How Long Do Amex Membership Rewards Points Transfers Take?

If you’re collecting miles & points through credit card spending, I always recommend doing what you can to accrue transferable points currencies.

That’s because these points are much more flexible than when you’re earning an individual airline or hotel points currency. You have the ability to transfer these points to all kinds of travel partners, and you’re safeguarded from a devaluation in a specific points currency.

With that in mind, in this post I wanted to address all the basics of transferring Amex Membership Rewards points. How many partners does Amex Membership Rewards have, how long does it take for points to transfer, who can you transfer points to, etc.

How many airline and hotel partners does Amex Membership Rewards have?

As of now, Amex Membership Rewards has 20 airline and hotel partners — that includes 17 airline partners and three hotel partners.

How long does it take to transfer Amex Membership Rewards points in December 2021?

Below is a chart with how long it typically takes to transfer Amex Membership Rewards points to airline and hotel partners:

As you can see, transfers to all but four partners are typically instant, and even the partners that aren’t instant process points transfers pretty quickly.

Are there fees associated with transferring Amex Membership Rewards points?

Of the major transferrable points currencies, Amex is the only one that charges fees to transfer points to some partners.

Amex Membership Rewards charges a federal excise tax for points transfers to US frequent flyer programs (which include Delta, Hawaiian, and JetBlue). That means non-US frequent flyer programs, as well as hotel programs, don’t have any fees.

For those programs with fees, the cost is 0.06 cents per transferred point, up to a maximum of $99. In other words, transferring 100,000 points would cost $60.

If you transfer more than 165,000 points then there’s no incremental cost to transfer points, since you’ll have paid the $99 fee, and the fee is capped at that.

Can you transfer Amex points to someone else’s Amex account?

No, you cannot. Amex lets you combine the Membership Rewards points you’ve earned across all your cards that earn Membership Rewards points, but you can’t transfer your balance of Membership Rewards points to someone else’s Amex account.

Can you transfer Amex points to someone else’s airline or hotel accounts?

Amex only lets you transfer your Membership Rewards points to an airline or hotel account that’s in your name or the name of an authorized user on one of your cards.

Fortunately, Amex lets you add authorized users on many cards at no additional fee, which is a great way to transfer points to someone else. However, you can only transfer Amex points to the account of an authorized user if they’ve been on your account for at least 90 days.

What cards earn Amex Membership Rewards points?

Some of the best personal Amex cards for earning Membership Rewards points include the following:

Some of the best business Amex cards for earning Membership Rewards points include the following:

• The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express (review) has no annual fee (Rates & Fees) and offers 2x points on the first $50,000 spent every calendar year (1x after that)
• The American Express® Business Gold Card (review) has a $295 annual fee (Rates & Fees) and offers 4x points in the two categories in which you spend most on the first $150,000 spent annually, of the following: airfare purchased directly from airlines, US purchases for advertising in select media, US purchases at gas stations, US purchases at restaurants, US purchases for shipping, and US computer hardware, software, and cloud computing purchases made directly from select providers
• The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (review) has a $595 ($695 if application is received on or after 01/13/2022) annual fee (Rates & Fees) and offers 5x points on flights and prepaid hotels on amextravel.com, as well as 50% more points on purchases of $5,000 or more (up to one million bonus points)

Note that you can earn a welcome bonus on each of the above cards, and pool all those points towards one Membership Rewards account. Having multiple Amex cards is a great way to maximize your points earning potential. See my post about the best cards for earning Amex Membership Rewards points.

Should you transfer Amex points to travel partners?

In general, the best use of Amex Membership Rewards points is to convert them into airline miles. However, you only want to do this once you’ve figured out the award you want to book, have verified availability, and are sure you understand how that program works.

There is one good way to redeem Amex points towards the cost of the ticket, and this is the best value if you have The Business Platinum Card® from American Express.

If you have this card then you can get a 35% refund on all “Pay With Points” redemptions, when either redeeming for travel in first or business class, or redeeming for travel on your designated airline in any cabin. The catch is that the refund is only processed weeks after you book, so you’ll need to initially have enough points for the entire cost of the ticket at the rate of one cent per point.

You ordinarily get one cent of value per point using the Pay With Points option, so when you’re getting a refund of 35% you’re potentially getting 1.54 cents of value per point, which is pretty good. Personally, I value Amex Membership Rewards points at ~1.7 cents each.

Bottom line

Amex Membership Rewards points are one of my favorite points currencies out there. Not only does Amex have some great transfer partners, but the points are pretty easy to rack up as well across the card portfolio. Hopefully the above is a useful rundown of what to expect if you’re going to transfer these points.

If you have any data points on how long Amex Membership Rewards points transfers have taken you, please share them below, so that I can keep the chart as accurate as possible!