American Express Membership Rewards: Your Guide to Earning and Redeeming Points for Max Value

American Express regularly runs targeted welcome offers that are more generous than its standard welcome offers. For example, both [data-lightrail id="54"]{name}[/data-lightrail] and [data-lightrail id="614"]{name}[/data-lightrail] sometimes make targeted welcome offers of up to 100,000 points if you meet the minimum spending requirement.

Sometimes these offers are publicly available for a limited time, and sometimes you have to receive the offer in order to qualify. The main ways to get a targeted offer are through the U.S. mail, through an email or by going to AmericanExpress.com to see if the targeted offer appears for you.

If you have an American Express card, you might be able to earn bonus points for referring a friend who’s approved for the same card. Make sure they apply for the card using your referral link, which you can get at the Amex Refer a Friend page.

Amex Offers gives you the chance to earn bonus points on spending with certain retailers. Simply log in to your American Express account, scroll down to "Amex Offers & Benefits" and add any relevant offers to your card.

Rakuten is a shopping portal that allows you to earn cash back, but you can also link your Membership Rewards account and have rewards converted to Membership Rewards points. You'll get 1 Membership Rewards point for every 1% back you earn, and you'll still earn points through your card, making this a great way to "double dip" with your regular shopping.

Amex Travel lets you redeem your points for flights, hotel stays, rental cars or cruises. You search the portal the same way you'd search other travel aggregators like Expedia and Kayak, and the offerings are similar. This is the easiest way to redeem Amex points, and it offers decent — though not the highest — value. You'll also get the flexibility of not being limited to one airline or hotel chain.

The value you get from these redemptions varies — some hotels net just 0.75 cents per point, while some flights can get 1 cent per point or more — but typically these hover around 1 cent per point. Flights tend to offer more value than other travel options.

americanexpress.com

Below you'll find a list of all of Amex's transfer partners and the transfer rate for each one. Pay attention to how long it takes to transfer American Express points to your partner of choice, and make sure you have a trip in mind before making the transfer, as it can't be reversed.

You can use your points to pay when you shop with a long list of popular online retailers. This is an easy and versatile way to use your points, but unfortunately, it has a low redemption value. You'll get 0.5 cents per point using this method.

The Amex rewards program is very versatile, but that doesn't mean all of the options for using your Amex points are good ones. In fact, many won’t get you anywhere near the maximum value for your points. Amex has a points value calculator, so you can see the dollar value of your points used in different ways.

You can use points to buy gift cards with dozens of major retailers, restaurants, technology companies and more. Starbucks, Nordstrom, Uber, Walmart and Best Buy are all on the list, as are American Express gift cards, which function similarly to cash. You could get 0.5 to 1.1 cents per point from this redemption option depending on the retailer. Typically, this isn't the best use of your Membership Rewards points.

If your card bill is larger than you'd prefer, you can redeem your points for statement credits, essentially erasing any eligible purchases. This option is super handy, but you'll only get 0.6 cents per point, so this is also one of the lowest value redemptions.

You can use your points to donate to over 1.5 million charities with JustGiving. You'll likely get no more than 0.7 cents per point from this redemption option, but it's available if you can't redeem your points for travel.