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Five things to think about with the 25%-30% Membership Rewards bonus

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A lot of people with an American Express charge card got an email yesterday offering them a conversion bonus if they moved their Membership Rewards points into airline miles.

There seem to be two versions of the email.  The one I got offered a 25% bonus for conversions into British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Etihad and Finnair.  Reports on Flyertalk mention a 30% version as well.

This is far cry from the 40% and even 100% bonuses seen in the past.  I am in two minds as to whether I should bite.

Amex MR banner

The first thing to remember is that the bonus miles generally post in arrears.   If you are thinking of doing a transfer and then using the Avios points next week, don’t.  Whilst your base Avios will go across quickly, the small print says that the 25% bonus for Avios will be credited by 15th April.  That is a whole two months after the promotion finishes on 15th February!

Secondly, do not rush to open an account with an airline you don’t normally collect with.   We have family in the Middle East and travel down there quite a bit, so an Etihad account MAY be of interest to me.  However, before I opened an account and made a transfer to them, I would want to know:

  • how many miles are needed (vs BA and Virgin) for business class to Abu Dhabi
  • how their fuel surcharges compare
  • how difficult it is to get 4 business class seats on the same flight
  • what their policy is on change fees, cancellation penalties etc

Thirdly, remember that you can get a 60% Avios bonus by opening an International Dollar Card (IDC) with Amex.

An IDC card is a normal Amex card but operating in US$.  They are available to UK residents, but Amex is quite strict on who gets one.  It takes a couple of months to be approved and if you haven’t been a long-term Amex customer (10 years plus) they usually want a written bank reference.

IDC has its own Membership Rewards programme – the catalogue is here.  The work of genius here is that you can ring Amex and transfer your points from the UK MR programme to the IDC programme.  Your balance is automatically increased by the £/$ exchange rate – so at $1.60 to the £, your 100,000 UK MR points will become 160,000.

Now, most redemption partners have worse exchange rates to compensate for this (BA and Virgin are 3:2 compared to 1:1 in the UK scheme, for example).  A few airlines are 1:1 in the IDC MR catalogue, such as Finnair.  Etihad is 3:2, however, so there is no arbitrage there.

Fourthly, remember that you can buy up to 10,000 Membership Rewards points per year for 1.5p each.

This might be worth it, depending on how you value an Avios.  With the 30% bonus, you’d be getting 13,000 Avios for £150, or 1.15p each.  I am not a buyer at that price, but you might be.  It depends on how you plan to redeem them.  Full details here.

Finally, remember that you can transfer Membership Rewards points to another person for a flat fee of £15.

Again, details here.  If your partner was targetted but you were not, you can transfer your points to him/her and get the bonus that way!

So ….

This might be a good deal for you.  And it might not.  Think it through first.  You have a few weeks to decide.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – December 2021 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit or charge card, here are our November 2021 recommendations based on the current sign-up bonus. 

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the top current deals:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

Nectar American Express

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

American Express Platinum card Amex

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers.

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and free for a year Read our full review

Amex Platinum Business American Express

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and a long list of travel benefits Read our full review

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express card

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending:

Barclaycard Select Cashback Credit Card

1% cashback and no annual fee Read our full review

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Membership Rewards, American Express Platinum card, Etihad and Etihad Guest

Comments (27)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Tariq says:
    17 Jan17 January 19:02

    I only just received the email, way after everyone else – so there may still be hope for you if you don’t have it yet. Think I will hedge my bets and transfer some to VS but keep the remainder in MR for now.

    • Andy S says:
      17 Jan17 January 19:19

      I have 21000 amex points was going to transfer them to BAEC but I will wait to see if I get an email from Amex. Thanks Raffles again.

  • vi irwin says:
    17 Jan17 January 22:57

    Sorry if this is a little off-topic, but exactly how good are virgin miles? How many is it to cross the Atlantic and what are taxes and surcharges like?. Can they be used on any other routes?

    I’ve tried looking online and can’t see these simple facts anywhere.

    • Roger says:
      18 Jan18 January 08:06

      In order:
      – how long is a piece of string? Virgin Flying Club members think they’re great.
      – yes; bad, similar to BA.
      – yes.

      Have you tried looking at the VS website? The homepage http://www.virgin-atlantic.com has a link to Virgin Flying Club.

      • vi irwin says:
        18 Jan18 January 19:34

        Yes I signed up and tried to see what use they were. All I seem to have learned is that one can’t use them to go to China, or one can spend a lot of points to get a flight that costs the same as not spending points to New York

        • Roger says:
          18 Jan18 January 20:47

          A couple of points. Your first message mentioned crossing the Atlantic. VS fly to lots of places in the US and Caribbean.

          VS fly to Shanghai in China.

          It’s generally poor use of miles to redeem them for economy flights. They come into their own when used for business or first class.

          • Jasper Rasper says:
            18 Jan18 January 21:20

            I sometimes feel that Business class is the biggest con of our era.

            Virgin Miles is a scam

  • onlysuites says:
    18 Jan18 January 08:21

    I didn’t get the email, actually I never really get emails from Amex. I won’t qualify for this bonus will I?

    Is there a box I need to tick to get emails?

  • onlysuites says:
    18 Jan18 January 08:23

    Edit – Ticked the right box. It seems I had chosen not to get marketing emails.

    • Raffles says:
      18 Jan18 January 09:18

      You need to tick a box for EACH Amex card you hold. This is a common mistake. People opt in to marketing for the BA card and then think, for example, they will also receive offers relating to their other cards. You won’t. There is a separate opt in form for each card.

  • David says:
    23 Jan23 January 13:52

    The IDC strategy seems amazing when combined with the current Platinum signup bonus. I can see the following plan working really nicely:
    1. get a Platinum card for yourself, collect 52k points (assuming someone refers you)
    2. refer your spouse for another Platinum card (you collect 25k points, they collect 52k)
    3. spouse transfers their points to you for £15 – total 129k points
    4. take out the IDC (Green version is $100/year, MR is free for the first year but then $36 a year afterwards, so you might want to time this properly)
    5. transfer the UK MR points to IDC – total 206,400 points
    6. transfer from IDC to Iberia Plus Avios – total 206,400 points

    The extra Avios resulting from this strategy would be 77,400, at a cost of approximately £75 – which works out to a truly amazing 0.09p per Avios.

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

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