You’ve been earning one of our favorite transferable points, Membership Rewards from American Express. Now how do you use them? Our favorite way is to transfer them to a partner. Let’s go over how to transfer AMEX Membership Rewards to an airline or hotel partner.

 

Sign In

The first step is to sign in to your account. You will see your account balance and underneath it a blue button that says “Explore Rewards”. Click on it.

 

 

It will bring up a page that looks like this:

 

 

Click on the bottom area where it says Transfer Points. Featured transfer partners will show.

 

 

I want to transfer points into my Delta account so I will select “View all”.

 

 

At this point, you pick whose account you are transferring to. You also have to verify your card information. This includes your CID number, so they know it’s you. I haven’t shown this because it has the last five digits of several of my cards.

Once you input that information and click confirm, those points or miles will be deposited to the transfer partner. Sometimes this is immediate. Sometimes it takes a day or two.

 

One-Way Transfer

Be sure and confirm that you have found availability on a flight before you transfer your points. Once you transfer them, they can not be transferred back. They only can be used with the airline or hotel you transferred them to.

I once transferred some Membership Rewards to Aeroplan to fly Air Canada and then looked for flights. Bad move. I wasn’t able to use them for the flight I wanted. I still have those points on the Air Canada site and will find a use for them in the future. This is a hard lesson, though, when you just start out and have a few points.

 

Bottom Line

Knowing how to transfer AMEX Membership Rewards to airline and hotel partners helps you use your points better. We love transferable points for their flexibility. Just remember that they are a one-way transfer!