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American Express Credit Cards
Amex Webpage
Membership Rewards Guide
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Annual Fee
$150
Current Offer
45,000 Membership Reward point plus $100 "Away" luggage credit available when browsing in private mode. 35,000 point plus $150 luggage credit available via a referral link (plus the referral bonus for someone you like.Typical Signup Offer
30,000 Membership Reward points plus $100 "Away" luggage credit.
($330 net value, .17/$)
Signup Bonus ChartBonus Categories
3x Travel (≈4.5%)
3x Restaurnats (≈4.5%)
1x Everywhere Else (≈1.5%)
No Foreign Transaction Fee
If you are comfortable with planning on redeeming your points for frequent flyer tickets, the Green card can be a good way to boost your rewards on a broad range of travel purchases (other than airfare), while providing a few other potentially valuable travel benefits. Otherwise, it has a decent signup offer (especially when coupled with a referral), and because it is a "charge" card, it is not subject to Amex's limit of 5 total "credit" cards at any one time.
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Introduction to Membership Rewards Points
Membership Rewards is the name of Amex's own rewards program. Membership Rewards Guide
- Membership Rewards points can be transferred to many different frequent flyer programs. This gives you the flexibility to take advantage of award space on over a hundred different airlines. In many cases, you can choose to book a flight through one of several different partner programs, allowing you to take advantage of whichever program requires the fewest miles and fees for your trip.
- Membership Rewards has many more airline partners than the other big credit card reward programs, such as Chase's Ultimate Rewards and Citi's ThankYou Rewards. They also have many more credit cards with Membership Rewards bonuses. If you are willing and able to use your points to book frequent flyer tickets, especially premium cabin award tickets, Membership Rewards is the most valuable reward program.
- Amex frequently offers promotional transfer bonuses. When the promotion is active, you'll get extra airline miles when you transfer your Membership Rewards points to a specific airline. For example, if American Express is offering a 40% bonus for British Airways, you'll receive 14,000 British Airways points for every 10,000 Membership Rewards points you transfer. See Take Advantage of Transfer Bonuses to Get More Value from Your Reward Points for more information or visit Frequent Miler’s Current Transfer Bonuses page for a list of current (and past) promotions.
- Unlike Ultimate Rewards points, frequent flyer tickets are usually the only good option for redeeming your Membership Reward points. Membership Rewards' transfer rates for hotel programs aren't very attractive, it doesn't partner with any fixed-value airline programs (like Southwest), and you'll only get 1 cent per point when you use them to purchase travel through Amex.
- The only exceptions are for certain Amex Platinum cardholders:
- Amex BUSINESS Platinum Cardholders get a 35% rebate on some airfare purchases made through Amex. This works out to a value of 1.54 cents per point. While this isn't as much as we hope to get by using our Membership Reward points for frequent flyer tickets, you'll always get decent value from your points and don't have to worry about finding available award space. It is a lot better than purchasing travel at only 1 cent per point.
- Amex SCHWAB Platinum Cardholders get an option to cash out their points at 1.1 cents per point (1.25 cents through September).
- We value Membership Reward points at 1.5 cents each. Because you can take advantage of award space and "sweet spots" from many different frequent flyer programs and the occasional transfer bonus, Membership Reward points are worth more than any single type of airline miles. If you highly valuable premium-cabin award tickets, Membership Reward points are worth even more. But if you want to avoid the hassles associated with frequent flyer tickets, they are worth significantly less. How Much are Points Worth?
Collecting the Signup Bonus
- It is worth signing up for this card, just to collect the signup bonus. After subtracting the annual fee and the opportunity cost of using the card for $point of spending, the calculated net value for the initial year is $30000 (Expression error: Unrecognized word "point". cents per dollar spent). Higher private browser and referral offers are available.
- You may want to wait until you receive a better than normal offer. Since Amex will normally only let you receive the signup bonus once per lifetime, and frequently offers promotional signup offers, it can be worthwhile to postpone signing up, so you don't waste your bonus on a less valuable offer.
- You can earn Membership Reward points from many different credit cards. While you can normally only earn each signup bonus once, there are more than a dozen cards with Membership Reward signup bonuses. You can combine multiple sign-ups to earn hundreds of thousands of Membership Reward points.
After subtracting the annual fee, and the opportunity cost of using the card for $2,000 of spending, the calculated net value of the sign-up is $440 (22 cents per dollar spent). This includes a $50 value (50%) for the $100 credit for luggage purchase from Away. Introduction to 'Transferable' Reward Points
Other Notable Benefits
- $10 per month dining credit. Each month you have the card, you get $10 off any purchase from a set of participating US restaurants partners. You need to enroll first, and pay with the card. The current list is Grubhub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Ruth's Chris Steak House, and (most) Shake Shack locations. Grubhub and Seamless provide delivery service from a large number of different restaurants. If you want to avoid delivery fees, you can often use those services to place an order that you'll pick up yourself.
- Free roadside assistance. The roadside assistance benefit that comes with most credit cards simply connects you a to nearby service provider. But this card actual pays for your roadside assistance services, including towing, lockout assistance, spare tire installation, jump starts, or emergency fuel. Free towing only includes the first 10 miles. Get Free or Discounted Roadside Assistance with these Credit Cards.
- Amex Hotel Collection. When you use this luxury hotel program program to book a two night stay at one of the participating hotels, you'll get a room upgrade (upon availability) and a $100 credit to spend on dining, spa, and resort activities. Hotel Collection Website.
- Access to Amex Offers. Amex continuously provides discount offers to their cardholders. Most of the offers are in the form of "Spend $x, get $y back", but other offers are in the form of "x% off your entire order" or "Earn an extra Membership Reward point on your purchases". To take advantage of the offers, you need to go to the Amex website, find the ones you are interested in, and "add them" to your card. Each offer will then be automatically applied when you use your card to make the corresponding purchase. Amex Offers Website.
- Free ShopRunner membership. As with all Amex cards, you are entitled to a complimentary ShopRunner membership, which provides free two-day and return shipping from around 150 of the largest online retailers. ShopRunner Website
- Exclusive access to entertainment events. Amex sponsors cardmember-only events around the country and also provides early ticket access for some other shows.
Another option for ensuring that the credits don't go to waste, if you aren't going to have an opportunity to naturally use your credit in any given month, is to purchase a $10 gift card at one of the participating locations.
Bonus Categories
- If you plan to use your points for frequent flyer tickets, the Green card has the most valuable reward rate on travel purchases (other than airfare). It earns 3x Membership Rewards points on a very broad range of travel (including taxi and transit services). The Chase Sapphire Reserve, Ink Preferred cards, and Citi Prestige card also earn 3 transferable points per dollar. But, Ultimate Rewards and ThankYou points are a big less valuable for frequent flyer redemptions and the Prestige card doesn't offer bonus rewards on such a broad range of categories (but offers 5x on purchases from online travel sites. Best Credit Cards for Travel Spending.
- It may be worthwhile to use the Green card for airfare purchases. 3x Membership Rewards points is pretty good, but the Citi Prestige card offers 5x ThankYou points and Amex's own Platinum card offers 5x Membership Rewards points. The Chase Sapphire Reserve offers 3x Ultiamte Rewards points but also offers better built-in travel protections.
- It may be worthwhile to use the Green card for restaurant purchases. Most people are going to be better off with the Citi Prestige card (5x ThankYou points), the Amex Gold card (4x Membership Rewards points), or the Sapphire Reserve (3x Ultimate Rewads points). However, if you are focusing on Membership Reward points and not planning to come close to hitting the Gold card's $25,000 of grocery store spending limit, you are probably better off paying the lower annual fee for the Green card and using it for your restaurant spending. Best Credit Cards for Restaurant Spending.
- For most people, we'd recommend the Chase Sapphire Reserve card over the Amex Green card. It offers the same effective annual fee and the same number of points per dollar. But, Ultimate Rewards points are better for non-frequent-flyer rewards, the Sapphire Reserve has better travel insurance and airport lounge benefits, and Visa cards are accepted at more merchants, especially overseas. But, for straight point transfers to airline program, the Green card is probably a better option.
- You don't want to use this card for your everyday spending. You'll earn higher rewards from a good general-purpose reward card. Get a Great General Purpose Reward Card and Use It for All of Your Spending.
Getting Rid of the Card
If you have a substantial balance of Membership Rewards points, you need to make sure to keep at least one credit card that earns Membership Rewards points. The only no-annual-fee option are the Amex Everyday Card, the Blue Business Plus Card, and the Morgan Stanley Credit Card (only for Morgan Stanley customers). You can't convert the Green card to any of these cards, because the Green card is a "charge" card and the other cards are "credit cards". So, if you don't already have another card that earns Membership Rewards, you'll want to open a new card before you cancel your Green card. Unfortunately, you can't transfer your points to another user's account instead.