So just became a new AMEX user and got my bonus points. I'm wondering, for those who have the card, do you make book your flights directly on the Amex portal or do you transfer the points to the airline frequent flyer first?
Are they basically about the same cost? Just wondering - transferring the points will be good if it was cheaper but it restricts your options as you can then only use the points for that airline and you have to wait 3 days for it to transfer over.
Why don't you make a test booking to find out?
I've done a few and they all seem around the same - i think the AMEX is slightly more expensive (in terms of points spent) but not by heaps. But just wondering if this is pretty much consistent across all airlines and all routes.
They are two completely different things - booking using points through Amex is essentially converting the points to cash, and using that cash to purchase a ticket (or the hotel, or whatever).
When you are transferring to an airline's FF program, you are almost always doing it to try and book a reward seat. These are much harder to get, but are much better value (mostly in classes above economy).
so if you don't care about booking flights in anything but economy, then it's probably just the same booking through AMEX?
I did a quick comparison and it was very similar either way for an economy domestic flight.
But I think there are a few ways you can more or less convert Amex points to cash (using it to pay your monthly bill, etc), so assuming the 'exchange rate' is the same or similar, you might as well just convert the points to cash (or cash equivalent - gift cards, etc) and then just book the cheapest cash flight you can find. The cheapest flight will usually not be through Amex travel, although I haven't looked into this too much.
This is an important point. I believe that bookings made through Amex earn ff points and status whereas bookings through an airlines ff program do not.
I think transferring points to an airline and then book gives a better value.