Amex Membership Rewards Cards: 25% Points Back on Redemptions

American Express has just rolled out a new promotion available on its suite of Canadian-issued Membership Rewards credit cards. 

From now until September 27, 2023, you can earn 25% Membership Rewards points back on eligible redemptions with Use Points for Purchases, Air Canada Pay with Points, and the Flexible Points Travel Program.

Earn 25% Membership Rewards Points Back on Redemptions

American Express has rolled out a new promotion for eligible Membership Rewards redemptions. 

Between August 30, 2023, and September 27, 2023, you’ll earn 25% Membership Rewards points back, up to 10,000 points, when you make an eligible redemption through Use Points for Purchases, Air Canada Pay with Points, and the Flexible Points Travel Program.

For example, if you redeem 10,000 MR points on an eligible Use Points for Purchases redemption, you’ll get 2,500 points back. Likewise, for an eligible redemption of 20,000 points, you’ll get 5,000 points back, and for 40,000 points, you’ll get 10,000 points back.

There’s a maximum combined total of 40,000 Membership Rewards points that are eligible for the 25% points back offer, which means that you can make separate redemptions of up to a cumulative total of 40,000 points, and the maximum number of points you can receive back from this promotion is 10,000 MR points.

There’s no need to register for the offer; however, if you didn’t receive a communication from American Express about this promotion, you won’t be eligible for any points back, as per the terms and conditions.

However, we’ve received reports of the offer being sent out broadly to eligible Membership Rewards cardholders.

If you make a redemption of more than 40,000 points with this offer, you’ll still only earn 10,000 bonus points, since the 25% bonus only applies to up to 40,000 points redeemed. 

The bonus points will be deposited into your account within 90 days of the end of the promotion, which will be on or before December 27, 2023.

As a reminder, the following Canadian-issued Amex cards earn Membership Rewards points:

Should You Redeem MR Points for a Statement Credit?

Prior to examining whether this is a good deal or not, we should first briefly go over the three different redemption methods valid for this promotion.

With Use Points for Purchases, you can redeem American Express Membership Rewards points at a value of 1,000 points = $10 (all figures in CAD) as a statement credit against any purchase charged to your account.

With the Air Canada Pay with Points feature, you can put Amex MR points towards the cost of a flight at the same rate of 1,000 MR points = $10 towards an Air Canada flight. 

On the Air Canada website’s checkout screen, if you enter in an eligible American Express card as the form of payment, the Pay with Points feature will appear under the payment methods.

After clicking “Check points balance”, you’ll be prompted to sign in to your account, and then you can choose the amount of points you’d like to apply to your booking, if any. If you choose to redeem points this way, you’ll receive a statement credit from American Express a few days after the booking is completed.

The last option available with this promotion is the Flexible Points Travel Program, which is available through the Amex Travel portal.

Once you’ve selected a travel booking, you’re able to apply points against the total, once again at a rate of 1,000 MR points = $10 as a statement credit.

In all three cases, the standard redemption rate is 1,000 MR points = $10, or 1 cent per point (cpp).

Under this promotion, the value of each MR point redeemed in any of the three methods is boosted to 1.33 cents per point for up to 40,000 points redeemed. In other words, you’re getting 33% more value from these types of redemptions than you would outside this promotion.

For example, if you redeem 40,000 points for a statement credit of $400, and then get 10,000 points back, you’d have effectively redeemed 30,000 points for $400 of value. 

If you tend to redeem points for a statement credit, then this promotion can be valuable to you, since you’re getting much more value out of your points than you otherwise would.

Some people apply Amex MR points as a statement credit against cash flight bookings, since those count towards earning status with airlines.

On the other hand, we value Amex MR points at 2.2 cents per point, given that it’s very much possible to squeeze more value by transferring them to other loyalty programs.

For example, suppose you’d like to fly in Air Canada premium economy from Toronto to Vancouver. 

The cash cost of flight AC125 on this date is $925, which would require 92,500 Amex MR points at the standard rate, or a net cost of 82,500 Amex MR points with the 10,000 points back from this offer.

However, to book that same flight through Aeroplan, it’d only cost 17,500 Aeroplan points, which is also 17,500 Amex MR points, since the transfer ratio is 1:1.

Therefore, you’re saving roughly 65,000 Amex MR points by moving the points into Aeroplan and booking the same flight.

If we were to convert the value of the flight into the redemption cost, it works out to around 5.1 cents per point with the taxes and fees on the Aeroplan redemption accounted for.

On this same flight, if you were to book the lowest economy fare, it’d cost 28,800 Amex MR points, or a net total of around 21,600 MR points with the 25% points back from this promotion.

If you were to transfer MR points to Aeroplan and book the lowest economy fare, it’d only cost 10,500 Aeroplan points, which is equivalent to 10,500 Amex MR points.

The value from booking the economy flight with Aeroplan points works out to around 2.29 cents per point, which is still higher than the value through the offer.

It goes to show that you can often get better value out of your points by transferring them out to other loyalty programs, rather than redeeming them for a statement credit.

Conclusion

American Express has launched a new promotion on its suite of Membership Rewards credit cards.

Between August 30, 2023, and September 27, 2023, you can earn a bonus of up to 10,000 MR points when you make an eligible redemption with the Use Points for Purchases, Air Canada Pay with Points, or Flexible Points Travel Program features.

During the promotion, the baseline value of your MR points is effectively increased from 1 cent per point to 1.33 cents per point, on up to 40,000 points redeemed.

If you tend to redeem MR points for a statement credit, this promotion can provide some extra value. However, it’s important to note that you may be able to get more value from your points by transferring them out to other loyalty programs instead.