maximize the points? I'd like to at least get 1:1 ratio on it. The only way I saw online was by travel, but I don't fly often. 

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For me their highest value has been slightly less than 1.2 cents.

I usually trade them for Jet Blue points, which are worth 1.5 cents each to me.

MR points trade on a 5:4 basis, so that makes the MR point worth 1.2 cents each.

But then Amex passes along to us its excise tax, which slightly reduces the value.

As near as I can tell, for people who don't travel they're not worth getting involved with.