We have similar for our Chase Sapphire card. I just turn the points into cash, i.e. use them to pay off the bill after a big trip. It's possibly not the *best* way to use them, but it's direct and to the...point.

I have accrued a bunch with my Cap One card. Amazon asks me if I want to pay with points. In my mind I am saving them for some unscheduled trip. Id probably do what Bookwoman does. I better use them before I croak.

I use points on Amazon earned with the card I use for online purchases. For points I earn with another card (through my CU), I let them build up then have them cashed out to my account.

I better use them before I croak.

One day I said just that to my husband, bluntly (he's about to turn 72 but still thinks he's 45.) He had so many cc points (and Amtrak points, from years of business trips to DC and NYC), and I thought it was foolish not to use them. So he listened to me - as he always should, of course 😉, and we've covered a couple of European trips with the cc points as well as some longer train rides in upgraded seats. Use 'em or eventually lose 'em!

I am another one with many unused Amex points. I have read that the best way to use them is to transfer them into various airlines point programs and use them to buy tickets. But I don't have the patience or discipline to figure it out. I have used them for hotel bookings in their FHR program, and have noticed that their value varies widely. For some hotels such as NYC luxury hotels, they tend to transfer 1 point = $1. For international hotels it seems like it's almost always less. You have reminded me that I should look to use some of my points, as it's silly to have them sit there potentially devaluing.

Have any of you ever followed The Points Guy (TPG)? His daily articles will somewhat make your head spin and i do not recommend going down the rabbit hole of trying to read every single one, but he does have great advice of how to best use your points. Further he keeps up with the current deals.

I too have a lot of Amex points and did have a lot of Hilton points. DD and I, between us, used points for some really nice hotel stays in Italy (except in Sicily) using our Hilton and her Chase points. I used Amex points in the past for DH and I to upgrade to business class and until I started using them more I upgraded quite frequently with my Delta skymiles. Unfortunately the airlines aren’t as generous with their programs as they once were.

With one of my cards I tend to buy gift cards with the points and they vary widely how much they get. Some brands are much more eager to have you buy their stuff. Best Buy and gap usually have better point to $ ratios then Amazon.

My parents similarly have accumulated a lot of Amex Skymiles points from my father's business travel and using that as a primary payment method for many years. They have been doing annual Europe trips and using the miles for that travel. I am both really happy they are traveling and enjoyng retirement and simultaneously jealous as I sit here having a rough week at work. I do think there is always a risk of a program change or just not using them up before it's too late.

AmEx points are definitely a better deal at some places than others. I have actually purchased appliances (refrigerator, washing machine) with AmEx points by turning them into Home Depot gift cards. And I purchased Pottery Barn curtains for my many windows in my family room by turning points into PB gift cards. At the time I did that, they were the best value for points other than airplane tickets. This was back when I wasn't doing much traveling so points accumulated.

Now I use them exclusively for airplane tickets. I use the points to buy the tickets. Then I watch the upgrade price on the United app. I have found that the price varies widely and have gotten first class for a reasonable amount.

I have not tried to do it the reverse and purchase the tickets and use points to upgrade, so I'm not sure if that is actually a smarter financial decision.

I am another one with many unused Amex points. I have read that the best way to use them is to transfer them into various airlines point programs and use them to buy tickets. But I don't have the patience or discipline to figure it out.

@sas95 I go to AmEx's travel website and purchase the airline tickets there using points. It really could not be simpler. You get option to charge to credit card or use points.

Maybe it's a better deal to transfer to airline's frequent flyer program, but that seems like too much hassle to me, and I think the airlines have really upped the amount of points needed for a ticket these days. Haven't checked so I could be wrong.

With my Chase card, using points on Amazon is not a good value. Gift cards are a much better deal. to purchase. I occasionally buy an Amazon card to use for frivolous purchases.

I follow The Points Guy(TPG). I get his newsletter and I am a member of the TPG Lounge on FB. I’m also a member of Flyer Talk although I don’t participate there with any regularity. I follow Zachary Burr Abel and a couple of others on IG. The consensus is that miles are frequently devalued so use them often. Case in point, I built up sufficient Amex Rewards miles to pay for First Class tickets to Italy for me and DH. By the time that we got around to going, those points would not even buy basic economy for one of us.

Depending on who the points/miles are with, often they do not transfer when one spouse dies.

TPG suggests having 2 factor authentication on every account where you accumulate miles. People have had their miles/points stolen out of their accounts. Often they are just gone when that happens. The hotel/airline will not make you whole.

Remember, Amex Rewards points don’t expire. If you transfer them into your points/miles account with a particular airline or hotel, you run the risk of them expiring. My mother, bless her heart, transferred points to Delta and then they expired before she could use them. She was not happy.

Mtn, with that many points, I’d start following several of the points websites and/or groups. It is not as straightforward as it seems. Most airlines these days are part of some sort of group (One World, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance are the 3 most common). Different airlines within a group may have different redemption rates for a code-shared flight. You can get really deep into the weeds trying to figure it out. That is where the people who write about points are helpful.

Hmm, so it's complicated, like always. Since we so often travel as a group of five, finding first class seats for five on one itinerary with miles is usually difficult, and I know from experience I don't want us on two different records. So I don't usually use Amex miles for flights and we generally prefer boutique hotels or rentals so we can't use them for stays wither.

It sounds though, as if using them for flights is still the best value so I will continue to ignore all the prompts trying to get me to spend them!

Look at the Amex FHR (Fine Hotels and Resorts) site. You might be able to find some hotels that suit you.

The least value for your points is booking through Amex. Better value is transferring to your points/miles account and booking that way.

The absolute worst value for your Amex points IMHO is buying stuff with them. For example, I just looked at buying socks on Amazon using Amex points. The socks cost $16.45 or 2350 Amex points. TPG generally values Amex Rewards points at 1.5 cents each, although sometimes they go as high as 2 cents per point. At. 1.5 cents each, you’ve burned $35 in points for $16 worth of socks.

mtn. you can use your AmEx points to purchase first class tickets directly (not transferring to airline to buy tickets with points). With as many points as you have and as often as you travel, that's what I would do.

https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/travel/flights

Select # of passengers, first class, from/to and dates. It will show you all flights and the $$ amount and points.

If you already knew this, sorry for pointing out the obvious.

I used to use FHR a lot, for their upgrades and spa freebies. etc. I agree they have every nice properties, but I like small/quirky hotels so much more now.

Yeah, I think rule of thumb is 2 cents. I think I will plan our next trip around using miles, because they certainly won't be getting *more* valuable!

We almost always do small boutique hotels, and when we do larger hotels in bigger cities internationally we usually try to find something with more of a local flavor than an American branded place. But sometimes it's surprising who participates in the program in Europe-- maybe not FHR but often in the Hotel Collection group. Mostly, though, when I've used the FHR program/pay with points deal, it's when we do something like a staycation in NYC or a long weekend in Philadelphia or DC, where the quirkiness of the hotel is much less important.

Mtrnrd, I am curious. With that many points, do you put all your charges on your Amex or just travel?

I try to play the point game - but it can be tiresome. I have 2 different Am Ex cards - I earn bonus points on the Gold card for groceries and restaurants. I use the Plat for other purchases, travel and special offers. The Points Guy says you get the best value from travel but those values vary widely. Before Covid my son and I flew first class to Ireland using my points. At that time, they also added 25% of the points we used back to my account. I don't think they do that now.

Since we probably won't be traveling anywhere soon I've switched to using my Chase Visa. When Chase runs a promotion offering Apple Gift cards for 15% or 20% off I redeem my bonus points for Apple gift cards. Last year I treated myself to a new Macbook, iphone and iWatch with points. This Christmas I'm using the Apple GC for the kids.

Using Am Ex points to purchase products or to buy Gift certificates isn't much of a bargain.

A $100 Apple GC on AmEx is 11, 765 points.

At Chase a $100. Apple GC is 10,000 points. But Chase often offers Apple gift certificates at a discount - 15% or 20%. That's when I cash in my points.

Recently Amazon offered a discount if you paid for your items with your Am Ex points But the tip I learned from the Point Guy was that you didn't have to pay the full amount with your points. You still got the discount as long as you used at least 1 Am Ex point.

m_c, that Amazon offer where you could use just one point was by invitation only. I’ve gotten invited before, but not this time. 🥲

There are still some of the transfer bonuses going on. I skimmed TPG Lounge to see if I could find an example. I found that in 2023 Amex to Avios yielded a 30% bonus, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some newer than that.

ETA: Transfer Amex points to Virgin Airlines for 40% bonus.

bbstx - I didn't get an invite to the Amazon offer either. But The Points Guy had a link in his column where you could check to see if you were eligible. That's how I found out. Interesting though, I only received 15% off but TPG said some people received 50% off.

@SAS95, We always use either our Amex or our Chase VISA, which is linked to British Air.

I am going to focus a bit more on using these up. But no socks!

Thanks all.

This is a bit off topic, but for anyone that likes to cruise, AARP sells discounted gift cards for several cruise lines. I purchase the Holland America ones when it's time to pay for cruise. They are 8% off (used to be 10% but recently changed). You do have to be an AARP member to purchase the Holland America ones. Not a big savings but everything counts. And I use my AmEx to purchase so I get those points too to use for flights to cruise. Win win.

This is what made me join AARP. Never saw the point before this. That and Holland America gives you on board credit each cruise if you're an AARP member.

@jsk, I’ve used the gift cards also to pay for my HAL cruise. I thought it was fairly straightforward, but I would caution anyone who is thinking about using them, read the fine print.

I’m using the AARP discounted gift cards to pay for a Celebrity cruise this summer. RCL (Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and Silversea) are discounted 10%. I’m paying for 6 people! That makes the 10% worth the effort. However, using the gift cards for RCL cruises is a little more tedious than for the HAL cruises. Again, read the fine print and ask questions. Apparently one of the most tedious requirements for RCL is emailing a copy of the gift card. With a max of $500 percard, I’ll have a bunch to deal with.

Also note what the discounted gift cards cannot be used for every thing.

jsk, did you know if you are an AARP member, you can get an OBC with HAL. Read this. I think it has to be claimed at the time of your booking. Not sure. The cruise consultant with HAL told me about it and then did whatever was necessary to obtain it for me.

ETA: there are also shareholder benefits if you own shares of the parent company.

Yes, @bbstx I get the OBC for my AARP membership every cruise. It's a bit annoying that it doesn't happen automatically. I have to have my PCC (personal cruise consultant) make sure it gets added each time.

That's very annoying about RCL. Thankfully, HAL doesn't have that requirement. The annoying thing is that paying on line with gift cards does not work. They're web site is so bad. Actually, I've found that all cruise site websites are just awful, as are their apps. I have to call to use the gift cards and read them each number/pin. The max size card you can purchase is $500 so it takes quite a few cards to make final payment on the cruise.

The interesting thing I've read is you can apply the gift cards to your account in the casino when on board, and then immediately cash out in the casino. DH keeps wanting to try this. It's free money he keeps telling me. Maybe we'll try it one of these days, but the thought of even entering the smoky casino turns my stomach!

Y'all have more jargon than pit traders at the CBOT.

I am guessing OBC is onboard something, but...?

AI was no help:

On Board Credit. I didn't know this, but a simple Google search of OBC + cruise gave me this as the first result. AI is pretty useless, I find.

I find AI better and better; it often surprises me. But one must be a cautious consumer of its output. I did a Google Search too, w.o "cruise," expecting a list. My search results begin with AI first.

You can use this, which gives you Google results without AI: udm14.com

As for cruises - I've only been on a few but after reading this article in New York magazine I'll have to make sure I'm prepared for just about anything, Obviously being too late to board your ship is a huge error and some of it was compounded by the passengers lack of preparation - like leaving their medicine on the ship while on an excursion on shore.

But the most interesting part of the article is how little responsibility the cruise lines have and how the contract you sign with them before departure more or less erases most of their liability. It wouldn't stop me from cruising but it would alert me to take certain precautions.

https://www.curbed.com/article/norwegian-cruise-ship-dawn-passengers-left-behind.html

That article has a paywall so couldn't read it, but I've read lots of articles of people being left behind.

Yes, if you take an excursion on your own (not booked thru the ship), you risk being left behind. Well, even if it's thru the cruise line, the ship can leave without you but it's their responsibility to get you to the next port. When the ship can leave is dictated by the harbor and weather conditions and not solely the captain. The ship will always wait if they can.

There are lots of videos of pier runners - those running the pier to get to the ship before the gangway is pulled up.

Ha, mtn, there is so much cruise lingo. There's always a newbie on the FB boards asking what all the acronyms are and begging people to just speak in words. Nope, too many words to type. OBC, MDR (main dining room), HIA (Have It All - Holland America's upgraded package), PCC (personal cruise consultant), B2B (back to back cruise),...

jsk - I'm sorry about the paywall. Until I read this article I thought that ship sponsored shore excursions would be a safe bet. Usually they are - but this article pointed out in the last paragraph that I included that they're not even liable for an excursion that they sponsored.

We were on a Viking cruise in France and there was some mix up. Two 2 bus loads of passengers had to be transported to the next docking site. They arrived before night fall and the ship held a special late evening meal for them with complimentary drinks.

From the New York Magazine article. Dec. 18 2024

....................."Cruise lines manage to avoid nearly any responsibility for their passengers, especially in times of chaos, accident, or bad luck. To start, they’re mostly incorporated in places like Liberia and Panama, although half of their customers are American. The individual ships, too, are foreign; the Dawn, for example, is registered in the Bahamas. For some cruise lines, this structure equals billions of dollars in tax savings. It also enables them to employ workers for 18-hour days, seven days a week, and to pay them poverty wages.

It means, too, that the web of regulations and agencies that protect a passenger on land during a vacation has no jurisdiction on a cruise. There is no equivalent to the Federal Aviation Administration. There is no Department of Transportation. There is no OSHA. At sea, cruises are subject to international maritime law — but such laws for passenger safety are largely suggestions. The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization requires vessels to operate with a standard “duty of care” for passengers and cargo, but what that entails is deliberately murky. The rules it does make the IMO doesn’t enforce or punish operators for breaking. There isn’t even a mandated protocol for how long a cruise ship has to look for you if you fall overboard — or if it has to look for you at all.

The ocean functions as a king of giant loophole in which no government authority is technically in charge. Cruisers love to say that ships are like small cities; they have jails, morgues, and medical centers. But they’re more like lawless autonomous zones with go-cart tracks and Imax theaters. No one knows exactly how much crime, injury, and death occurs in the loophole. Meanwhile, over the years, cruise passengers have been drugged and raped, drugged and murdered, robbed and assaulted. People regularly slip overboard after a day of partaking in bottomless drink packages. In the aughts, American lawmakers tried to rein in the cruise lines after a particularly high-profile case in which a newlywed groom fell (or was pushed) to his death after partying with a group of men in a Royal Caribbean cruise casino. Afterward, Congress managed to pass the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act, which mandated a host of regulations for cruise ships that dock on American soil, including minimum heights for railings and that ships be stocked with rape kits. Cruise companies were also supposed to begin to report crime statistics to the FBI. But advocates say the legislation, passed with heavy input from cruise-industry lobbyists, is essentially toothless. The crime data is self-reported and delayed. Very few companies have adopted the latest technology to detect when someone goes overboard, even though one or two people go over every month and, of that number, less than a third are rescued, according to one report.

The true law of a cruise ship is the passenger contract, which everyone signs when they buy their tickets and virtually no one reads. On Norwegian, the ticket is 15 single-spaced pages, in eight-point type, and its litany of disclaimers and policies allows the company to do essentially whatever it wants before, during, and after departure. The ticket, for example, enabled Norwegian to cancel the Dawn’s scheduled stops in Morocco after passengers had already been locked into payment. The ticket allowed a recently scheduled Bahamian cruise to skip the Bahamas and sail straight to Canada instead. Technically, the company could take you out into the ocean and never dock in a single place you paid for. No one would be entitled to a refund. You are almost never entitled to a refund, even if you’re diagnosed with cancer and must cancel your vacation to seek urgent treatment, which one couple from Florida found out last year. Also hidden in the fine print is that should any of your belongings get stolen, the cruise will reimburse you only up to $100.

The ticket also includes a clause that prevents the company from being held liable for anything that happens to you owing to force majeure, like an unexpected storm or illness, piracy, war, revolution, extortion, terrorist action or threat, hijacking, or bombing. But a cruise can kick you off the ship for pretty much any other reason too. That includes if you are late, which happens all the time — even if, contrary to popular belief, you’re late on an excursion sponsored by the cruise, for which you paid extra. A family of nine from Oklahoma was left by a Norwegian cruise in July after being late on a cruise-sponsored tour in Alaska. It cost them $21,000 to get home (though the company said they would be reimbursed). It says right in the ticket that Norwegian has no liability when it comes to shore excursions in any country, whether they make you late or kill you.

That article seems to have a thing against the cruise industry. Yes, we sign a contact that absolves them of many things. Missing ports is the big one. However, missing a port is always for a valid reason -- weather or a medical emergency that causes a detour. Cruise lines (at least the reputable ones) do not miss ports just because. I have never been on a cruise where we missed a port and our port fees were not refunded. Any excursions booked through the cruise are refunded. If you booked something on your own, you're on your own. Many private tours have a refund policy but one must know what they're getting as with anything else.

The thing about not refunding $$ even if diagnosed with cancer. Well yes, resorts on land have the same policy. If you don't cancel before the cancellation date, you're not getting your money back. Period.

Same thing with things being stolen. I've also read horror stories about resorts where people had things stolen (or so they said) and the resort did nothing.

And this:

People regularly slip overboard after a day of partaking in bottomless drink packages.

No, people do not regularly slip overboard. It's actually very hard to slip overboard. You have to be intentionally doing something very very stupid.

Also, know the reputation of the cruise line. If you are one to partake in bottomless drink packages to the point of endangering yourself, I can almost guarantee you won't be on my cruise.

Also also, the same thing goes for all inclusive resorts. Know the atmosphere at the resort before booking. There are many AIs you could not pay me to go to.

OK rant over. There are risks to cruising just as with any travel.

That article seems to have a thing against the cruise industry

There are risks to cruising just as with any travel.

No, I don't think that is true. The article is pointing out the unusual issues of jurisdiction for cruising, and they are not incorrect. People assume they have certain rights and remedies, and are surprised to find they have far less rights on cruises than on land or far less rights than if the ships were not registered in Liberia and Panama... This is even a running joke in our family; when someone does something wrong, they escape culpability by saying "but I was in international waters."

Oh yes, I get that. They don't register the ships in the US for a reason. All about $$. The thing that bugs me about this is that they can work the crew so hard and pay so little. And why I tip big on cruises.

I'm just pointing out that if you book a resort with a cancellation date, and you cancel after that, you're not getting your money back. Same as a cruise line. The cancellation dates and penalties incurred are very clearly laid out in my experience. One can choose to purchase travel insurance or not. I choose not.

And the line about people regularly falling overboard. Nope, not true. An exaggeration to prove their point.

I agree. I think how cancellations are handled in practice, outside of the agreed upon terms, is highly variable. I doubt one could make a blanket statement about it, good or bad.

And yes, "regularly falling overboard" is hyperbole!

We have two cards that get points, both Mastercard. One we use for groceries and one for everything else. I have always selected the gift cards because I assumed it had more value. The last time on the Chase, I just took a credit on the bill. It seemed to be the same.?

It was easy and I will probably do that on both from now on.

We have never had Amex and do not fly or stay in any resort.