Amex Points - Do you collect them? Do you use them?

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

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Partner has had various credit cards over the years that give points for spending and I've never really paid much notice to them or bothered with them until she told me about an Amex she applied for last year as there was a signing on bonus.

In the past she had Qantas cards and had accumulated a pretty substantial amount of points which we've just redeemed for some business class flights to and from US/Mexico.

We've had the Amex cards for a while and are racking up points at a reasonable rate but I'm not sure if Im missing a trick or not but what you can actually redeem them for seems extremely poor value.

Are there any tricks to maximise what your Amex points get you? We've probs got about 120k points between us but having looked at various sites like Amex Travel, Marriot and Hilton to redeem against hotel stays our amount of points doesn't get much.

Are there better ways I should be using the points or is it a case of needing a fairly exorbitant amount to redeem for anything?

For context and comparison, a business flight to NY was about 60k Qantas points plus taxes per person which I thought was great value.

I may cancel it after the initial 12 months, as aside from a couple of lounge passes they don't really offer much over a normal credit card.
 
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Ive had a few different ones. Now I just use the cashback card, because money seems more useful than a nicer place to sit on a flight, and you save thr burden of having to think about anything.
 
Using Amex points on hotels always looks like poor value when I've checked. I've got a stack and will transfer them to whichever airline/alliance (probably Avios) seems the best value when I want to use them. Occasionally they do a transfer bonus so 1 Amex point might be worth more than 1 Avios. Have a look on the points collector sites (head for points, the points guy etc) to find out how best to redeem them for flights.

You obviously need a lot to do things like fly business, but there are quite often promotions going that can net you a lot of points. Barclays had one last year where switching to their current account + taking their Avios card got you a 150,000 point bonus after 4 months. If you then keep the account for a year you get a BA cabin upgrade voucher (covers a return or 2 passengers one-way), and a second voucher if you spend £10k on the card inside a year.

Decent tip for Amex cards specifically, ring them and threaten to cancel after a year (give some excuse about how it's poor value) and you'll probably find they throw a retention bonus at you if you've been using the card a lot. I got a 50k point bonus for my platinum card last year in return for renewing.
 
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The best way to accumulate Amex points / Avios is sign up and referal bonuses. You used to be able to cancel an Amex and be considered a new customer (eligible for sign up bonuses) again 6 months later. Unfortunately they changed that a few years ago and you now have to wait 2 years to be considered a new customer, but the Amex BA Prem Plus and Amex Platinum cards (which generally have the best sign up bonuses) are considered separate products for these purposes. There's now also the Barclaycard Avios card and bank account which allows you to accumulate more sign up bonuses and only has a 6 month new customer cooling off period.

Over the last 12 months if you had timed it well you could have earned 120k Avios signing up to the Avios Barclaycard, 60k Amex points signing up to the Amex Platinum and 70k Avios signing up to the Amex BA Prem Plus (this offer is still running). If your partner does the same you can double that and add referal bonuses, plus all of the points you will accumulate from spending.

In terms of redeeming value, in you live in the UK the best way to do this is generally through Avios which you will accumulate anyway on the Barclaycard and BA Prem cards, and can convert your Amex points to on the Amex Platinum. This is because you can combine the use of Avios with companion or upgrade vouchers to halve the amount of points needed for a flight. The companion voucher is earned after spending £10k on the BA Prem Plus in a year and upgrade vouchers can be earned similarly through the Barclaycard Avios and bank account.

The best value redemptions are usually either long haul business class / first or short haul economy. Take Los Angeles as an example - a return business class flight is 180,000 Avios + £450 fees off peak. Apply a companion voucher to that and you get 2 return flights for 180,000 Avios + £450 + £450. Generally people value an Avios point at around 1p (i.e. taking into account what value could get using Avios in short haul economy) so you are effectively paying £1,350 for a 12hr return business return flight which is very good value and not something you will ever get even in the best sales.

There's loads of guides online which go into way more detail than the above. Head for Points is probably the best source of info
 
Flights are a common one, check out pointsguy type websites etc. can transfer Amex points to airlines etc..

If you get a BA Amex then there is a companion voucher deal which can be quite good.

Also, the initial deals can be sweet on Amex, you can cancel cards and get new deals - like the gold card has no fee if you cancel before the end of the first year and typically has some spend X in the first 3 months for extra points type deal, the caveat is that you tend to need to wait 3 years before re-signing for any given card to get the sing up deal again.
 
Another bonus on BA is you do not need to pay for the entire flight with Avios, so if you see a flight at a time that suits you but for which a ticket is stupidly expensive, try booking as a reward flight using minimal amount of avios possible - reward flights have a simple avios plus cash price and do not take into account what the cash price is at the time.

It is a pain to erode Avios, and probably not most efficient use of them, but has saved me a fair bit on flights
 
Managed to transfer a load of avios to nectar points which resulted in free Christmas booze. Not sure if Amex points can be converted the same way. We’re unlikely to be able to take advantage of avios in the immediate future with young kids!
 
I watches some credit card channels and from what I gather, US Amex have much better perks and value vs UK cards. For example, often you can see Amex points conversion to Avios points at like 1:1.5 or 1:2 so essentially you double. I have never seen that on the UK side.

The general wisdom in redemption is that if you are getting 1point to 1p value...it's not not that good, 1pt to 1.2p or anything above you are getting the value worth. And never spend it at places like Amazon seems to be the general wisdom.
 
I don't have the points version I just get the regular Amex platinum, it's 1.25% cashback after a certain spend and £25 yearly fee, which I usually benefit from across a year anyway.
 
I don't collect Amex pointa as such but everything reward point converts to Avios, which i use to redeem european BA flights.
 
lookitsjonno said:
Would you say worth it for taking the kids away? Like can we use companion for us and pay for the kids separately?
Click to expand...

The main problem you’ll have is the available dates of the companion flights as from what I recall they can be quite limited (or snapped up quickly). School holidays will be tough to secure.

The companion flights are good value though.
 
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