Best Ways to Redeem 80K Brex

Brex is a corporate card that launched in the summer of 2018, offering a first-of-its-kind product for existing businesses and new start-ups with qualifications based on funding rather than credit history.

Over the past few years, Brex has been improving their business model to make it an appealing travel rewards card for business owners. The current welcome offer can put you in a position for some great flight redemptions.

What Is Brex?

Brex is a Business Cash Management account that comes with an associated corporate card. This card functions much like a debit card in that you can only spend up to 80% of the cash that is held in your account. Brex is completely fee-free despite that it behaves similarly to a business checking account.

Does Applying Impact My Credit Score?

Brex does not run any kind of hard pull against your credit during the account opening process. Approval is based on the funding you have available rather than your credit score. This also means that opening a Brex account will not have an effect on your 5/24 count.

Does It Work Like Other Business Credit Cards?

Not really. It’s much more similar to a debit card than a credit card. The other big difference is that, unlike small business credit cards you’ve heard us talk about before where you can apply as a sole proprietor, for a Brex account your business needs to be filed as LLC, LLP, C-corp or S-corp.

Welcome Offer and Earning Rates

Brex is currently offering 30,000 points after spending $3,500 within 30 days of account opening or 80,000 points after spending $9,000 in the first 30 days. You can earn an additional 10,000 points after spending another $3,000 in the first 3 months of account opening. If you connect your payroll to Brex you can earn another 20,000 points.

The regular earning rates for the card are as follows:

• 8X on Rideshare
• 5X on Brex Travel
• 4X on Restaurants
• 3X on recurring software like Salesforce, Zendesk, Twilio, and more
• 1X on everything else

While earning the initial reward points requires you to spend a lot in a very short amount of time, if it works for your business, you’ll set yourself up with a maximum total of 110,000 transferable points. For the sake of the breakdown, we’ll say you’d be able to earn at least 80,000 points, but realistically we could push this to 89,000 points assuming all your minimum spend earned the lowest possible rate of 1X.

Redeeming Brex Points

Brex rewards points can be redeemed at one cent per point as cashback, gift cards, or for travel within Brex’s TravelBank portal. These points are also transferable at a 1:1 ratio with the below airline partners:

• Aeromexico
• Air France
• Avianca Airlines
• Cathay Pacific Asia
• Emirates
• JetBlue
• Qantas Airways
• Singapore Airlines

Best Redemptions using ~80,000 Brex Points

These airline transfer partners have some great sweet spot redemptions that the points you earn from opening a Brex account will help fund.

Air France

Air France is a part of the SkyTeam alliance, meaning you can use Flying Blue miles to book flights on partner airlines like Delta and Alaska Airlines. You can use Flying Blue’s Miles Price Estimator to determine how many miles you’ll need for your desired trip. One great redemption is flying from the contiguous U.S. to Hawaii round-trip in business class for just 86,000 miles. With the welcome offer from Brex and the earnings on the spend to earn the bonus, you’ll have enough points to book this itinerary.

Avianca Airlines

Avianca has a great business class product and inexpensive economy rates that make for solid redemptions. You can transfer your Brex points to Avianca to book flights on most Star Alliance airlines. Some redemptions I’d have my eye on would be a one-way business class flight on SwissAir to Zurich for 63,000 miles or a round-trip economy flight from the U.S. to New Zealand for 80,000 miles.

If you’re up for spending a few more miles and getting serious about hunting for availability, you could fly one-way in Luftansa’s first-class from the U.S. to Europe for 87,000 miles.

Because you’d be booking through Avianca, a partner airline of Luftansa, availability for first-class tickets rarely opens up 15 days prior to the travel dates, but if you’re ready to take off at the drop of a hat you can score an amazing redemption.

Cathay Pacific Airways

While you won’t have enough Brex points to experience a first-class flight on Cathay Pacific Airways, you will have enough to take a one-way trip in their top-tier business class product.

Flying from the western U.S. (Los Angeles or San Francisco) to Hong Kong will cost you 70,000 miles and flying from the eastern U.S. (Boston or New York) will cost you 85,000 miles since Cathay’s award prices are based on the distance flown.

Emirates

Emirates offers a great non-stop service from New York to Milan that you can book by transferring your Brex points to your Emirates Skywards account. A round-trip booking in business class will cost you 90,000 miles or 62,500 miles for a one-way flight.

Another great Emirates redemption option is a round-trip flight from the eastern U.S. to the Maldives in economy for 85,000 miles. This flight paired with a redemption of only 120,000 Marriott points for five nights at the Le Meridien Maldives would set you up for an amazing and exotic vacation.

Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines is widely known for its incredible Singapore Suites. It’s considered one of the top premium cabins in the industry so the fact that you’ll have enough Brex points to transfer to Singapore Airlines to experience this luxury is impressive.

You’ll have to hunt for a saver award, but if you can find one you can redeem 86,000 miles for a one-way flight from New York (JFK) to Frankfurt, Germany (FRA).

Final Thoughts

While a Brex account and corporate card behave more like a checking account and debit card, it opens up the opportunity to earn up to 110,000 points without paying any annual fees or adding to your 5/24 count. Make sure to take into account the short amount of time you’d have to meet the minimum spend, but if Brex works for your business you’ll be able to leverage the points you earn for some incredible redemptions.