April 9, 2025
Amex Points Explained: The Good, The Bad, and The Rules You Need to Know
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Welcome to Points for Normal People!
Let's tackle a topic I get asked about a lot: Amex Membership Rewards. Honestly, I have mixed feelings – the points themselves can be fantastic for travel, but the cards? They definitely come with extra rules and quirks, making them feel more intermediate level. Still, since you're asking and the points can be super useful, this episode is your essential overview.
We'll cover the must-knows for earning these points (like navigating those tricky welcome offers!), the key application strategies you can't ignore, and super important: how to create an exit plan to keep your points without paying those high annual fees long-term. Consider this your guide to deciding if Amex is right for you!
ACTION STEPS
- Opt-In to Amex Marketing
- Plan Your Exit Strategy
- Ask for a Retention Offer
- Check Your Amex Offers
- Consider Card Pointers: https://cardpointers.com/partner/katiestravel/
- Try Rakuten: https://www.rakuten.com/r/KMGALL29?eeid=44749
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
- My new Amex overview (blog): https://katiestraveltricks.com/american-express-membership-rewards-points-overview
- Best Card Offers: https://katiestraveltricks.com/bestoffers/
- Sign up for this beginner’s guide and we’ll also send you our Saturday morning newsletter: https://katiestraveltricks.com/travel-points-101-quick-start-guide/
- TrackRak: https://trackrak.com/
- Rakuten info: https://www.rakuten.com/help/article/is-the-cash-back-button-available-for-mobile-devices-and-tablets-360002100928 and https://www.rakuten.com/help/article/installing-the-ebates-cash-back-button-360001446688
New Here?
Hi, I’m Katie from Katie’s Travel Tricks! I am here to help you learn the secrets that my family has been using for over a decade, using everyday expenses and welcome offers to supercharge your points earning. When you learn to do this, you can cover entire vacations every year.
Our family has been to Hawaii, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe — and more — all thanks to strategically earning and redeeming points. We've done this on a limited travel budget and now want to help you do it, too.
More from Katie’s Travel Tricks
🔗 Website
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the card links and other products that appear on this podcast are from companies which Katie's Travel Tricks will earn an affiliate commission. Katie's Travel Tricks is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. The content in this podcast is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Editorial Disclosure: Opinions expressed here are the autho...
00:09 - Intro to Amex Membership Rewards
01:37 - Why Amex Cards Are Intermediate Level
02:46 - Understanding Lifetime Language and Offers
05:19 - Getting the Best Amex Welcome Offers
10:58 - Personal vs Business Card Strategy
17:31 - Keeping Your Amex Points Alive
23:24 - Ways to Earn More Points
27:42 - Action Steps for Maximizing Amex Value
WEBVTT
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Today I'm talking about a points currency that I like, that's tied to a bunch of cards I really don't like, and that's American Express Membership Rewards.
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Now some people find a lot to love here and some people hate these cards.
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Today we'll discuss the pros and cons and what you need to know.
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Welcome back to Points for Normal People.
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I'm Katie and I'm here because I know that travel costs add up, especially for a family, but I believe travel isn't just for the rich.
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That's why, on Points for Normal People, I share the tips and tricks that our family's been using for over a decade to take your everyday expenses and credit card welcome offers to supercharge your travel points so that you can pay for entire vacations every year.
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We're in season three of the podcast and overall we're talking about how to book US domestic flights with points and, of course, how to do that for the best price.
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But as I was mapping out the season and thinking about these sweet spots, I realized I hadn't covered American Express cards at all in seasons one and two, and that was intentional, because I do think it takes more work to get value from the Amex cards and there are a lot more rules and best practices to know I consider these more intermediate cards.
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In fact, you won't find any of them in my three-year plan because I don't think knowing about them is necessary for the whole first three years that you're in points.
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But I've gotten a lot of requests from people who feel like they have a good handle on Chase, ultimate Rewards and even on Venture Miles, and they're looking out at the credit card ecosystems and see that there's a lot of Amex cards and they have a lot of questions.
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And so today I wanted to give an overview of American Express membership rewards, to hit on the major points that you need to know.
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Earning these points can be really helpful for booking domestic flights, and we're gonna walk through those different sweet spots during season three.
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I also think that if every single episode of season three is just about airlines and routes, it's going to start to feel repetitive for me and you, so we'll mix in some other information like this as it fits.
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So today we're going to look at the ways to earn American Express membership rewards points, as well as some of the quirks and tricks to the Amex ecosystem.
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Now the first way you might guess that I'm going to talk about earning membership rewards quickly is to sign up for a credit card and earn a welcome offer.
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This will come as no surprise to you if you've listened to any of my podcasts, but you do have to be kind of cautious about the order that you apply for these Amex cards, as well as the offers that you're taking advantage of.
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Most American Express cards have what we call in the points world lifetime language.
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This means that the terms for a welcome offer say something like you're not eligible for this offer if you've had this card before.
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That's not what we like to see, of course, since we love to get an offer and then get it again in a few years.
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But it turns out that a lifetime, in the eyes of American Express, is actually just seven years.
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Seven years is still a long time, but it's actually not forever.
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So it's good to know that you could be eligible again for a card eventually.
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Just wait seven years, and if there's one thing to know about Amex, it's that nothing is absolute.
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So while pretty much all of the public offers for cards usually have that lifetime language, sometimes an offer comes out that doesn't have the lifetime language, and then, of course, people get really excited because it feels like a little loophole that they can go through.
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A lot of bloggers or creators will abbreviate that as NLL no lifetime language.
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So that's what NLL means.
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If you see an Amex offer and then someone excitedly explaining it has NLL, it has no lifetime language.
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Amex will also send you targeted offers sometimes, and these very often do seem to bypass the lifetime restrictions.
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These targeted offers sometimes come to your mailbox at your house, sometimes to your email, and sometimes it's when you log into your Amex account and there's some sort of pop-up with an offer there.
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My husband seems to get a lot more of these than I do.
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He just got one that we took for a business gold card, which he had had just a few years ago, and then right after that he got another targeted offer for a business platinum card, which he also had about a year ago.
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But at the beginning, of course, you don't really have to be worried about lifetime language, because you're just opening cards for the first time with Amex and there's a lot of different cards.
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What you do have to be worried about well, not worried per se, as I don't ever want you to worry, but what you want to be aware of is trying to get a great offer, because Amex plays the most games of any bank I know.
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When it comes to credit card welcome offers, very generally speaking, personal referral offers and targeted offers will be higher on the Amex membership rewards cards than the public offers.
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By public offers I mean the links that are on the Amex website if you just search for them, or affiliate links.
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It's one of the reasons I actually don't have affiliate links for Amex cards anymore.
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I found that the affiliate links were almost always a lower offer than other links out there and since I'm committed to sharing only the best offers, it didn't make sense for me to have to abide by the tedious compliance rules for Amex if I wasn't going to be sharing those worse affiliate offers anyway.
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As a quick sidebar, when I say tedious compliance rules, it is generally things like with Amex.
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Every time I mention any benefit of a card, I'd have to also say certain phrases like enrollment required or link to rates and fees, and it probably sounds like it isn't a big deal.
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But when you have a blog with lots of posts and then all of a sudden you need to add a new two word disclosure saying enrollment required anytime you mention an Amex benefit, it's really time consuming to go back and comb through and fix it all.
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So now I'm free and you're on your own to know that enrollment is required and what the rates and fees are, and all that, although I do still try to include that information on my site because I still want it to be good information.
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So let's talk about how you can get the best offers for Amex cards.
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I think your first stop should be my best offers page.
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On that page I do my best to compile all the best offers and for Amex links.
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I update these a minimum of once per month and pretty much all of the Amex cards on my page are in the community referral section down at the bottom of that page.
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Remember when I said that usually the best Amex offers are via personal referral.
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Again, amex has made this weird.
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So if you have any Amex card, you can usually find a refer, a friend link where you get extra points if someone signs up for the card with your link, where you get extra points if someone signs up for the card with your link.
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And Amex actually has almost universal referrals, which means if you have any Amex card and send your friend a link, they can open that card or they can usually pick from almost any other Amex card and you could still earn a referral bonus, which is great.
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No other bank has anything like this.
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But be aware that sometimes Amex will randomly not give you the ability to refer friends to a card.
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I haven't found any rhyme or reason to this, it's just one of those weird Amex things.
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Then sometimes you'll get back the ability to refer people.
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Then, to make it weirder, there is zero standardization.
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So let's say Micah and I both have an Amex gold card.
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Neither of us do.
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But let's pretend it is totally possible and common that Micah could log into his account and find his refer a friend link and send it to a friend and it would say that his friend can earn 60,000 points by signing up.
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And then I might log into my Amex account and find my refer a friend link and send it to my friend and it might say that my friend can earn 90,000 points by signing up because the offers can be that different.
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But here's where it gets weirder, even with the same card.
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So let's say Micah's friend opens that link on their laptop and they see a 60,000 point offer.
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But then they might open the same link in a different browser, like in Chrome or Edge and now the offer shows 90,000 for them.
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And then they might open it from their phone and it might show 100,000 points.
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Amex is truly wild and unpredictable when it comes to these offers.
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This is important to know because you want to get the best possible offer.
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So with Amex you want to try to open those offer links in a few different browsers and from a phone and a computer and in incognito, to see if you find any variation.
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Now on my website I only post links that should show up every time for every person, because sometimes there are certain people that Amex actually gives a confirmed high link to.
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So right now on my blog we have 100,000 point Amex gold offers on there.
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That should show for everyone who clicks on them.
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But this is even more important if your friend sends you a link, make sure you're trying that link in different ways.
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And I mentioned this before.
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But it's worth repeating that this is primarily for the Amex membership rewards cards, for Amex co-branded cards.
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Those are airline and hotel cards like Marriott, delta, hilton.
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Those cards are usually the same offers everywhere.
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Affiliate links, refer a friend or public links those are usually all the same.
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If you're wondering how you can get your Amex link on my blog.
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I send out a call for community referrals the first Saturday of every month in my newsletter.
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It's a Google form that you log on to.
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Then we test all the links that are sent in to make sure they are right and that they show up for the offer that we want to see the highest offer.
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Then my web developer adds them to my site using a randomizer code where, let's say, I have 10 Amex Gold links.
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Every time someone clicks the Amex Gold card on that page it will randomly go to one of the 10 links, so that way it spreads it all out fairly.
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Every month we have to delete a lot of links that are sent in because they aren't showing up as the offer I requested or because people add in more text than just the link.
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So just make sure you follow the directions that are on the top of that form.
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But see what I mean about Amex being more intermediate.
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It's just a lot of little caveats and a lot of background info.
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We haven't even gotten to specific cards yet.
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But now that we've talked about the background info and how to get a great offer, let's talk about the cards, because while Amex doesn't have a 524 rule like Chase, and they aren't as finicky as Capital One for approvals.
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They do have some rules, and the order that you apply for these cards is really important.
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There are three personal cards that earn Amex membership rewards and four business cards, and thank goodness they actually have very similar names so it's somewhat easy to track them here.
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They also have checking accounts that earn membership rewards, so we'll get to those too.
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Now the business cards don't have any particular order you need to apply for the cards in, so that's easy.
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You can apply for them in any order Now.
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An order might get added later.
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The personal cards didn't have a specific order until very recently, but for now the business cards you can apply for in any order.
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So let's talk about the order for the personal cards, in order from annual fee fee, from lowest to highest.
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The cards that we have for personal cards are the green, the gold and the platinum.
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If you want to get all three welcome bonuses, you need to apply for them from lowest to highest annual fee.
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You need to apply for the green, then follow with the gold and then finally the platinum, because the green card, for instance, has language that says you can't get the bonus on a green card if you've previously earned a bonus on a platinum or a gold card.
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I guess they figure if you've had the fancy ones you don't deserve to go back to the basic ones and still get a bonus.
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I don't know.
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Some people might choose to skip the green card anyway, since the offer is usually lower and of course, in the scheme of things, you're also balancing your 524 slots and whether this makes sense to take up one for this card.
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There's not a perfect strategy here, but usually people would start with the green or the gold card.
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Some people really love their Amex, gold and Platinum cards, but personally I find them really annoying.
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A lot of people refer to them as giant, expensive coupon books, which I think is accurate.
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Like right now, the Gold card has a $325 annual fee, but then every month you get a $7 Dunkin' Donuts credit and a $10 a month credit for Grubhub Cheesecake Factory or Five Guys and a $100 a year credit for Dining Via Resi.
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Of course, these credits add up to theoretical value, but the fact that they're monthly credits just makes it an effort to manage.
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In my opinion, the Platinum card is even worse.
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It has even more credits to manage.
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I'm not going to dive into the specifics of these cards on this episode and how to eke value out of them.
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It is possible to do, and maybe someday I will dedicate an entire episode just to these cards, but for now it's most important for you to understand that there is an application order Start with the lower annual fees and move higher for the personal cards.
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For the business cards, you can open them in any order, but they tend to have really high spend requirements, so you need to time that.
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When you have a really high spend coming, then, because almost all of these cards have really high annual fees, it's important to have a game plan for how you're going to keep your points alive if you don't want to keep paying the annual fee and especially if you haven't used your points yet.
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Maybe you'll love the Amex coupon book cards and maybe you won't.
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Either way, I think it's good to have a game plan and with the green, gold, platinum cards, both on the personal and the business side, there are no options where you can downgrade to a no annual fee card and keep your points.
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You can downgrade to the green card, but that's as low as you can go and frankly I'm baffled that the green card has a $150 annual fee when I cannot figure out what the true value there is.
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So usually, at least 10 months into your first Amex card, you might want to be thinking about your strategy to keep your points alive.
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Unlike Chase and Capital One, you can't combine your Amex membership rewards across your household, so every person in a family needs their own plan.
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Here's a few options.
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One would be to just open the next higher card.
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If you opened a green, open a gold.
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If you opened a gold, get the platinum.
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You could also open a business card if you opened a personal card, or vice versa, but essentially you're staggering the Amex cards that you're opening by about 10 months.
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You could do 11 months.
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Now this can go on for a long time.
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Since there's eight of these cards total between the business and the personal side, you can open them even more frequently than 10 to 11 months, but that's just about the longest you'd want to do if you're trying to keep your points alive and kind of roll from one card into the next.
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Related to this strategy would be to open the Blue Business Plus card.
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Now, the Blue Business Plus card has no annual fee, but does earn membership rewards.
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Make sure to look for this and not the blue business cash card.
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Some people get a decent targeted offer on this card for 45,000 points, but usually the offer is low, like 15,000 points.
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It's okay, in my opinion, to take a low offer on this card, just to keep your points alive, with no annual fee.
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Another option is that sometimes Amex will offer you an upgrade offer.
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So if you have a gold card, they might offer you to upgrade to a platinum and earn 100,000 points.
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But you have to tread cautiously here because if you take the upgrade offer, you're no longer eligible to earn a new card member offer on the platinum.
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But maybe you'd rather upgrade so you don't take a 524 slot.
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It's really going to come down to what you want to do.
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Another option for keeping your points alive is pretty unique to Amex, and this is opening an Amex checking account that earns membership rewards points.
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There are business and personal checking accounts that do this and frankly I think this is a great option.
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But there's one caveat, which I'll explain in a minute.
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The business account often has a bonus of around 30,000 points.
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If you do a few qualifying activities, like right now, you need to deposit $5,000 and keep it in there for a few months and then make five transactions.
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It's pretty easy to do for 30,000 points if you have the cash to move over.
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The personal checking account doesn't usually have a bonus to move over.
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The personal checking account doesn't usually have a bonus, but both the business and personal checking accounts have no minimum balance and no monthly fees, so they're really easy to keep open and they do allow you to keep your membership rewards points alive.
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Now, the one caveat here is that for some reason, if you only have a checking account, you won't have every single transfer partner.
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You still have a good number of them, but not all of them.
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Still, this is an easy way again to keep your points alive.
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If you get a credit card again later, you'd have all of the transfer options once again.
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Amex actually makes it really easy for you when you're earning membership rewards, because they're going to put all your membership rewards into a big pot in your account.
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You don't even need to actually physically combine them yourself.
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They're just going to group them all together for you.
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And then the last option for keeping your points alive would be to ask for a retention offer on the card you already have.
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Amex is all over the place with retention offers.
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But sometimes you might get a very generous offer to keep your card open, like a big annual fee discount or a bunch of points.
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It just depends on whatever offer their algorithm spits out for you.
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You can ask for retention offers via chat.
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When you're logged into your Amex account, I just start a chat and say I'm thinking of canceling my card, do you have any retention offers?
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You can be that direct and even when they give you an offer, you should ask is there any other offer?
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Because there might be another one.
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You can ask this even after you've had the card just 10 months and then you can ask it again at 11 months and then you can ask again right after your annual fee posts.
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Now, sometimes retention offers will change between those three times that you're asking, so it's worth asking again and again in case a new one pops up onto your account.
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So that's the big picture of the cards layout For a quick review.
00:18:56.971 --> 00:19:02.794
Most Amex cards will have lifetime language restrictions on the bonuses, but there are sometimes targeted links that don't the personal cards.
00:19:02.794 --> 00:19:05.919
You have lifetime language restrictions on the bonuses, but there are sometimes targeted links that don't the personal cards.
00:19:05.919 --> 00:19:20.643
You have to apply from lowest to highest annual fee if you want to get all the bonuses, and then you'll want to make sure you have an exit strategy to keep your points alive if you don't want to keep your card that has a high annual fee long term.
00:19:20.643 --> 00:19:34.298
One more thing that Amex does is that sometimes, even if you have never applied for a card, you might go to apply and get a pop-up that says something like due to your history with Amex, you aren't eligible for this welcome offer.
00:19:34.298 --> 00:19:37.614
People often refer to this as pop-up jail.
00:19:37.614 --> 00:19:42.692
If it happens for you with one Amex card, it might happen for you with others as well.
00:19:42.692 --> 00:19:47.856
So it feels like you're in jail because you can't get approved for Amex cards due to this pop-up.
00:19:47.856 --> 00:20:01.297
Now, a plus here is that once you have one Amex card, amex doesn't generally check your credit report when you're applying for another card, so you won't have any hard pull on your credit report even if you get that pop-up.
00:20:01.297 --> 00:20:11.231
So you can try a bunch of Amex cards if you want to see if you can get approved for another one after you get your first pop-up, if you're getting the Amex pop-up a lot.
00:20:11.873 --> 00:20:16.367
There isn't a surefire way to get out of pop-up jail, but there are some theories.
00:20:16.367 --> 00:20:20.233
So first of all, one is that you want to start looking like a better customer.
00:20:20.233 --> 00:20:24.961
That generally means start putting more spend on the Amex cards you do have.
00:20:24.961 --> 00:20:29.135
The next thing that people do is to try to find targeted Amex offers.
00:20:29.135 --> 00:20:32.855
Look in your email, look in your mailbox, look when you log in.
00:20:32.855 --> 00:20:36.295
These targeted offers are more likely to be approved.
00:20:36.295 --> 00:20:48.317
I personally am almost always in pop-up jail for any of the good referral offers, but I can usually get approved for the targeted offers that come to me and then just keep trying every few months Again.
00:20:48.317 --> 00:20:50.648
There's not really a rhyme or reason to it.
00:20:50.648 --> 00:20:52.834
So overall, just keep trying.
00:20:53.515 --> 00:20:59.799
Once you have a card, here are the main ways you're going to keep earning points beyond that initial welcome bonus.
00:20:59.799 --> 00:21:02.068
Now the first is spending.
00:21:02.068 --> 00:21:10.513
This is why some people really like the gold card, because it earns four points per dollar on groceries, so that can really add up for a family.
00:21:10.513 --> 00:21:15.492
Every card has different bonus earning categories, so I'm not going to go over them right now.
00:21:15.492 --> 00:21:21.016
This episode will be long enough as it is, but that is an area that you could choose to focus on and maximize.
00:21:21.016 --> 00:21:25.435
Next, you might be able to get referral bonuses, especially with friends and family.
00:21:25.435 --> 00:21:42.195
You never want to self-refer, but you can refer a spouse or a child or a parent anyone or a friend, and because you can generally refer from your Amex card to any Amex card, there's a lot of options for referring a friend or a spouse or a child or a parent.
00:21:42.195 --> 00:21:49.727
You'll also want to watch each month to see what your offers are, to see if you can submit them to our community referral page.
00:21:49.727 --> 00:21:54.238
Again, that form goes out the first Saturday of every month in my newsletter.
00:21:55.085 --> 00:22:03.013
Amex also sends out other offers to earn more points fairly regularly by doing things like adding authorized users or employee cards.
00:22:03.013 --> 00:22:06.974
You can even earn points sometimes for enrolling in pay over time.
00:22:06.974 --> 00:22:11.957
I recommend enrolling but not using pay over time, since you want to avoid the interest fees.
00:22:11.957 --> 00:22:20.115
But those are things that you can be watching for because, more than other banks, amex sends those targeted offers for bonus earning opportunities.
00:22:20.115 --> 00:22:28.153
Like every bank these days, amex also has a whole set of card offers that you can opt in for that are constantly changing.
00:22:28.153 --> 00:22:31.227
These are when you log into the Amex app or the site.
00:22:31.227 --> 00:22:37.086
Some of the Amex offers are cashback offers and some will earn you more membership rewards points.
00:22:37.086 --> 00:22:47.681
I talked about in season one how I use card pointers to automatically add my offers to my cards every time I sign into Amex or Chase via a computer to my account.
00:22:47.681 --> 00:22:51.515
So that's a way you can automate adding those offers on if you choose to.
00:22:51.515 --> 00:22:57.795
You can also just browse them, because sometimes there's some that you wouldn't necessarily think about.
00:22:57.795 --> 00:23:13.994
We talked about how Chase has ultimate reward shopping and American Airlines has A-Advantage eShopping, which both can help you earn more ultimate rewards or American miles Once you have an American Express membership rewards card or checking account.
00:23:14.696 --> 00:23:16.968
You can do this same thing with Rakuten.
00:23:16.968 --> 00:23:24.240
So Rakuten is another one of these shopping portals where you can earn cash back on your online purchases.
00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:38.594
To earn cash back, all you have to do is sign up for an account and then click through a Rakuten link via their website or the browser extension or the app before making a purchase at one of their participating stores.
00:23:38.594 --> 00:23:48.919
But if you have an American Express credit card that earns membership rewards, you can actually opt to earn points instead of cash back.
00:23:48.919 --> 00:23:53.431
You don't have to make that online purchase with your Amex card to get those points.
00:23:53.431 --> 00:24:05.190
These are going to be bonus points on top of whatever you're using for your credit card, you'll still see earning rates on Rakuten in terms of cash back, but you're basically receiving membership rewards points at a one-to-one ratio.
00:24:05.190 --> 00:24:09.651
So 1% cash back will be the same as one point per dollar.
00:24:09.651 --> 00:24:17.132
5% cash back will be five points per dollar, and then points are deposited into your American Express account quarterly.
00:24:17.980 --> 00:24:30.522
If you've been listening to this podcast, you know I'm not a fan of complication or lots of effort, and what I find super annoying about Rakuten is that the cash back rates, or the earning rates, are constantly changing.
00:24:30.522 --> 00:24:43.134
It might be 2% one day and 15% the next day, but, just like with the American Shopping Portal or Chase Shopping, if you do a lot of online shopping, this can really pay off.
00:24:43.134 --> 00:24:46.266
If you want to maximize this, you can.
00:24:46.266 --> 00:25:00.491
If this piques your interest and you want to dive into Rakuten, the best thing to do at first, I think, is just spend a little time on the website and look at all of the stores on there to see which ones are stores that you actually shop at.
00:25:00.491 --> 00:25:03.969
That will help you focus in on what deals are relevant to you.
00:25:03.969 --> 00:25:06.508
Most of the stores are pretty static.
00:25:06.508 --> 00:25:09.068
It's just the earning rates that change all the time.
00:25:09.068 --> 00:25:14.071
Then what I've done to automate it is I signed up for a tracking site called TrackRack.
00:25:14.071 --> 00:25:24.803
I started with the free subscription, which gives you one alert, but then later I moved up to paid as I was testing it, and I just set up alerts for the few stores I actually shop at.
00:25:24.803 --> 00:25:32.848
So I have it set to tell me when PetSmart is at 15% cashback, and when I get that alert I buy a bunch of cat litter.
00:25:32.848 --> 00:25:46.463
Then I also have the Rakuten browser extension installed on my computer and my phone so that it automatically prompts me to opt in for extra cash back or points earning on any online shopping I'm doing.
00:25:46.463 --> 00:25:51.623
I'll add videos of how you can add the Raccoon Inc extension to your browsers in the show notes.
00:25:52.224 --> 00:26:09.961
I'm not going to go into redeeming membership rewards points at all in this episode because this is already a long episode, but also because pretty much the best way to redeem them is by transferring them to the partners the airline and the hotel partners and the sweet spots vary based on where you want to go.
00:26:09.961 --> 00:26:15.173
When it comes to domestic travel, we're covering a lot of sweet spots this season.
00:26:15.173 --> 00:26:25.310
Now Amex will often try to tempt you to redeem your points while paying for Amazon or some other websites, and these are usually around 0.7 cents per point.
00:26:25.310 --> 00:26:30.596
So if you had 10,000 points, you'd get $70 off your Amazon purchase.
00:26:30.596 --> 00:26:35.030
For most people, you will find that your points stretch further by transferring them.
00:26:35.030 --> 00:26:39.388
But you know my mantra I celebrate however you want to use your points.
00:26:39.388 --> 00:26:44.230
So if you really want to cash them out for gift cards or Amazon purchases, go for it.
00:26:44.230 --> 00:26:47.990
Whatever brings value to your life is how you should be using your points.
00:26:48.680 --> 00:26:51.441
Let's jump to action steps for this week Now.
00:26:51.441 --> 00:26:52.123
This first one.
00:26:52.123 --> 00:27:02.894
I didn't mention at all yet in the episode, but I recommend it, if you have an Amex account, that you go and make sure that you're opted in for marketing emails and snail mail.
00:27:02.894 --> 00:27:09.873
Normally we all want to opt out, but you want these from Amex because this is how they send you those targeted offers.
00:27:09.873 --> 00:27:13.288
This will be in the show notes, but as a quick verbal description.
00:27:13.288 --> 00:27:18.328
You're going to log into your account and then you're going to look for account services across the top tab.
00:27:18.328 --> 00:27:25.503
Then go to alerts and communications, select marketing email preferences and make sure you're opted into everything.
00:27:25.503 --> 00:27:36.901
Then go back again to alerts and communications and look for privacy preferences and make sure you're opted into email and mail there too, if you have an Amex card currently.
00:27:37.281 --> 00:27:39.627
Here's a few more action steps I'm going to give to you.
00:27:39.627 --> 00:27:42.900
First, start working on your exit strategy, if you're not planning to keep the card that you have.
00:27:42.900 --> 00:27:42.852
Next I'm going to give to you.
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First, start working on your exit strategy, if you're not planning to keep the card that you have.
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