U.S. American Express customers with Membership Rewards accounts now have access to point.me to search for award travel across all of the airline loyalty programs that American Express transfers to. Members can log in with their Amex account for instant access.
It’s a really nice way to help American Express cardmembers make the most of their points, getting the greatest value from points transfers which can often be confusing – but done right it far more lucrative than any other redemption option.
White label ‘point.me for Membership Rewards® points’ includes not just the powerful award search tool, but also point.me’s step-by-step booking instructions and videos that show you everything from how to sign up for the partner’s frequent flyer account, to how to make the transfer, and how to create the booking.
I think Point.me is the most useful award search tool for most members of frequent flyer programs. They are comprehensive, showing you availability of different award options across programs while also showing you what your points can do and which the best points to use are.
If there’s been a limitation to Point.me, I guess I’d say:
- they haven’t let you search across multiple dates at once (though you could open more than one browser window to open at the same time)
- they take a few seconds longer than some other search sites, because they aren’t just caching old availability and they’re verifying the results to improve the likelihood that availability is real (airline sites sometimes return results that aren’t bookable)
- they don’t keep monitoring for availability and email you when it opens up
Generally Point.me isn’t free, but it’s extremely reasonable for what you get – $5 for 24 hours; $12 per month; or $129 per year. This gets it to you free with your American Express Membership Rewards account, but doesn’t search availability for programs that aren’t Amex transfer partners.
Bilt Rewards also offers free Point.me to its members including searches of programs that they partner with for transfers. Brands are comfortable working with Point.me, I suspect, because they are really careful. They don’t just cache results, they triple check everything, so they aren’t leading consumers down an incorrect path – award space looks available, they make a transfer, then they get disappointed. That’s server and time-intensive, and limits some of the power tools folks like, but it’s important for brand protection for a company like American Express I’m sure. And it means you’re confident in results you’re getting.
Point.me, by the way, is what Air France KLM cites as the reason they need to keep redemption rates low so that they win the competition for customers to transfer points into their program.
After more than I decade I folded my award booking service into point.me and their concierge booking services can handle everything for you as well, but honestly their self-serve tools are really good. The Amex white label doesn’t include things like their concierge service.
There’re quite a few award search tools that have become available recently. I assume airlines aren’t particularly thrilled by the proliferation of these tools (see Aeroplan vs Seats.aero, for example). Would partnerships with AmEx and Bilt make Point.me an exception, considering the leverage these institutions (especially AmEx) have with airlines?
Tried the site a few times. Not impressed. $129 per year? Bahahahaha.
And yet just last month I transferred 155,000 Amex points to Aeroplan for a redemption I first found on point.me and verified on Aeroplan/Air Canada website but turned out was phantom.
Of, course when I asked for a reversal of the points transfer both companies said it was out of their hands and I’d have to talk to the other company.
Any chance this gets increased pressure from Amex to Aeroplan to fix their known issues with phantom space?
Any idea which cards are eligible? Was able to log in and get to the site but instead of a search button I have an upgrade one. Have a gold card.
Certainty – come on – they state they can search Aeroplan a key Amex partner, but when you try it just sits in search purgatory and comes up with nothing.
Seats.aero working great for me – choice of ultra fast continent level search that’s cached or the ‘certainty’ of a validated point to point search. And lower price. Though probably the strategy is to churn the intro offers on these like with cards.
Avianca is partners with Amex. BCN-CAI-IAD shows as a result on Lifemiles website, but not on Points.me. Doesn’t seem like a good search tool.
Avianca doesn’t fly to Cairo, why do you think their website is correct? Did you check the operating plane’s website?
Doesn’t work for me. I have the Platinum card, it says “Upgrade now”
Never mind, working now.
I remember vanilla Points.me working really well, but this Amex-branded version is terrible. A couple examples for Aug 20th.
1) DEN – MIA (direct, economy, UA) bookable with 12.5k Aeroplan, plus options for connecting at SFO or IAH, it’s only returning Delta at 21k miles.
2) SEA – HNL (direct, first, AS) bookable with 42k Avios, plus options for connecting at DFW on AA, no flight found on Points.me.
3) YVR – IST (connect in SEA/ORD, economy, AC/TK) bookable with 55k Aeroplan, cheapest option is 78k Flying Blue.
Seems like it’s only returning Delta or Flying Blue most of the time, with other partners sprinkled in every once in a while.
What’s the list of airlines that are shown? Looks like Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific are not part of this.
I’ve been using point.me for quite awhile and find the $129 worth it – just. It does have limitations. It doesn’t always pick up some iberia flights (worth checking the iberia web site). It does not search 355 days out – so you have to go to Qatar separately. It did pick up some good deals from swwiss air on areoplan as well as some good air france flights.
Getting an Upgrade Now button that does absolutely nothing. I hold the platinum and platinum business cards.
Re Point.me and AmEx, great initiatives but I noticed once logged into Point.me via AmEx credentials, it exclusively searches for availability in programs where AmEx points can be used.
This major limitation makes it almost useless to me, as I have points in diverse set of programs already and I am interested in finding availability across programs regardless of where the points may come from, and not just using AmEx points.
Does this access only search for AmEx transfer partners or is it a full access log in?
@Gaurav, unfortunately it only searches for AmEx transfer partners 🙁
point.me, either Bilt’s version or the one-day pass, doesn’t find 50% of what other tools do find. To login via Amex account you need to give a phone number and a SS#/Driver License# or passport #.
No thank you.