Is the American Express International Airline Program worth your time?
At Award Expert, we are seeing an increasing trend: more and more bookings directly through the American Express or Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portals. While transferring points to airline programs still offers the best value…in theory…sometimes that truly is in theory only. Without airlines releasing saver award space, suddenly booking directly with American Express makes sense when using points.
This especially makes sense for Platinum Business and Centurion cardholders who receive a 35% or 50% rebate (respectively) on points redeemed via the AMEX travel portal. These tickets are no different than revenue tickets, earning mileage and elite status.
In addition to using your points to book travel, American Express also offers an International Airline Program, offering discounts on premium economy, business and first class seats.
The following airlines participate:
Here are three guidelines:
- Available on International First, Business, and Premium Economy Class tickets booked through American Express Travel
- Travel must originate in the USA
- Can be a one-way or round-trip ticket, with some exceptions
- Good for purchases of 1 to 8 tickets per booking on both refundable and non-refundable fares
- Use Membership Rewards Pay with Points for all or part of your fares
This is quite an improvement from the old program which offered complimentary companion tickets, but only if you purchased full fare tickets. View from the Wing notes that you no longer have to call to take advantage of this. Instead, you can chat online:
Chat Now Available
Chat with travel counselors to receive a quote for your flight and book directly through the chat. Agents are available from 6:00am EST to 2:00am EST.
My Experience
My client had millions of Membership Rewards points and needed four business class tickets to South Africa from the Washington, DC area. She was not interested in making extra stops in order to save miles. In fact, she did not flinch at paying whatever was necessary in order to get there comfortably and quickly.
Traditionally, I would have put clients like this on Ethiopian Airlines. Ethiopian offers the most direct routing to Cape Town from Washington, with only a short stop in Addis Ababa. With Aeroplan award space, the cost is only 150K r/t or 104K r/t on ANA. But there was no award space on her travel dates and Ethiopian wanted nearly $6K per-person in business class. That’s a lot for a seat that is likely angled lie-flat.
All else considered, British Airways offered a significantly better price at $4583/ticket with lie-flat service (all 747s) to Cape Town via London and back from Johannesburg via London. The layover in London was long on the way out, but the client preferred that over the other options. South African offers nonstop service from New York to J’berg, but would have required a double connection: Washington to New York and then J’Berg to Cape Town. Same with Delta via Atlanta.
$4583 was the regular price for the ticket. What would the American Express International Airline Program offer me? I used the chat function, which worked fairly well, though I had to be transferred from an initial agent to a Platinum travel specialist. I fed her the flights I was looking for and she came back with a price: $4250. That’s about a 7% discount.
While not nearly as much of a savings as I had hoped for, that’s noting to scoff at. That represents a savings of $333/ticket. Factor in the $39/ticket AMEX booking fee and the client still saved nearly 120,000 points (almost 30K per ticket). That more than offsets the $550 annual fee…
The client has a personal Platinum card. Had she had a Business Platinum card, she would have received a further 35% points rebate.
CONCLUSION
To pay over $4K to fly on British Airways business class still makes me shudder. But getting the precise flights on the precise dates you want and paying for everything with points makes sense.
Well, almost everything…British Airways wants $140/leg to assign seats upstairs…
Have you used the American Express International Airline Program?
The program was not helpful when I needed to go to DAR and on a separate trip, FLR. Glad you were able to get some savings.
1.8 million points redeeming for a penny a point when the opportunity cost of acquiring those points was likely much higher…ouch. Reminds me of my early days redeeming MR points for gift cards or statement credit. Unless the majority of those Amex points were acquired by purchasing airfare, your client should look at cash back or fixed travel rewards cards. Or at least get the Amex biz plat. But then again, the reason credit card reward rates are so good for those in the game is that most people redeem for a penny a point.
As a result of the redemption this week, she has transitioned to the AMEX Plat Business card and will diversify spending on her Chase INK card.
35%
Thank you.
Another rule of the Amex program: discounts are only offered on flights originating from the U.S. Nowhere is this stated and came as a surprise when I tried to book some tickets the other day.
Andrew,
It’s not stated in this article, but it is stated on the specific benefit info page at amex.com
Yes this is expressly stated on the IAP webpage.
I’ve saved a good chunk of cash on a couple of IAP bookings (in the 10% range) on SQ and CI. It’s a nice benefit. The AmEx agents are really a pleasure to work with.
Do you credit your SQ tickets to UA even though you don’t receive PQD?
Was 7% the discount on most flights? Did it differ by airline? Was the discount more or less for number of tickets booked?
I’ve also tried using them for Amex plat on euro flights to Austria and Barcelona . They were more expensive. Anecdotally I’ve done the BA 747 to CPT in J upstairs from NY. Besides the current hard biz product the planes are ancient. I almost fainted at the galley equipment nevermind the staff was very junior
Surprised to hear this is ex-USA only as I’m based in Seattle but often fly out of yvr for cheaper tickets and still get the Iap discount (as recently as sept 2018). I’ve booked Yvr-tpe biz on China airlines for 2850 vs 3400 and Yvr-edi biz on BA (don’t judge I love flying the 747) for 1800 vs. 2300. I’ve tried Klm and Air France but Amex prices on those are pretty much the same as publicly published rates.
When you purchase tickets through Amex do you advice getting travel insurance? My understanding is that unlike chase reserve Amex platinum doesn’t offer trip protection. Thanks Matthew.
I don’t, but perhaps I should.