American Express buying flights as if you redeemed miles

American Express is offering a promotion to a random selection of cardmembers likely to make up for losing American Airlines and United Airlines as transfer partners.

For flights that have award space on these two airlines, members can call the number and spend the equivalent number of Membership Rewards points, and Amex will BUY the ticket for you.

For example, if there is availability for a one-way United flight on First Class between LAX and LHR for 25,000 MileagePlus miles, you can spend 25,000 Membership Rewards points and Amex will purchase the ticket for you!  If the ticket was $4500, then it would have cost 450,000 Membership Rewards points to purchase if you did the standard "purchase flight using points".

The benefit to this is that you will still get elite-qualifying points and miles, where you would not have if you had just transferred into miles and done an award redemption!  In that regard, you can double-dip!

Free 10,000 American Express Membership Rewards Points for Extended Payment Option

American Express is offering 10,000 Membership Rewards points for enrolling a charge card in their extended payment option. Amex offers charge cards such as the Platinum and Preferred Rewards Gold that require payment in full each month. If you add the Extended payment option, you get the option to pay larger purchases over time (but are not required to). You can get 10,000 bonus MR points, worth $100 in gift cards, for adding an option you don't have to use.

If the 10,000 MR signup doesn't work, then try the 5,000 MR bonus.

10,000 registration link

5,000 registration link

Remember, you don't have to use this option to get the bonus points! Points will take 6-8 weeks to credit to your Membership Rewards account, according to the terms and conditions.

My Ultimate Rewards Cyber Monday score!

Black Friday came and went without much fanfare this year with regards to purchases. I spent time with family and didn't care to line up in the cold or at night to get a few dollars off a select few items. I made a few purchases through the Ultimate Rewards shopping mall to take advantage of the bonus point offers, and scored a decent amount of points.

Come Sunday night, the Ultimate Rewards shopping mall dropped their Cyber Monday bombshell: using points, you could make purchases at "25% off". Supposedly, you could buy a $100 for 7500 UR points (with the valuation of each point at 1 cent per point). Sifting through their offerings, it turns out that they had items at a significantly higher discount! I purchased an $1899 retail Samsung 59in 3D 1080p Plasma TV for 57k UR points, or 70% off! Even if you value UR points at 2.14 cents each, which many do, it still came out to getting a $1899 item for $1219.

It seems that Chase is really pushing the Ultimate Rewards with great redemptions and promotions. I believe we'll see some healthy competition between American Express's Membership Rewards and Chase's Ultimate Rewards in the coming months!

The American Express Platinum Card and the Membership Rewards First program

In previous posts, I've written about getting a 20% Membership Rewards rebate anytime I spend the points on the Amex Travel website. Over the past few months, this has saved me about 50k points! However, this is only one of the small benefits of the Amex Platinum Card.  Here is a synopsis of the other main benefits of the card.

American Express Platinum Card

25,000 MR points bonus - When signing up for this card, if you spend $1000 within 3 months, you will get an automatic 25,000 MR points bonus. Due to various transfer bonuses to airlines (67% bonus to Delta) as well as bonuses when booking on Amex Travel, these points are worth about $0.02 each, making this bonus worth about $500. These points can be transferred to most airlines instantly, except for Continental and United.

Free unlimited access to airport VIP lounges - through the Priority Pass Select program, cardholders get free access to 600 VIP lounges worldwide, worth at least $50 per visit, or about a $399 value for a yearly pass.

$200 of airline fees reimbursed - up to $200 of airline fees are reimbursed every year from an airline of your choice. These can be baggage fees that are often $25-35 per bag, or airline change fees that are $150 per change, or award ticket fees of $75. They are also known to reimburse giftcard purchases as well.

Elite status in National Car Rentals, Hertz #1 Gold Program, and Avis First program - status in these programs usually requires a large amount of spending, many car rentals each year. Elite status in these programs provides cheaper rates, instant car upgrades, and grace periods for rental returns.

Starwood Preferred Guest Gold status - you get instant room upgrades, priority check in, late checkout at 4pm, 50% bonus for SPG points.

Fine Hotels and Resorts - this travel booking service has nice amenities at fine hotels around the world, getting good rates, hundred of dollars in free service or food credits, and automatic room upgrades.

No Foreign Transaction fees - most cards charge up to 3%, so spending $2000 abroad will save $60 in fees.

Free Global Entry - expedited entry into international airports, a $100 value.

Free International Companion ticket - when you book a First or Business class ticket through AMEX, you can get a companion ticket for free.

Platinum Concierge service - personal attendant that is known to be able to get tickets to sold-out events, get reservations at booked restaurants, and anything else you need.

Membership Rewards First - spending MR points on the AMEX Travel Site will return a 20% bonus.

Considering that this card has a $450 annual fee, I needed to make sure that it was worth every penny.

25k MR points - $500
Airline VIP Lounges - $399
$200 fee reimbursement - $200
Free Global Entry - $100
$1099 of direct benefits!

Additionally, this doesn't take into account taking advantage of all the other benefits that vary depending on usage. I've saved 50k MR points, and used all of these benefits already except the companion ticket. This is definitely worth the annual fee.

25,000 Membership Rewards bonus link here.

Using Membership Rewards on flights

When running through my options on my early NYC trip, I decided to use American Express Membership Rewards points to purchase the trip. Here is my rationale.

When booking through the American Express Travel site, I get an extra Membership Reward (MR) point for every dollar spent. When using MR points to pay for a flight, the charge is placed on an AMEX card of your choice, and the amount is credited within a day or two. I always place the charge on my AMEX Premier Rewards Card, because I get 3x MR points for every dollar spent on airfare. Lastly, because of my membership in the Membership Rewards First program thanks to my AMEX Platinum card, I get 20% MR points rebate every time.

Doing the math for this $195 flight,
AMEX Travel bonus points: +195 MR points
AMEX Premier Rewards Gold 3X airfare bonus: +585 MR points
Membership Rewards points spent: - 19,500 MR points
Membership Rewards points rebate: +3,900 MR points

Total: 14,820 Membership Rewards points spent, no money spent

To Delta, this looks like any other flight purchased with a credit card, and so I get a Delta Medallion Qualifying Segment (MQS) as well as 2,600 Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQM).

Early interview planning

I was offered an early interview by an Emergency Medicine program in New York City, which I was glad to accept. Scheduling interviews early is advantageous, but ends up limiting your travel options because of proximity to travel date.

The rewards programs that I have tons of points in are American Airlines AAdvantage, British Airways Executive Club, Continental OnePass, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou, and American Express Membership Rewards. Before booking any tickets, I will go through these programs to see if I can get any award tickets.

Some limitations to note are that airlines will often only leave a few award seats per flight, so they can be sold out if you try and book to close to the travel date.  Additionally, airlines have recently imposed new fees for booking an award ticket within a week or two of travel. For example, American Airlines and Continental Airlines will charge $75 if the award ticket is booked within 21 days of travel, but is free otherwise.

I only wanted to purchase a one-way ticket from the West Coast initially, because I didn't know if I'd have another interview in the area immediately following this interview, though it was very early on.

My options were:
Continental Airlines 12.5k OnePass award, plus $75 in fees
American Airlines 25k AAdvantage award, plus $75 in fees

Additionally, I always have the option of just purchasing the ticket if it is cheap enough or is a better deal to me than spending frequent flier miles. Searching Kayak, I found that I could get a flight through Delta at an ideal time for only $195. Booking through the American Express Travel website, this flight would cost me 19,500 Membership Rewards points.

Because I'm in the Membership Rewards First program, thanks to my American Express Platinum Card, I get a 20% bonus back in points, so the net cost to me was 14,820 Membership Rewards points and no fees.  Besides not paying a dime for this ticket, I also earned miles for booking this trip, which I'll explain in the next post.

Limited time: Transfer Membership Rewards points to Delta for 50% bonus and MQM miles

Membership Rewards points are great for airline miles redemptions because you can wait until you need to book the flight, search all the partner airlines for availability, and then instantly transfer the points to be redeemed for a reward flight. This way you don't have all your miles in an airline that doesn't have availability when you need it.

An exception is when there are really good transfer bonuses.

Delta is currently running a promotion offering an extra 50% bonus Skymiles for all American Express Membership Rewards points transferred. As an added bonus, if you transfer 100k MR points, you will get 25,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQM), or Medallion Status.

Here's an example: let's say you transfer 100k MR points to Delta - you will get 150k Delta Skymiles plus 25k MQM medallion points. This automatically upgrades you to Medallion Silver Status. Here are the following perks of Medallion status:

- Waived baggage fees
- Unlimited complimentary seat upgrades
- Complimentary companion seat upgrades
- Preferred seats
- Upgraded waitlist
- Priority check-in
- Priority boarding
- more at Delta Medallion

If you want to take advantage of this offer but don't have Membership Rewards points, I suggest taking a look at the American Express Platinum Card. Delta offer expires 09/30/2011.