How We’d Use 150,000 Membership Rewards Points

American Express Membership Rewards points are a valuable currency that can be transferred to 18 airline partners and 3 hotel partners. With that many transfer partners, Amex Membership Rewards points offer some of the most versatile options available.

You can earn Membership Rewards with a number of American Express credit cards, including the popular American Express® Gold Card and The Platinum Card® from American Express. When it comes to business card choices, The Business Platinum Card® from American Express is the card issuer’s top-tier choice.

The Business Platinum Card typically has the highest welcome offer of the American Express cards, often in the range of 100,000 Membership Rewards and up. Here’s the current offer:

We asked some of the 10xTravel team members what they would do with 150,000 Membership Rewards points. We hope their answers will inspire you if you’re looking for ideas on how to use Amex Membership Rewards.

Travis Cormier

When considering how best to utilize 150,000 American Express Membership Rewards points, the Galapagos Islands emerge as an enticing destination. The Galapagos offer unparalleled wildlife and natural beauty. It’s one of my favorite destinations I’ve been able to visit.

For flights, you can book a round-trip flight to the Galapagos through Avianca LifeMiles, costing just 40,000 points per person. This leaves a substantial balance for your accomodations.

Given that most of your time in the Galapagos will be spent exploring rather than lounging in a hotel, opting for a more economical lodging makes sense. This approach not only saves points but also aligns with the region’s overall safety and simplicity, allowing for a focus on experiences over luxury accommodations.

While the Galapagos now has points hotels, the value proposition leans toward more budget-friendly options. Booking through American Express Travel may not yield the highest value per point (around 0.7 cent per point), but it does provide access to numerous modest accommodations. With rates ranging from 15,000 to 20,000 points per night, the remaining 110,000 points could comfortably cover five to seven nights.

By choosing practical accommodations and efficient flights, these 150,000 points can be extended to create a memorable and immersive travel experience in the Galapagos for up to a week with just one card, demonstrating that sometimes, the best value comes from maximizing experiences rather than luxuries.

Emily Jaeckel

A supply of 150,000 American Express Membership Rewards points can take you around the entire world. Literally. With my stash of these transferable points, I’m planning to book a round-the-world ticket with All Nippon Airways (ANA). This is a specific type of ticket offered by ANA that has some strict rules you need to abide by.

• The travel must be from east to west or west to east.
• A total of eight stopovers are allowed; ground transfer (arriving in one city and making your own way to another city) counts as two stopovers.
• The travel can include up to 12 segments.
• You can mix cabins, but the rate is always calculated based on the highest cabin.
• Travel has to touch at least three ANA mileage zones and must return to the originating zone which means you have to return to the continent you departed from.
• The trip has to be at least 10 days long.

As long as you stick to these restrictions, 150,000 Membership Rewards can take you up to 25,000 miles around the world in either direction in business class and still leave you with 5,000 points left over. This is because ANA has a distance-based award chart, so as long as your journey is between 20,001 and 25,000 miles in distance, you won’t have to pay a point over 145,000.

I know, I know, I didn’t leave many Membership Rewards left over to cover lodging … but technically if you plan an ANA around–the-world trip just right, you could spend all your nights sleeping in business-class cabins and never even need a hotel.

Anna Zaks

I love that American Express has so many transfer partners, which makes Membership Rewards extremely valuable. Amex also often has transfer bonuses to select partners, like Virgin Atlantic or Air France. The bonus amounts vary, but sometimes the bonus could be as high as 30%.

I travel to Israel often, and because the flights are so long, I prefer to fly in business class. So if 150,000 Membership Rewards suddenly landed in my lap, I’d wait until there was a transfer bonus to Air France-KLM Flying Blue and then use these miles to book another trip to Israel.

Flying Blue has a handy miles price calculator (scroll down all the way to the bottom of the page), where you can enter your origin and destination and find out how many miles you’ll need to book your award.

Based on what the calculator is telling me, I can book a flight to Israel in business class for 75,000 miles each way or 150,000 Membership Rewards for a round-trip journey. And if I transferred Membership Rewards when Amex had the transfer bonus, I’d have miles left over for another trip.

We don’t recommend transferring flexible points to an airline speculatively, but be on the lookout for these transfer bonuses that help you stretch your hard-earned points even further.

Anya Kartashova

With 150,000 American Express Membership Rewards points at my disposal, I’d like to travel to India. I’ve been to nearly 90 countries (and counting), and surprisingly, India isn’t one of them. It’s not like the South Asian country hasn’t been on my radar — it has. I just haven’t made it there yet.

Although I fly in economy class often, a flight to a country this far away would be a lot more comfortable in business class. So, I’d utilize the ANA Mileage Club program, thanks to its favorable redemption rates on round-trip tickets. It’s worth noting that it isn’t possible to book a one-way ticket using ANA miles, which slightly complicates the idea of using these specific miles for a flight to India.

A journey from the United States to New Delhi and back would cost 110,000 miles with ANA or 136,000 miles with Star Alliance partners. An ANA-operated trip is much harder to find, so I’d settle for a Star Alliance ticket for slightly more miles, especially since it would give me more flight options.

However, I’d have to consider something else to make this particular redemption work. I live in Salt Lake City, which isn’t a major international hub, which means I’d have to reposition to another airport if I wanted to redeem ANA miles for a business-class flight to India. Los Angeles, Houston or even Chicago would give me more flight options, so I made a few award searches from several U.S. cities to New Delhi and found the following itinerary.

A round-trip nonstop flight from Chicago (ORD) to New Delhi (DEL) on Star Alliance member Air India is available for 136,000 miles + about $385. Not bad for a 14-hour flight. As mentioned, unfortunately, I’d have to spend additional cash for a repositioning flight to Chicago, but the relatively low redemption rate makes it sting less and helps me travel across continents more comfortably.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, 150,000 Membership Rewards can take you far … from flights and lodging in the Galapagos to business class flights to India or Israel, and even around the world!