New Way To Cash Out American Express Membership Rewards Points At Up To 1 Cent-Per-Point

With the launch of the new American Express Membership Rewards business checking account, there’s now a new way of cashing out Membership Rewards points for either 1 cent-per-points for Business Platinum cardholders or .8 cents-per-point for all others. This feature is already live.

Amex Cash-Out Options

Here are the available methods of cashing out Membership Rewards points into cold cash:

• 1.1 cents per point with the Schwab Platinum card
• 1 cent per point with Morgan Stanley Platinum card
• New: 1 cent per point via the business checking account for Business Platinum cardholders, details below
• 1 cent per point when redeemed to purchase select gift card brands
• .85 cents per point when redeemed to purchase most of the better gift card brands
• New: .8 cents per point via the business checking account, details below
• .8 cents per point via the personal American Express checking account
• .7 cents per point on Amazon or Paypal
• .6 cents per points when cashing out to offset your purchases

American Express has now added a feature to their fee-free Membership Rewards business checking account which allows redeeming points for cash at .8 cents per point. Notably, your points from the checking account seem to pool with those earned on your credit card accounts, and all of your points have this cashout option.

More interestingly, Business Platinum cardholders can cash out via their business checking account at 1 cent per point, up to one million points annually. Here is an image:

And there’s no minimum redemption for the checking redemption options.

Notes

• Presumably these redemption will be similar to Schwab redemptions which do not result in a form 1099. As far as your actual tax liability please consult a tax advisor. (I wrote some thoughts on this topic here.)
• In my experience, the Membership Rewards points from credit cards under one SSN/EIN are available for redemption under the business checking which is under a different EIN and entity. It seems they are linked by the owners SSN which is behind the business entity.
• If you have the business Green or Gold card, it should be easy to upgrade to the business Platinum for one month, cash out your points at 1 cent per point, and then downgrade the card back to Gold or Green. Hopefully it’s possible to do this all within one month and pay a prorated annual fee of $58 for the month. This way you get the benefit of cashing out at 1 cent without the need to continually hold the expensive $695 Platinum business card. Just keep in mind once you have the Platinum business card you won’t be able to get the signup bonus again, so only do this if you already got the bonus before.

Our Verdict

For some people this news is a complete yawn since many of us value Amex points at significantly higher than 1 cent-per-point. Similarly, those who hold the Schwab Platinum card long term always have the superior 1.1 cent redemption option.

Still, this is a nice piece of news as another reliable method – outside of the Schwab card – of getting at least 1 cent value from Amex points without a hassle. And it’s getting me to eyeball the Business Platinum card offers knowing that I have an easy way of cashing out the points.

It’s worth noting that you can always book flights through Amex Travel and get 1 cent per point on the redemption. Moreover, those who have the Business Platinum card or Business Gold cards get a 35%/25% rebate of their points rebated back which gives a value of 1.54/1.33 cents per point when booking flights on their chosen airline or in business class on any airline.