More on the AMEX Fixed Rewards Program and Questions Answered

There is a lot of buzz around the new American Express Fixed Points Travel Program. Today, I am going to provide additional details about the program, along with answers to some previously asked questions.

List of Credit Cards that Earn Membership Rewards

To benefit from the Fixed Points Travel Program, you need to have a credit card that earns American Express Membership Reward points, which are as follows:

• American Express Gold Rewards Card ($150 annual fee; 25,000 sign up bonus points)
• American Express Business Gold Rewards Card ($250 annual fee; 30,000 sign up bonus points; 40,000 when referred)
• American Express Business Platinum Card ($399 annual fee; 40,000 sign up bonus points; 75,000 when referred)
• American Express Platinum Card ($699 annual fee; 50,000 sign up bonus points; 60,000 when referred)
• American Express Centurion Card ($5,000 initiation fee; $2,500 annual fee; unknown sign up bonus)

* If you want an added bonus with your Business card, check out our “Are you a Business Owner” page.

Highlights

Once you have the card, you can take advantage of the travel rewards bookings. Below are some of the key highlights to look out for:

1. Use Membership Rewards points to book flights anywhere in the world for fixed point amounts right up to a day before departure.
2. Access to book only any airline, Economy or Business Class.
3. Pay for taxes, fees and other surcharges with points in the booking journey or post-transaction with the Use Points for Purchases Program.
4. American Express Platinum Card holders can use the $200 travel credit to pay for taxes and fees (online or phone)
5. The bookings made using this reward are travel insurance covered as per the customers’ card insurance policy

As you can see, there is a high level of flexibility and choices. This makes the program highly competitive.

Questions

Below are two questions that were asked by our readers, along with a response, where I got confirmation from my American Express contacts.

1) Can you use the Platinum travel credit to cover the fees and taxes?

The answer is yes! As long as the amount including taxes/surcharges have been charged to your Platinum card are over $200, you can use $200 travel credit to offset that.

2) Any word if the Business Plat will have the points back program like the U.S. card when redeeming points?

They mentioned that there are no immediate plans for this specific benefit to be built into the Business Platinum Card.