It looks like American Express isn’t only doing a pilot program on free FICO scores, they are also testing out new Membership Rewards redemption options according to One Mile At A Time. The new option is called “PointsMatch” and allows you to redeem your Membership Rewards points for United Airline or American Airline miles, but there is a bit of a twist. Only some American Express OPEN (business credit card holders) are eligible for this new option, but if it’s successful it will be presumably rolled out to all cardholders.
Basically how it works is this:
- You search for award flights on American Airlines or United Airlines
- If you find space, you can redeem Membership Rewards points at a rate of 1:1 and American Express will book the flights on your behalf (e.g if you find an award flight that costs 30,000 American Airline miles, this will cost you 30,000 Membership Rewards points)
- The total cost of the flights is charged to your account and then you receive a statement credit for the flights less any award ticket taxes on fees
There are some benefits to this over being able to transfer your MR points to United Airlines/American Airlines and also some negatives.
Negatives
- You can’t book flights on UA/AA partners
- Need to call up to book your flights
- Have to book at least three days before flights
- You cannot book multi leg trips, only one way or return
- You might not receive the statement credit within the same statement cycle and you will be still responsible for making minimum payments and any interest charges
Positives
- You should earn credit card points on the flights, this is because you’re given a statement credit rather than a refund.
- You should earn airline miles & status from the airline as the flights are being booked with cash (they even say “You can still earn miles on the flights you book with points.”, so presumably these flights will count for status)
This is a pretty interesting idea from American Express and I guess they are wanting to gauge how much on average they are paying out per point when this type of offer is given. If that value is at 1-1.2¢ per point then you can probably expect them to roll out the change slowly to more and more cardholders, you could also reasonably expect other card issuers to copy the program (notably Chase & Barclaycard, maybe even Capital One).
As I always say, the more redemption options the better. There is nothing more that I hate that unused or abandoned loyalty points.
Hat tip to One Mile At A Time
