While many Australian credit cards now earn directly into Qantas Frequent Flyer or Virgin Australia Velocity, there are three key benefits to ‘warehousing’ your points with Amex.
Membership Rewards is the points program for American Express credit and charge cards.
In this post:
American Express Membership Rewards Ascent Transfer Partners
In Australia, Membership Rewards Ascent (the program that comes with the Amex Explorer Card) has a wide range of 9 Airline and 2 Hotel Transfer Partners:
- Air New Zealand AirPoints
- Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles
- Emirates Skywards
- Etihad Guest
- Malaysia Airlines Enrich
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
- Thai Royal Orchid Plus
- Virgin Australia Velocity
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Hotel partners are:
- Hilton Honors
- Marriott Bonvoy
1. Award Availability
The top complaint about frequent flyer programs has always been the lack of premium award seats in First and Business Class. Add to that the limited number of Qantas flights from Australia to Europe and the US and finding your preferred dates in your preferred cabin can be frustrating.
Warehousing points with Amex Membership Rewards gives you a lot more flexibility with 9 Airline Transfer Partners, including KrisFlyer.
Singapore Airlines is known for holding back award seats for their own program (i.e. other Star Alliance programs like Thai Royal Orchid Plus can’t be used) and pre-pandemic had multiple flights per day to Sydney and Melbourne with reasonable Business Class availability.
2. Points Never Expire
While programs like KrisFlyer are great for award availability and often require fewer points for the same award compared to Qantas, they can also have hard expiry dates. KrisFlyer points will expire 3 years after they were earned which makes building up a healthy points balance harder.
By earning through Amex Membership Rewards, your points will not expire as long as you have your Card open and transfers into KrisFlyer take up to 1 business day. Those points will then have a 3 year validity, by which time they should have been long redeemed.
3. No Orphaned Points
Quite often you will end up with a small number of points sitting in different programs, which either expire after a few years or sit there unused.
Membership Rewards allows you to transfer the exact number of points to bridge the gap between your current airline balance and required balance for a useful redemption.
For example I currently have 22,066 points with Malaysia Airlines Enrich and can transfer the 27,000 point difference required for a Business Class award seat to Asia. These points would otherwise expire or be used on less valuable redemptions.
Membership Rewards Ascent Summary
American Express Membership Rewards Ascent is the best airline agnostic points program in Australia. Being able to transfer exactly the number of points required for an award and with no expiry date, an Amex Explorer or equivalent card in the program is a no brainer to have in your wallet.
