Amex points have a lot of awesome uses, but my favorite use for Amex points are international flights! This is one of the ways to get amazing value out of your points. Similar to Chase, you have 2 main ways to redeem points for travel – portal bookings and transferring points to partners.

Portal bookings

Pros of Portal Bookings

• Simplicity
• Fine Hotels and resorts- With Amex Platinum you get $300 semi annually for Fine Hotels and Resorts hotel bookings (min 2 night stay). You also get late checkout, $100 credit, free breakfast for 2, and upgrades as available!
• You can book things you couldn’t by transferring points out – rental cars, cruises, certain hotels (like 4 seasons). I prefer to do these bookings on cash and use as a points-earing opportunity

Cons of Portal Bookings

• Hotel stays don’t always count towards status
• Glitches related to using a 3rd party booking service – harder when things go wrong
• Not getting the best value. But remember, there is truly no “wrong” way to use your points! But there are ways to use them so that points stretch further.

Transferring points to partners

• Hotels
  • Hilton (1:2)- transfer bonuses!
  • Choice Hotels 1:1 ( Citi is 1:2)
  • Marriot- avoid this
• Airlines
  • Jet Blue (250:200)
  • British Airways
• Flying Blue- Air France-KLM
  • 25% off award tickets for ages 2-11
  • Promos every month
  • Lots of business class award availability
• Avianca Life Miles
• Virgin Atlantic
  • Super low points prices
  • Watch for taxes and fees!
  • Can use to book Delta flights
• Emirates (1000: 800)
• Air Canada
  • Flights to Europe
  • Can use to book United flights
• Delta- likely won’t get great deals

How to Transfer Points From Amex

• First create a loyalty account for the program you want to transfer into
• Membership tab on bottom (star)--> Redeem rewards (under your total points number)--> Scroll down to transfer points
• Amex points can NOT be combined between people

There’s the basics on how to best use Amex points to book travel for free or very close to free! Booking in the portal is always an option, but transferring your points out to partner programs and booking with them directly is typically the best way to unlock amazing deals. I tend to use my Amex points to book flights. My most common pairing is a Hyatt hotel booked with Hyatt points from my Hyatt card and Chase points transferred to Hyatt paired with flights booked on Amex points. Now you’re one step closer to scoring amazing travel deals with your Amex points!

Amex Gold Referral Link: American Express

Rakuten Referral link: www.rakuten.com/r/COURTN29066?eeid=28187 Sign up to earn $50 (5,000 points) after spending $50. Rakuten is a great way to earn Amex Membership Rewards Points

Amex points are some of the easiest to accumulate a lot of. They can be transferred to a long list of hotel and airline partners. I love using these for international flights! Tthe secret to getting more value from your points is transferring points out of your Amex and to partner programs, then booking directly through that program.

Amex Personal Credit Cards

• The order of the personal card applications is important!
• Amex Green--> Amex Gold --> Amex Platinum
  • Amex Gold earns 4x on groceries and dining
  • Referral Link for Amex Gold: American Express
• Co-branded cards: Hilton, Delta, Marriot

Amex business cards

• Blue business- $0 annual fee! SUB 15,000 for 3,000 in 3 mo, 2x on all purchases up to 50K per year. 0% APR for 12 mo
• Business Gold- Spend $15,000 in 3 months- up to 200,0000
• Business Platinum - Spend $20,000 in 3 months

Rakuten!

· Rakuten Referral link: www.rakuten.com/r/COURTN29066?eeid=28187 Sign up to earn $50 (5,000 points) after spending $50

· Sign up, go to bottom right corner for account à Choose how you get paid à select Amex points. You need your PHYSICAL Amex card to be able to do this (the mobile one you get right when you are approved will not work!).

· If you already have an account you can change the way you are paid from cash to Amex points. This is so powerful because you will get WAY more value from the points than the cash. For example- Shutterfly 20x on Black Friday. Spent $400 on photo albums- 20% cash back is $80. 20x is 8,000 points! You can get a flight from US to Europe for as low as 6,000 points on Virgin Atlantic. Add in a transfer bonus and you are getting WAY more than $80 in value.

Amex points are versatile and can be easy to rack up quickly! They are a great asset to your points profile, and pairing with Rakuten can seriously boost your earnings. Join me next time to hear about how to redeem your Amex points for the greatest value.

One of the most common questions I get when people are interested in travelling for almost free on points and miles is “won’t this ruin my credit score?” While it IS true that you should have decent credit and your finances generally in order to get started, this hobby does NOT have to hurt your credit score! In fact, I have seen my credit score actually improve since I have started this 2 years ago. My credit score was good, but now its over 800! How is this possible? Let’s dive into how your credit score is calculated.

• Payment history – 35% of your score. This means that you want to pay on time and in full each month
• Credit Utilization – 30% of your score. How much of your available credit are you using? It is better to have a lot of available credit and not use very much of it vs. having a small amount of credit and using most of it. Adding more cards helps SIGNIFICANTLY improve this by adding to your available credit.
• Credit age or history – 15% of your score. Keep your oldest accounts open
• Account mix – 10%of your score. How diversified is your credit? Home loans, credit cards, etc.
• Account inquiries – 10% of your score. This is the one part of your score that is negatively impacted by applying for new cards. Your credit score will often dip a few points after an application, but it quickly rebounds and typically higher than before because your credit utilization is going to improve with increasing the total amount of credit you are extended.

How to use this knowledge

• Keep your oldest lines of credit open
• Pace your openings- 30 days min, I recommend 90 days
• Pay off full balance every month

My credit score has only improved since I got into this hobby. I was brought up with the notion that credit cards are bad and using credit cards should be avoided. In reality, as long as you are smart about credit card use and pay off your full balances every month, you will likely boost your credit score rather than hurt it!