I’ve often written that it’s possible for Amex Business Platinum cardholders to get just over 1.5 cents per point value by taking advantage of the card’s 35% Airline Bonus. I’ve only learned recently that you can do better. By combining the 35% Airline Bonus with Membership Rewards Insider Fares, I’ve found opportunities to get as much as 1.87 cents value when purchasing flights! This combination deal is also good for Business Gold cardholders and Business Centurion cardholders, as discussed below.
Membership Rewards Insider Fares
Insider Fares are a feature of Amex Travel. If you have a card that offers Membership Rewards points, then Amex Travel will often show you discounted fares when you search for flights. I’ve found discounts as high as 18%, but discounts around 10% are more common.
Of course, there’s a catch. You must pay for the entire ticket with Membership Rewards points to get the deal. That’s a problem because Membership Rewards points are usually worth only 1 cent each when spent on flights. So, with the discount you would get slightly better than 1 cent per point value. Usually it’s possible to do much better than that by strategically transferring points to airline miles.
There is one situation where it makes a lot of sense to take advantage of these discounts: If you have an Amex card that offers an Airline Bonus, you can get great value by combining both deals.
Amex Airline Bonus
Three Amex cards offer an Airline Bonus when you pay for airfare with Membership Rewards points:
- Business Gold: 25% Airline Bonus. Get 25% points back after you use Pay With Points for all or part of a flight booked with American Express Travel if the flight is either on your selected qualifying airline or First or Business class, up to 250,000 points back per calendar year.
- Business Platinum: 35% Airline Bonus. Get 35% points back after you use Pay With Points for all or part of a flight booked with American Express Travel if the flight is either on your selected qualifying airline or First or Business class, up to 500,000 points back per calendar year.
- Business Centurion: 50% Airline Bonus. Get 50% points back after you use Pay With Points for all or part of a flight booked with American Express Travel. I don’t know whether there are any caps when the Business Centurion version of this benefit.
Without any additional discounts, the Airline Bonus results in the following per point values:
- Business Gold (25% Bonus): 1.33 cents per point
- Business Platinum (35% Bonus): 1.54 cents per point
- Business Centurion (50% Bonus): 2 cents per point
By combining these Airline Bonuses with Insider Fares, you can do better
Observed Discounts
I ran quite a few searches through Amex Travel and recorded the Insider Fares when available. Insider Fares were available on most routes and cabins that I checked, but not with most airlines. American Airlines Insider Fares were by far the most common for domestic flights. Alaska was also well represented on routes that it serves. On international flights American and Delta were equally well represented, and many other airlines showed up as well. United was completely MIA domestically, but sometimes appeared as a code share with an alliance partner on international flights.
The following chart shows a summary of the data I collected where I found AA, Alaska, or Delta flights. Other airlines are not shown because I usually had only 1 data point for each.
As you can see above, AA and Delta discounts range from 8% to 16.4% for domestic flights, but Alaska discounts are under 6%.
Across all airlines, I found an average (mean) domestic discount of 9.9% and international discount of 6.64%. This translates into per point values as follows:
- Business Gold (25% Bonus): 1.48 domestic, 1.43 international
- Business Platinum (35% Bonus): 1.71 domestic, 1.65 international
- Business Centurion (50% Bonus): 2.22 domestic, 2.15 international
My Thoughts
The Business Platinum card used to offer a 50% Airline Bonus. I loved using that as a way to get 2 cents per point value from my Membership Rewards points. Since Amex dropped the benefit to 35% for that card, I’ve been less excited about using my points that way. I believe I get better value by transferring points to airline programs as needed.
Now, though, I’ve learned that I can often get around 1.7 cents per point value by combining the 35% rebate with Insider Fares. At that value, I’m more likely to pay with points. There is a catch though. Only American Airlines showed Insider Fares for all of the routes I checked. And my experience flying AA in the last few years has been awful. I’m not kidding when I say that the majority of my AA flights in the past few years have either been significantly delayed or cancelled. I now think of flying AA as a last resort.
Another issue is with economy flights. For economy flights, the Airline Bonus only applies to the airline that you picked as your preferred airline with American Express (e.g. the airline where you earn incidental fee reimbursements). And, sorry AA, but I’m not selecting you. So, for me, the most likely use of this combination of features will be when Insider Fares are available on Delta. Fortunately, on a few searches, Delta came back as the best priced option even before Insider Fares were applied. In those cases I’ll be very happy to spend points at around 1.7 cents per point value.
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Are there ever any Insider Fares on flights originating outside the U.S. flying to the U.S.? (let’s say for example.. American Airlines London-NYC-London)? And what about one-way flights?
Doesn’t seem to apply for flights involving to/from Hawaii. Yes, Amex offers the discount when using points but the discounted price is the same or not much lower as what google flights is showing.
What’s the latest on amex plat reimbursements on $100 aa gcs? This has worked for me for a number of years but seem to recall that this was shut down. Any feb or mar DPs?
Hi Greg, I have looked at fares through Amex before after having researched flights directly with the airlines. I have noticed that the fares that Amex finds after the “35% bonus” tends to be about the same price after the 35% that I find directly with the airlines. I noticed the same with CSR points… Am I missing something here?
Uhh, wut?
AmEx doesn’t show fares “after the 35% bonus;” it just shows fares, some of which are insider. 35% is a rebate of the number of points you use to purchase that fare.
As AJK said, the fares should be exactly the same on Amex Travel as elsewhere (except when Insider Fares are in play), but if you pay with points and have a Business Platinum card, you’ll get a 35% point rebate later on. First you pay the full amount and later get the rebate.
One huge variable that is left out of the equation is the Biz PT/Gold AF. Which truly would be YMMV, depending on the insider fare, the amount of MRs one has banked and can use.
Thank you AJK and Greg, I knew I was missing something. I didn’t realize it was a rebate.
This is very valuable info. I have noticed this before but never calculated the value above 1.5 cents, nor did I realize the Gold card had this benefit.
It’s actually worth more than the amounts you quote because you earn miles on the flight, correct?
This is really useful when there are no award seats available , which is typical on domestic flights.
Yes, that’s right. You will earn airline miles and elite qualifying miles + dollars.
What routes are you looking at for domestic fares? I can only seem to get insider fares with AA from ATL.
Hmm, that’s surprising. I found them everywhere I looked:
NYC – LAX
ATL – LAX
ATL – SEA
DTW – DFW
ORD – CDG
DTW – LHR
ORD – SYD
ORD – JNB
What dates are you looking? I was trying ATL-IND or ATL-FLL and just tried ATL-LAX but still only see AA. I have about 280k Amex MR so I should be able to cover any flight with points.
Most of my searches were for 7/3 – 7/7 round trip
That’s so strange, I still only see AA insider fares when searching ATL-LAX 7/3-7/7. I have 2 BBP and 1 ED card but no Plat or Biz Plat at the moment, I wonder if that’s why.
Do you mean that you don’t see insider fares when searching ATL-LAX 7/3-7/7?
I only see AA insider fares not Delta insider fares.
Oh, sorry, now I understand. I found the same: most domestic routes have AA Insider Fares, but not Delta. I found Delta on most international flights and on this domestic route: NYC-LAX. Maybe they only have them on routes that have a true Delta One configuration.
insider fares only show when you have enough points to cover the entire cost of the flight.