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Will AMEX Membership Rewards add more frequent traveller partners, like to hear all your thoughts on this...

13 replies
thomas87

thomas87

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thomas87

Singapore Airlines - KrisFlyer

Member since 05 Apr 2016

Total posts 7

Hi all,


I’m a very big AMEX fan, have a platinum charge, business platinum charge cards. Love the current transfer partners they have however, strongly believe they need more, it sucks how there is NO Skyteam airline to transfer points to and NO Qatar Airways as a transfer partner.

Also the annual fees we pay for our cards in Australia are much more than Canada or USA, which has Skyteam partners to transfer to, which we don’t have here. As with paying higher fees, we should get more Frequent Traveller Partners than what’s currently available...

Would like all AMEX card members to voice and write about their opinions on this, so something can be done.


Poll: Should AMEX Membership rewards add more Frequent Traveller Partners than currenty available?

mnc

mnc

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mnc

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 06 Aug 2017

Total posts 37

they seem to be cutting rather than looking to add!

Michael Kao

Michael Kao

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Michael Kao

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 06 Nov 2014

Total posts 163

There are a few issues here in Australia compare to USA/Canada that gives Amex no incentive in adding more partners.

1. Lack of competition.
- other than Amex, the only other card on the market that allows transfer to more than 5 partners is Citiprestige, which is not an easy card to get due to the high income requirement. The next closest thing is Westpac altitude, with only Virgin, Krisflyer, Asia Miles, Enrich and the ever useless Airpoints.
- the recent RBA changes made Amex the only card on the market exempt from interchange fee caps. So even with Citiprestige, the earn rate is pathetic making it one of the worst earn rate card on the market.

2. Not many people can think outside of Qantas and Virgin.
- those are 2 of our major airlines and many people I spoke to, only knows these 2 FFPs, and nothing else.
- so it doesn't benefit Amex much more in adding more partners as majority of the people won't use it.

Saying that I really hope that few more partners can be added. Mainly AA and UA (forget DL, it has one of the worst FFP), JL's JMB and NH's AMC. They all have very good redemption rates. For skyteam most FFPs have bad redemption chart. But Korean Air is worth having. (FYI, Citiprestige have had AF's Flying Blue and Garuda's FFP for a while. They had DL before which was recently dropped. Also QR's Q-miles is also the transfer partner. But none of these FFPs have any decent redemption rate).

mspcooper

mspcooper

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mspcooper

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 09 May 2013

Total posts 442

A way to circumvent something like this is to use Hello Travel, who can book tickets and use your Amex points. I understand this may not be what you are looking for, but where do you draw the line in regards to partners. I’m not saying you should not ask....

Chris C.

Chris C.

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Chris C.

Member since 24 Apr 2012

Total posts 1,116

Something to keep in mind is that the volume of points the bank buys from each airline could affect the pricing of each individual point (when bought in bulk in the hundreds of millions, or billions), so in theory, the more partners a program has, the less points they'll buy from each partner, so the price per point the bank pays could increase, and thus negatively affect conversion rates.


Personally, I'm for quality rather than quantity, but I would like to see at least one SkyTeam partner added (Korean would be good)... but until then, you can book various SkyTeam flights by converting to other programs (Korean by converting to Skywards or Etihad Guest, Delta by converting to Velocity or Flying Club, etc).

thomas87

thomas87

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thomas87

Singapore Airlines - KrisFlyer

Member since 05 Apr 2016

Total posts 7

There are a few issues here in Australia compare to USA/Canada that gives Amex no incentive in adding more partners.
1. Lack of competition.
- other than Amex, the only other card on the market that allows transfer to more than 5 partners is Citiprestige, which is not an easy card to get due to the high income requirement. The next closest thing is Westpac altitude, with only Virgin, Krisflyer, Asia Miles, Enrich and the ever useless Airpoints.
- the recent RBA changes made Amex the only card on the market exempt from interchange fee caps. So even with Citiprestige, the earn rate is pathetic making it one of the worst earn rate card on the market.

2. Not many people can think outside of Qantas and Virgin.
- those are 2 of our major airlines and many people I spoke to, only knows these 2 FFPs, and nothing else.
- so it doesn't benefit Amex much more in adding more partners as majority of the people won't use it.

Saying that I really hope that few more partners can be added. Mainly AA and UA (forget DL, it has one of the worst FFP), JL's JMB and NH's AMC. They all have very good redemption rates. For skyteam most FFPs have bad redemption chart. But Korean Air is worth having. (FYI, Citiprestige have had AF's Flying Blue and Garuda's FFP for a while. They had DL before which was recently dropped. Also QR's Q-miles is also the transfer partner. But none of these FFPs have any decent redemption rate).

I've always seen great availability with Korean Air Skypass!!!! I havent gotten a Citiprestige card, cause or any other Visa/MC credit cause I dont like the fact how you can earn less that 1 point per $1 spent on various transactions, whereas AMEX is at least 1 point/$1 on almost all transac except tax and utilities.

thomas87

thomas87

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thomas87

Singapore Airlines - KrisFlyer

Member since 05 Apr 2016

Total posts 7

Something to keep in mind is that the volume of points the bank buys from each airline could affect the pricing of each individual point (when bought in bulk in the hundreds of millions, or billions), so in theory, the more partners a program has, the less points they'll buy from each partner, so the price per point the bank pays could increase, and thus negatively affect conversion rates.

Personally, I'm for quality rather than quantity, but I would like to see at least one SkyTeam partner added (Korean would be good)... but until then, you can book various SkyTeam flights by converting to other programs (Korean by converting to Skywards or Etihad Guest, Delta by converting to Velocity or Flying Club, etc).

Awesome insight on the bigger scale of things Chris, I wouldn't want current conversion rates negatively affected. Do hope they can add Korean Air Skymiles at least. As their mileage chart has great redemption rates.

Where as if we covert Etihad guest miles to Korean Air Skypass, I find that more points needed to do so that using Korean Air Skypass program directly.

EQUIVALENT RATES SYD-ICN
    • Etihad guest chart

5001 - 6000 miles is 94000 Etihad Guest Miles one way

    • Korean Air Skypass chart

Korea to Oceania OFF-PEAK 120,000 return (60,000 one way equivalent)

Korea to Oceania PEAK 185,000 return (92,500 one way equivalent)

I do like the Idea of KOREAN AIR SKYPASS!!!


freshthoughts

freshthoughts

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freshthoughts

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 08 Aug 2016

Total posts 112

yes would be great if they added korean but adding Qatar would have zero value. they program has some of the highest rates and stringent policies plus you can book all of their flights with any other one worlds program

thomas87

thomas87

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thomas87

Singapore Airlines - KrisFlyer

Member since 05 Apr 2016

Total posts 7

yes would be great if they added korean but adding Qatar would have zero value. they program has some of the highest rates and stringent policies plus you can book all of their flights with any other one worlds program

Doesn't Qatar Airways severely restrict their award availability to other one world carriers?

pab2025

pab2025

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pab2025

Member since 25 Jun 2012

Total posts 126

The best part of the Aussie Amex MR program is the ability to transfer to SPG at around 2 MR Gateway: 1SPG. You can then transfer to lots of different airlines from there. Might take a little longer, but in the US, you can only transfer to SPG at 3:1 which is terrible.

mikes1917

mikes1917

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mikes1917

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 05 Jan 2015

Total posts 2

The 2 most useful MR partners for me would be AA and CX as diverting my MR points through SPG at 2:1 and then onwards means that I get a whole lot less than our American friends do for the dollar value of MR points

west49th

west49th

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west49th

Member since 11 Aug 2017

Total posts 5

The 2 most useful MR partners for me would be AA and CX as diverting my MR points through SPG at 2:1 and then onwards means that I get a whole lot less than our American friends do for the dollar value of MR points

And this won't be an option once Marriott absorbs SPG into it's own programme.

pkjames

pkjames

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pkjames

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

Member since 21 Jan 2017

Total posts 44

KE, NH and perhaps DL!

albyd

albyd

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albyd

Singapore Airlines - KrisFlyer

Member since 18 Jun 2018

Total posts 1

I agree with ChrisCh’s view that adding too many partners, some of which might be a little obscure (Diners was a good example of such a program) may have the perverse impact of increasing Amex’s Cost of points and therefore devaluing our MR points.


Amex is the most comprehensive program in our market. Their funding model does give them an advantage over MC/Visa already so they don’t need to do much to stay ahead of the competition.

I’m mainly keen to confirm well before the August cut over whether Marriott will be a transfer partner and what the transfer rate will be. I’m hoping they’ll maintain parity with the current SPG rate which would imply 1.5 Marriott per 1 MR but could also match Hilton and be 1:1 which would imply a significant devaluation. I’d like to know we’ll in advance so SPG loyalists like me know whether to do one final transfer at current rates.

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