How to Redeem Amex Points Like a Pro (4 Examples)

[00:02] 100,000 Ammex points are worth when redeemed for cash back as a statement surface to some people, but to points to miles pros, redeeming like that would be same points could be worth at least $2 to $3,000 or more when they're used for

[00:17] in this video, I'm going to walk you through four really good examples of how to redeem your AMX points like a pro, all for 100,000 points or less each. which is going to be a business class flight over to Amsterdam for only 60,000

[00:31] going to look to take advantage of Flying Blue as a transfer partner that American Express works with. And Flying Blue is the joint loyalty program of Air France, and KLM, who's based in the Netherlands. So, we're going to focus on

[00:44] KM here for this example to get over to Amsterdam. And KM flies non-stop there on the screen right now, like San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, cities is going to be important to look into because it tells us what options we

[00:59] to if needed. That way, we can then fly non-stop in business class. Now, since is going to be important to mention that flexibility is key here when it comes to credit card points on redemptions like this. So, that's going to mean

[01:13] airports that you fly out of as well as the dates that you fly on. The reason loyalty programs with KLM and Flying Blue in this case, they basically are availability they have for the lowest priced flights that you can book with

[01:27] to find those flights that cost as little as possible and therefore are more flexibility you have, the better. Now, with that said, I picked a Flying video because it's going to be a similar search and booking process for flights

[01:41] like KM to Amsterdam or even Air France over to Paris. and redeeming with flying straightforward and beginner friendly. And like I said, there's going to be a over to these cities that might have award availability. So, let's go ahead

[01:54] search to see what's available. And over here on this website, the first thing you want to do is log in or create a free flying blue account if you don't up a search on the homepage by clicking on this book with miles tab at the top.

[02:06] And for this example, I'm going to go ahead and enter in Washington Dallas as that from where I'm at in Philadelphia, I could position to either Dallasos or I'm also going to put Amsterdam as the arrival airport. And I'm going to make

[02:19] sure that I have business class selected along with one way because oneway flexible and easier to book with finding award availability, which I've talked with searching either on the KM website or even the Air France website is that

[02:32] blank here. And what that's going to do is it's going to allow KLM to show us a page where we can then look for what days have the lowest prices. Again, for business class flights because there's going to be a ton of hotel and

[02:46] Airbnb options once you get to whatever destination you're traveling to. But limited number of flights and potential award seats on those flights. Now, after going to see a calendar view of availability where I can flip around

[02:59] for this example, let's say that I want to travel in August. So here I can see of days that have flights for 60,000 miles. I'm going to pick Saturday, can confirm there actually is some availability at the price point. And

[03:13] on that day that's available for this 60,000 mi. And clicking on that shows us there's also going to be some taxes and fees of $241.80, to see no taxes and fees whenever we're

[03:26] considering that the cash price for business class is over $7,900 and the cash price even for economy is $685, I'd say that booking this award seat is going to be a nice win. I also confirmed there is no award availability for this

[03:39] also a part of Sky Team like Virgin Atlantic where sometimes you can book these flights as well. So, the last step before transferring AMX points to book center peroint value to make sure that we're getting a good deal. To do that,

[03:51] we would take the cash price of the business class seat, which was $7,953. fees of the award ticket, which was $24,180. And the reason why we want to have to pay at least some cash out of pocket no matter which way we book this

[04:05] difference between those amounts is going to be the total cash value that divide that by the 60,000 points or miles that are required to transfer and decimal place over by multiplying by 100, which is going to give us a value

[04:19] of 12.8. 85 cents per point. And that's a crazy high redemption value, which easily beats my 2 cent per point target redemption rate that I like to aim for. to be aware of here when booking a flight like this. So, number one,

[04:31] value that you're getting here is going to be very much due to the inflated cash That means even though you're getting a really good redemption value, to me, I'm just more happy to see that I'm only paying around $241 out of pocket to fly

[04:45] business class versus nearly triple that price at $685 to fly economy. But then on trips like this, you've got to come prepared for when you actually arrive in a new country. And that's because when I first started traveling internationally,

[04:58] hit with some big roaming charges after using my phone's normal data plan as found out about Heirl, who's sponsoring this video. And what he does is they visiting another country by taking advantage of eim technology, which gets

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[06:06] Heer for sponsoring this video. And let's go ahead and move on to our next example, I'm actually going to make it sort of a two for one thing, where I'm over to Europe by using Air Canada's airplane program. And both of these

[06:19] can get from the east coast of the US to Germany to visit one of the most popular festivals in the world every fall, and that is going to be October Fest. Now, you're just trying to get somewhere else in Europe this fall, Germany is actually

[06:32] that way you can get around to other countries as well because of its central examples with Aeroplan are going to cost only 60,000 AMX points, which is another this first example, let's say that we

[06:46] where October Fest is held. And let's say that I'm open to flying from What I'm going to do here is I'm going to use an award search tool called whole search process. And over there, I'm going to set the search to go from

[06:59] EST, which tells seats. Major East Coast US airports. Then I'll also enter in MU going to enter September 27th plus or minus 7 days as the search window the dates when October Fest is going on. And lastly, I'm also going to select

[07:14] search. So that way I'm only going to see non-stop options. After the results business class column to then sort by the lowest prices first where I could 60,000 points from Boston over to Munich. And this green color of the

[07:29] direct flight. Clicking on that is going to show that this is a Luansza flight from here, we can actually go ahead and click through with this button to book Air Canada's website, after we log into

[07:42] able to see the search results for that same exact day. And as you can see, that same flight is available for 60,000 points plus $79 Canadian, which is around $58 US for taxes and fees. That same flight is going for $6,146

[07:56] over on the Luanza website. So, taking that price minus 58 bucks for taxes and fees on the award ticket and then divided by the 60,000 points needed to redemption value of 10.15 cents per point on this one. So, that's another

[08:09] this flight is going to be on a double-decker Airbus A380 plane, which second floor is basically first in business class. However, this business compared to what a lot of other business class seats are like nowadays. It's

[08:23] still lay flat and it's still going to be nice, but it is a 222 setup, so it's outdated. And even though it sounds like Lufansza is going to be rolling out some A380s very soon, just be aware they

[08:36] you watch this video in the future. So, just make sure to go and do some you're getting, but I'd still be cool with this one. Now, if you want a better Germany for the exact same price of 60,000 points, then the second part of

[08:49] flight that's not on Luanza, but it's actually going to be on Singapore Airlines, who's consistently been rated as having one of the top business to be looking at here goes from New York JFK over to Frankfurt, Germany, which is

[09:02] away from Munich if you do want to book that separately and then get to October Fest. And the reason why this flight is even possible with Singapore Airlines is freedom flight. For anyone not familiar, a fifth freedom flight is when the

[09:14] based in either the departure or the arrival country for that flight. And in JFK is basically just stopping into Frankfurt, which is that leg that we're Singapore Airlines, it's going to go and continue on to Singapore after that. So,

[09:29] to fly this top rated business class without actually going all the way to points, we're going to jump back over to seats. similar search, but this time flying to and from, we can just enter in JFK as the origin and FRA as the

[09:44] same date range of September 27th plus going to select only direct flights. And if I want to narrow things down further, I can even enter in the carrier code of SQ,

[09:57] blank if you want to see other flights pop up in these results from other sort these by the lowest prices by clicking on the business class column. dates that look like they're available for 60,000 points with Air Canada Aerop

[10:11] September 28th where we can see that there's a logo indicating this is in again, then we can click on the link at the top or the bottom of this box to website, we can see the seat is available for 60,000 points plus $79

[10:27] Canadian for taxes and fees, which again is around $58 US. And over on the Singapore Airlines website, this ticket is normally going for around $2,545 if we booked in cash. So, running a quick cent calculation, this would be a

[10:39] point, which is still a really great deal. Like I said before, cent point sometimes when the cash price of a ticket is priced really high. And relatively speaking, a cash price of a little over $2,500 isn't really as high

[10:53] we've seen from costs from other examples in this video. But getting over over four times the value of what you can get in the MX travel portal when redemptions over there are going to be fixed at only 1 cent per point. So yeah,

[11:07] this is going to be another great way to redeem only 60,000 points here for this business class product if you find the award space to book it via Air Canada. space with Air Canada on a certain day

[11:20] September 26th when there was no business class award availability, the actually a direct transfer partner with American Express as well. So, it also might be worth checking out transferring directly to Singapore's Chris Flyer

[11:33] going to cost at least 81,000 points to book through them. So, you are going to than you would with awards through Air Canada. But you're still redeeming well under 100,000 AMX points for this right here, which is the goal with this video.

[11:46] book with points directly with Singapore. Plus, the taxes and fees are only like $5.60, so it's not a bad option either. Send per point value is going to be closer to around 3.14 cents per point by booking this way. So, it's

[11:58] So, again, if you're trying to visit Germany or go to Oktoberfest or you just then explore some other countries as well, these redemption examples should hopefully help you to do that pretty easily with a good points price. All

[12:11] business class examples with airlines that are part of Sky Team as well as on to an example here of how to book with One World Alliance as well. So, book American Airlines with a flight over to Hawaii for only 21,000 points in

[12:26] Express had Hawaiian Airlines as a transfer partner, which then opened up the door to transfer from AMX over to Hawaiian and then Hawaiian to Alaska year ago. And that meant that people were able to sort of indirectly transfer

[12:39] from AMX over to Alaska for a bit, which was great while it lasted because Alaska availability to book other One World Award flights from airlines like American. But with that option off the table now that Hawaiian is gone as an

[12:51] have to look elsewhere. And so now for most situations when we're thinking by transferring our AMX points, what we're going to be turning to is using a part of the OBO program, specifically British Airways and Qar Airways. Now,

[13:05] for this example here, let's say that I wanted to fly directly from Dallas, Honolulu, Hawaii, because there are going to be a couple of non-stop flights the way that I would approach booking this kind of a thing really kind of

[13:18] my travel dates. If I am flexible with like seats. Arrow to kind of just search around and look for American Airlines flights during a certain date range. And I can also search for only American

[13:30] Airlines flights by using the carrier code AA in my search. But if I'm not fly to Hawaii from Dallas to start a planned vacation on January 30th for this example, what I would do here first is I would understand, okay, what's the

[13:43] flight? And then what's the points price for this flight through American, Qar. That's going to allow me to compare my options and see if I even can book points depending on availability. So, doing a quick cash search for that day

[13:57] economy fair for this American Airlines ticket is $430, which obviously sounds a for the same flight, but with redeeming American Airlines miles, that is going to show me that I could book this for $22,500 m plus 560 in taxes and fees.

[14:13] that American miles are a lot harder to earn since they're currently not directly transferable from Ammex points. However, like I said, we could look at instead here because those do transfer from AMX at a 1:1 rate. So, over on the

[14:26] confirm that this American Airlines flight was bookable for 20,750 aios plus 560 for taxes and fees. And over onQar's website, this was also available for the same amount of AIOS plus 450 in taxes and fees. So, those prices are pretty

[14:41] one of those partner airlines, but it is technically $110 cheaper with Qar. Qatar's award search process can be a bit frustrating because you might not actually be able to see the total taxes and fees required to book an award

[14:55] of AIOS in your account to book that ticket. Luckily, I'm booking some stuff my account, which is how I was able to see the fees for this American flight would be $4.50 with guitar. So doing a cent per point calculation on that, we

[15:09] would take $430 for the cash rate minus $450 for the taxes and fees on the award ticket and then we would go and divide that by 21,000 points or obvious needed because we do have to transfer from AMX in 1,000 point increments. That's going

[15:23] to give us a value of 2.03 cents per point, which is pretty good for an destination like Hawaii. But this flight is also 8 and 1/2 hours long. So, if you for a bit more leg room, then British Airways also did have that open for

[15:37] Airways also did have that open for 41,250 AIOS plus $560 in taxes and fees. And Qar did not have premium economy available. On American's website, $1,19. So, redeeming for this would give us a

[15:50] value of $2.65 per point if you do have enough points saved up and you want to more pro tip here with transferring to AIOS currencies is that if there's ever any AMX transfer bonuses going on with one currency, but the pricing is a

[16:03] what you could do is you can actually move AIOS around back and forth between British Airways, Qar, and other AIOS programs like Iberia, Heirlingus, and a different American Airlines flight that was bookable for 20,000 OBOs with

[16:17] British Airways or 16,000 Obvious. And then the taxes and fees were pretty much the same. But let's also say there was a 30% transfer bonus going on from AMX actually just happening recently. And then let's also assume there was no

[16:30] could basically do in that situation is you could transfer 13,000 AMX points over to British Airways, which would then get you over 16,000 AIOS because of that 30% bonus. And then you can go to your BA account page and scroll down to

[16:43] where it says collect a combine my OIOS. And then scroll down until you see Qar Airways Privilege Club and click on combine my obvious again. then you'll be account to your Qar Airways account and move AIOS in between them. So this would

[16:56] advantage of the 30% transfer bonus to BA to indirectly get a 30% transfer bonus over to Qar and then you could go and book the cheaper guitar obvious rate in that situation from British Airways

[17:08] because that is going to be a bit more advanced. But I promise it's actually a a very small percentage of AMX customers know that you can even do something like other tips that you might not know about to get ahead of 99% of MX card holders,

[17:23] out this video over here on the screen next. But as always, thanks so much for next. But as always, thanks so much for watching.