In 2017 American Express reduced the 50% rebate on business class airfare or even economy airfare on your selected airline to 35% on the Business Platinum card and introduced a 500,000 points cap as well. That cap is now increasing to 1,000,000 points. In 2018 American Express did experiment with offering an increased cap when reaching spending requirements. This obviously won’t affect most cardholders.
Hat tip to DDG
I am hoping to cash out some membership reward points. If I purchase a ticket with points and then cancel the ticket for a refund, will I still get the 35% rebate?
Did you ever try this and confirm if it works? Wanting to do the same. Thanks.
Any idea how long it takes for the bonus 35% MR points to post to the account after redemption of the earned MR points towards travel?
Starting to feel like these kinds of redemptions are the way to go if you’re not trying to book the super expensive Biz/First products out there (shower class, Japanese stuff, etc.). You get the 35% rebate, plus you earn miles for flying (that also count for status).
Can somebody *maths* for me? So if I have SW as my selected carrier and book a flight. I not only get the rebate of 35%, but if I call in to redeem points for the purchase, doesn’t this effectively give a 1.5cpp redemption?
1.53846 CPP
Some important things to note :
1. You have to call amex travel BEFORE and let them book it for you… They used to allow booking then calling for reload but no longer.
2. They do not have access to “wanna get away” fares, but they say they have amex special fares :shrug:
I was on the phones with a very experienced agent about all this and ended up switching my amex airline to United to be able to easily price compare within travel portal.
Can I get a clarification on one thing:
Is this a cap on points rebated or on points spent for the rebate?
In other words: In theory, I use 2 million points and get 35% back.
This would mean I’d get 700k points back…. or… does it mean I get 35% back on the first 1 million points i.e. I get 350k points back.
By the way it’s the best way to cash out points IMO. You get 1.5cpp value by doing it this way (spend 3 points, get 1 back = 2 points for 3 cents in value (actually a little more)) and it’s much easier than trying to time points, transfer, wait to see if the seats are still available etc.
The cap is the amount of points rebated, so after ~2.8 million MR spent on airfare you will no longer receive the points 35% rebate
Thank you!
Considering you can collect 1mm MR by signing up for just 3 cards I actually think can affect a bunch of cardmembers.
Agreed. Points are getting easier and easier to pile up as the annual fees increase.
What three cards?
3 business plat
Resy AMEX Platinum 500k, Schwab Platinum 375k, MS Platinum 375k, Business Platinum 190k.
Except that’s for new people
Currently thinking about signing up for the MS flavor.
Jags
The best offer I can find is 100k sign up + 250k shop small /dining.
Is there an even better offer with 375k points that I’m missing?
like how?
Yea, but the limit is on the reimbursed points, not the amount spent. The effective cap on the Redemption side has been increased from ~1.43 million points to ~2.86 million points. Not many people are using over 1.43 million points on Amex Travel airfare; that’s $14,300 worth of airfare.
Only if you’re spending points on airfare which is a terrible value proposition.
What do you think would be a good value proposition?
Just depends on the cost of the airfare. There’s always a few international RT biz class deals that pop every year that are in the $1500 range (or less). Comes out to 97,500 points, which is cheaper than most awards.
@aaron, building upon that concept,
also don’t mind yclass and similar upgradable fares section shopping and saving usd 5k to 8k versus booking directly biz section. net 24k miles (40k upgrade to biz will earn 2x/3x multiplier for a 5k ish mile O/W flight segment)…Ymmv; 16.5cpMR is about the upgrade value…did this for self and 1to7 others a few times. Amx. Amx delta. Etc. Plus just a ton of actual biz miles flown.