Amex Membership Rewards vs. Chase Ultimate Rewards

September 22, 2013

Andy Shuman | Google+

These are the two most popular general credit card reward programs. They allow you to transfer points directly to many airline and hotel programs of your choice, as well as redeem them for gift cards. They are very popular with frequent and not-so-frequent flyers. The appeal is flexibility and versatility, since with those programs you are not tied to one particular airline alliance or a hotel chain, and you can use them on whatever partner you want when the need arises.

Membership Rewards

Airline Transfer Partners

One World: British Airways, Iberia, Cathay Pacific (Asia Miles)
Star: Aeroplan, ANA, Singapore Airlines
SkyTeam: Delta, Flying Blue, Alitalia, Aeromexico
Non-alliance: El Al (ridiculously high transfer rates), Hawaiian, Virgin Atlantic, JetBlue, Frontier

Hotel Transfer Partners

Best Western
Choice Privileges
Hilton Honors (1:1.5)
Jumeirah Hotels & Resorts
SPG (3:1)

The program has three levels of membership.

EXPRESS with credit cards like Blue and Zink that does not allow you to transfer (you can only redeem points for gift cards).
REGULAR with credit cards like Green, Gold and Corporate that does allow to transfer.
FIRST with expensive cards like Platinum and Centurion that allows to transfer and offers some additional perks.

The best credit cards for Membership Rewards, which currently offer 50,000-point sign-up bonuses, are Amex Business Gold and Amex Platinum Mercedes Benz, although the later carries a $475 annual fee. This fee, however, is worth every penny due to the perks that come along with the card.

Advantages:

Bigger number of transfer partners: 15 airlines from all three alliances and 5 hotels.
Frequent generous transfer bonuses.
Occasional bonuses for gift-card redemptions like Home Depot.

Disadvantages:

Not partnered with prime US airlines such as United or AA.
Not much value in transfers to hotels
Can’t redeem points for cash.
Not good redemption rates for travel (better for Amex Platinum subscribers but still less than one cent per dollar).

Ultimate Rewards

Airline Transfer Partners

One World: British Airways
Star: United
SkyTeam: Korean Air
Non-alliance: Virgin Atlantic, Southwest

Hotel Transfer Partners

Hyatt
Marriott
IHG (Priority Club)
The Ritz Carlton

Others

Amtrak

There are two types of credit cards associated with the program, BASIC like Freedom and Sapphire that don’t allow transfers, and PREIMUM like Sapphire Preferred, Ink Plus and Ink Bold. These premium cards consistently have good sign up bonuses (40K, 50K, and 50K points) and the annual fees are waived for the first year.

Freedom, which doesn’t carry an annual fee, is a great card too, as it has quarterly rotating 5x categories. If you have both Freedom and a Sapphire Preferred, you can transfer your Freedom points to Sapphire (which is a snap) and then to the partner of your choice.

Advantages:

Can transfer to United.
Transfers are very easy, quick, and straightforward.
The ability to transfer to Amtrak can be extremely lucrative.
Reasonable value with transfers to Hyatt
Can redeem for cash.
Great cashback with Ink cards.
20% discount on travel redeem through Ultimate Rewards

Disadvantages:

Smaller number of partners.
No transfer bonuses ever.

Both programs have numerous sweet spots and perfectly complement one another. If you have to choose, choose both:-).

Andy Shuman Andy Shuman is an avid traveler and author of books on Frequent Flyer and Hotel Loyalty programs. You can find his books on Amazon and connect with him on Facebook or Twitter....
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Delta® Reserve for Business

Annual Fee: $450 fee
Foreign Fees: No
Card Type: Travel

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Earn 40,000 bonus miles and 10,000 MQMs after you spend $3,000 in purchases with your new Card in the first 3 months.†
Earn 15,000 Medallion® Qualification Miles (MQMs) and 15,000 bonus miles after you reach $30,000 in eligible purchases on your Card in the calendar year.
Earn 2 Miles per dollar spent on eligible purchases made directly with Delta. Earn 1 mile on every eligible dollar spent on purchases.
Settle into your seat sooner with Priority Boarding and enjoy 20% savings on eligible in-flight purchases in the form of a statement credit.
Pay no foreign transaction fees when you spend overseas.‡
Complimentary Delta Sky Club® Access.‡
Terms and limitations apply
See Rates & Fees

Breakdown

Earn (pt.)

Spend

3 months

$3,000

Per dollar on eligible purchases with Delta Purchases

2.00

All Purchases

1.00

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Delta® Reserve for Business

Annual Fee: $450 fee
Foreign Fees: No
Card Type: Travel

Apply Now Add to Favorites

FTG Review	Reward Breakdown	Points Breakdown
Earn 40,000 bonus miles and 10,000 MQMs after you spend $3,000 in purchases with your new Card in the first 3 months.† Earn 15,000 Medallion® Qualification Miles (MQMs) and 15,000 bonus miles after you reach $30,000 in eligible purchases on your Card in the calendar year. Earn 2 Miles per dollar spent on eligible purchases made directly with Delta. Earn 1 mile on every eligible dollar spent on purchases. Settle into your seat sooner with Priority Boarding and enjoy 20% savings on eligible in-flight purchases in the form of a statement credit. Pay no foreign transaction fees when you spend overseas.‡ Complimentary Delta Sky Club® Access.‡ Terms and limitations apply See Rates & Fees Breakdown Earn (pt.) Spend 3 months 0 $3,000 Per dollar on eligible purchases with Delta Purchases 2.00 $1 All Purchases 1.00 $1 Apply Now
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Credit Cards – A Folder Full of Goodies

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Carol

According to Web Flyer conversion, MR points can be transferred 1:1 to Virgin Atlantic and then 1:2 from Virgin Atlantic to Hilton HHonors. Transferring to an airline may seem like a better option, but it’s only better if you need miles. If, like me, you have plenty of miles but are short of hotel points, transferring to a hotel program is more valuable.

Beware: Webflyer indicates that MR points can be transferred to Hawaiian miles and from Hawaiian to Hilton… not true. I learned the hard way that miles transferred from another program to Hawaiian CANNOT be transferred out of Hawaiian!

mnscout

Yep, thanks for pointing it out. I would add that in the past there have been up to 35% transfer bonuses to Virgin Atlantic, so if one is interested in HHonors points, it makes sense to wait for another one. UR points can also be transferred to Virgin Atlantic

Carol

Thanks for the tip on the 35% transfer bonus. How often does MR offer a transfer bonus and how can I find out about them? I need more Hilton points for a trip to Orlando in either Feb. or March and would love to get a bonus but don’t want to wait so long that the points don’t transfer in time.

mnscout

If history teaches us anything (LOL) then you might hope they’ll offer a transfer bonus in the winter, like they did for the last 2 years, but of course no guarantee. Besides if you travel in February that might cut it too close.
disqust101

MR transfer to Hilton are a terrible redemption value. If you want Hilton, sign up for the Amex Surpass, get the 50K signup bonus and do some MS at grocery at 6x (cpp is ~0.2c at grocery).

MRs are worth ~1.5c or better for airlines. HHpesos are worth about 0.3c, so if you are getting 2 HHpesos per MR when you transfer, you are only getting 0.6c value for your MR point – a huge devaluation from what you should be getting.

Carol

Doesn’t matter if I don’t need airline miles but do need hotel points. For the record, I have been offered 50K bonuses twice to switch my HH AMEX to a Surpass, which I did, and I do take advantage of the 6X and 3X categories. I also have gotten generous bonuses twice for the VA card and Hawaiian Air cards (transferred to Hilton 1:2), as well as Citi HH cards. Transferring 50K MR points to VA and then to HH 1:2 will get me and my family 4 nights in a suite at Homewood Suites in Orlando with free breakfast every morning and free evening meals and wine/beer Monday through Thursday. That same suite would be $800 + tax for 4 nights. That’s a good value for me.
Carol

Forgot about getting the 5th night free… so we would actually get 5 free nights for 50K MR points. Those 5 nights would otherwise cost $1119 including tax. That’s a point value of .0224 if I did the math correctly.
Carol

Forgot about getting the 5th night free… so we would actually get 5 free nights for 50K MR points. Those 5 nights would otherwise cost $1119 including tax. That’s a point value of 2.24 cents if I did the math correctly. How is that a terrible redemption value?

Penn Dalton

Don’t forget about 2:1 to VX with MR!

mnscout

Thank you, why did I forget that? It’s also worth noting that they have a 40% bonus right now till the end of September, so it’s 2:1.4, which makes it a little better. And VX does have a few sweet spots in their program, too. Thanks again!

Penn Dalton

Yeah, really tempting bonus, but using them is such an unknown compared to using UA, AA, DL miles since you can’t look at award availability and have to call in.

These responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

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