Best Premium Card
American Express Membership Rewards Program
The American Express Membership Rewards program gives you one point for every dollar spent on your Card and many opportunities to earn bonus points when you shop at select merchants (currently over 175 retailers and 15 travel partners). A great thing about this program is that your points never expire. You can redeem points in a variety of ways, from airline tickets and travel experiences to retail purchases and merchandise. Please see the following for some more details.
Travel Benefits
The Membership Rewards program has 21 airline partners. You can apply points towards all or a portion of the cost of a flight booked through AmEx's online travel too, or exchange points for miles. The airline partners are Delta, Continental, JetBlue, US Airways, Aer Lingus, AeroMexico, Air Canada, Air France, Air Jamaica, Alitalia, ANA Cathay Pacific, El Al Israel Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Global Pass, Hawaiian Airlines, LAN, Mexicana, Qantas, Song, South African Airlines, Swiss Air and Virgin Atlantic.
You can also transfer points to a hotel loyalty program (in increments of 1,000):
- Priority Club Points: 1,000 Priority Club Points = 1,000 Membership Rewards points
- Starwood Preferred Guest program - 333 Starpoints = 1,000 Membership Rewards points
- Best Western Gold Crown International: 1,000 Gold Crown International points = 1,000 Membership Rewards points
- Hilton HHonors: 1,300 HHonors Points = 1,000 Membership Rewards points
Entertainment Benefits
You can use MR points towards all or a portion of cost of concert/theatre/sports ticket purchases on Ticketmaster.com. You can also usually use your points to pay for Broadway tickets and other great experiences you can get through American Express's access program, such as presales for concert and sports tickets, preferred seating and VIP packages
Shopping Benefits
You can shop with your Membership Rewards points on ShopAmex.com. Please see the ShopAmex details below:
- Over 90 merchant partners
- Can shop by merchant, category or point ranges or search for an item that you'd like
- Merchants include Apple Store, Bose, Amazon.com, Best Buy, Dell, Dicks Sporting Goods, Target.com, HomeDepot.com
Other American Express Benefits
- Access to purchase concert tickets to select shows before the general public
- Gold Card Events - exclusive entertainment packages and preferred seating for Gold Cardmembers and above
- By-Invitation-Only Events - Unique, once-in-a-lifetime experiences for Platinum Cardmembers and above
- Special benefits for golfers
- Purchase Protection
- Return Protection
- Buyer's Assurance Plan - extends product warranties
- Fraud Protection
- Online bill payment
- Global Assist Hotline
- Baggage Insurance Plan
- Car Rental Loss and Damage Insurance
- American Express Preferred Travel Service
