How to get 1.53c per Amex Membership Reward point with Amex Business Platinum

One of the easiest and sure shot way of getting good value from your Amex Membership reward points is to use them for paying travel on AmexTravel.com. Normally, you would get about 1c value for each Membership reward point when you use them to pay for travel at AmexTravel.com. But if you have a Business Platinum card in your folio, you can benefit from a little-known feature to get even more value for your points.

Amex 35% Airline Bonus. Images courtesy Amex.

The feature is called '35% Airline Bonus,' through which get 35% of your used points back and using it you can get 1.53 cent value per point. That is even better than the Chase Sapphire Reserve pay with points feature and can be better than transferring points to an airline to book the flight as an award on many occasions.

Without this feature, you can book a $100 flight for 10,000 Amex points but with the feature, the same flight will cost you only 6,500 points. That is much lower than paying, say an award price of 12,500 + $5.60 for a one-way award these days, and can be used more often as cash sales are easier to find and marketed more.

You can use this to book Economy tickets with a pre-selected airline of your choice or a Business or First ticket with any airline available via AmexTravel. 

The steps to make use of this feature are as follows.

  1. Pre-select an airline if booking an economy ticket. This will be same as your $200 Airline Fee Credit airline. You can book any airline if booking Business or First class.
  2. Search for your flight at AmexTravel.com
  3. On the payment screen, select Pay with Points to only use your points to pay or Use Points + Card to use a mix of points and cash.
  4. Select your Business Platinum card and add its details. (Selecting Business Platinum here is essential to get the 35% points rebate).
  5. Complete purchase and book the flight.

Payment options to use points. You can either pay only using your points or pay partially with points and still earn the 35% rebate.
AmexTravel Payment Options.

The payment will show up as a charge on your credit card statement, but worry not, points deducted from your rewards account will be used to wipe the charge off.

Amex Travel Card Payment charge and removal with points.


Points used for the purchase will be deducted from your rewards account the same day.

Amex Travel Points Deduction.

After the purchase, it can take somewhere from 6 to 10 weeks for the rebate points to show up in your account. In the example shared below, it took 8 weeks for the points to show up.

Amex Platinum Business 35% points back.


If you don't have a Business Platinum card and are looking to apply for a new Business Platinum card, you can use our referral link below and sign up to earn up to 200,000 points after initial spending.

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