American Express has partnered with Expedia to allow you to be able to pay using American Express Membership Rewards points. To use points you need to do the following:
- First sign in or create your Expedia account so you can see your Member Pricing discounts.
- Once you are signed in, you can link your eligible Card to the Program. Please know that this action must be taken prior to making a purchase in order to use Membership Rewards points. Only one eligible Card can be linked per Expedia account.
- After you link your eligible Card, you can view the point balance and its associated dollar value for use on Expedia.com.
- At checkout, select the Membership Rewards option and enter the dollar amount you would like applied to all or part of a Prepaid Hotel and Flight purchase. Membership Rewards points cannot be used toward bundled packages.
American Express seem to think that it’s ground breaking that their partnership with Expedia allows users to pay with points on flight bookings (Citi allows you pay for hotels using points but not flights) the problem is that the whole partnership is completely worthless because points are only worth 0.7¢ each when redeeming them on Expedia. I don’t really see any reason for card issuers to focus on these partnerships apart from trying to sucker cardholders into making sub optimal redemption. I think of these as the new reward catalogs for items that have always presented awful value but there must be enough people redeeming through these channels that American Express decide it’s worth spending time and energy securing these ‘deals’.
View Comments (13)
Amex points are the least valuable of any points you can get. Want to use them to book a hotel. They are worth .7 cents a point. Want to transfer them to a airline partner pay a fee. Want to use them for a gift card get less than a penny a point. The only US partner airline they have is Delta and their miles are worth the least of any US airline. Oh you can transfer them to British Airways with a bonus but those Avios are completely worthless as well as you have to pay huge fuel surcharges. .7 cent per MR point seems to be the norm so advising people against redeeming them this way I think is incorrect. Better advice is not to get an American Express card.
The Amex rewards catalog is junk, you are right, though I noticed recently that it included a Toshiba 2 chromebook, which Toshiba discontinued to the dismay of CB enthusiasts. Of course it's no bargain points wise, but it's the only place where you can get a brand new model.
Is Amex plural or singular? Title says singular, article says plural. I prefer singular
Fixed, i always mess this up
That's how we all prefer the Drunk Amex girl.
One thing most people miss is that AMEX isn't paying the TPG values for the airline miles / hotel points it gives out. They buy miles in bulk at a huge discount. I doubt they even pay .7 cents a mile for them. AMEX isn't being stingy, they just don't want to end up bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars like Chase.
If a card user has no interest in researching reward programs and navigating through blackout dates to book a very limited selection of flights, then why not book with Expedia and get some value out of his / her points?
I think everyone here is spoiled by Chase but that gravy train is probably coming to an end sooner than later.
I think they would be paying over 0.7¢ per mile.
Why? if they buy in bulk
"AMEX isn’t being stingy, they just don’t want to end up bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars like Chase."
AMEX can't afford to bleed anymore. They are suffering much worse than others from their lost partnerships. Should reach "Chase wants to stem potential losses from non-desirable CSR customers before they bleed as much as AMEX."
Amex is suffering from changes to merchant fee regulations.
People who follow this stuff know that this is a terrible deal, but I bet it actually works out well for Amex (otherwise they probably wouldnt do it). I know a lot of people who just see that points can be used on Amazon, and dont even think twice about if they could get better value for their points. Its a way for Amex to get points off their books at lower cost, not an additional attractive benefit to the MR program that people who know it well will be enticed by
Agreed. All the time people at work come to me and say "Yea, I've got about 150,000 points. I can just turn them into gift cards, and get something out of them."
Lol @title