Amex Membership Rewards transfer partners & transfer times [2026 edition]

One of the primary reasons why American Express Membership Rewards points are so highly valued is the flexibility they offer. By not being tied to a single airline or hotel loyalty program, you protect yourself against devaluations and open up a world of “sweet spot” redemptions across all three major alliances.

Important things to keep in mind

Before we get to the lists of transfer partners, there are three rules every Amex points holder should keep in mind:

1. Transfers are one-way: Once you move Membership Rewards points to a partner program, you cannot move them back. You should only transfer points when you have a specific award flight or hotel stay in mind and have confirmed availability.
2. The excise tax offset fee: For transfers to U.S. airline programs (Delta and JetBlue), Amex charges a fee of $0.0006 per point, capped at $99.
3. Names must match: You can only transfer points to loyalty accounts in your name or the name of an authorized user. The authorized user must have been on your account for at least 90 days before you can initiate a transfer to them.

At the time of writing, American Express Membership Rewards partners with 20 loyalty programs split between airlines and hotel chains. That’s more transfer partners than any of the other three big transferable currency programs.

Amex airline transfer partners

As of March 2026, Amex has 17 airline partners. While transfers to most partners continue to be offered in a 1:1 ratio, both Cathay Pacific and Emirates have recently made their transfer ratios a little worse.

The list of Amex airline transfer partners is impressive and covers a significant number of airlines across the three major alliances (OneWorld, Star Alliance & SkyTeam) as well as a couple of useful ‘independent’ airlines (Emirates and Etihad).

The value that each person gets from transferring Membership Rewards points to these airline programs will vary depending on what the points are eventually used for but, with British Airways Avios offering good value on a lot of expensive short-haul flights and with Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines offering some of the best premium cabins in the sky, you don’t have to look too hard to find some fantastic uses for Amex Membership Rewards points when booking airline awards.

Amex hotel transfer partners

As of March 2026, Amex continues to only offer three hotel transfer partners, and that’s one fewer than you’ll find Chase and Capital One offering and two fewer than Citi, so this is a notable weak spot in the Amex ecosystem.

To look at things positively, you could say that two of the three hotel transfer partners are also two of the biggest hotel chains in the world, but on the whole, we’re not fans of using Amex points for transfers to hotel programs as the transfer ratios don’t offer good value.

At TFM, we value Membership Rewards points at 1.5 cents each while we value Choice, Hilton, and Marriott points at between 0.4 cents and 0.6 cents each, so even the 1:2 transfer ratio on offer when you transfer between Amex and Hilton isn’t particularly tempting.

A transfer may be fine if you’re looking to top off an account with a few thousand points, but most people will be getting a very poor return on their Membership Rewards balance if they choose to transfer over a significant number of points to a hotel program.

Transfer times

As far as transfer times go, the information you see in the tables above is a guideline only – some transfers can be reliably instantaneous while with others the time taken to transfer Membership Rewards points can vary significantly.

We generally avoid moving points across to an airline program that doesn’t reliably offer instantaneous transfers unless we can put the award(s) we want to book on hold – the last thing we want to happen is for award availability to disappear in the time between actioning a transfer and the points arriving in our airline loyalty account.

Transfer fees

Annoyingly, American Express is the only one of the big three transferable currency issuers to charge a fee for transferring points, but, fortunately, it’s not applied to all transfers.

Transfers to US programs (like Delta and JetBlue) will incur a charge of $0.0006 per point transferred up to a maximum charge of $99. Transfers to all foreign programs are free of charge. The math dictates that for transfers of over 165,000 points to US programs, only the first 165,000 points incur a fee.

Transfers to other people’s loyalty accounts

Amex prohibits users from transferring Membership Rewards points into loyalty accounts where the name on the recipient account doesn’t match with the Amex cardholder or the name of an authorized user.

Since as far back as September 2019, authorized users of Membership Rewards earning cards have needed to have been authorized users for a period of 90 days before their loyalty program accounts can be linked to the primary Membership Rewards account. This applies to personal cards as well as business cards.

Transfers to other people’s Membership Rewards accounts

Amex prohibits two or more cardholders from pooling their Membership Rewards points.

Suggestions for Amex Membership Rewards cards

Consumer cards

• The Platinum Card® from American Express – 5 points/dollar on up to $500,000 of spending on airfares booked directly with airlines or through Amex Travel per year & 1 point/dollar thereafter + great benefits (terms apply).
• American Express® Gold Card – 4 points/dollar on up to $25,000 of spending at US supermarkets per year (1 point/dollar thereafter) and 4 points/dollar on up to $50,000 of spending at restaurants per year (1 point/dollar thereafter) (terms apply).
• American Express® Green Card – 3 points/dollar on most travel and on dining (terms apply).

Note: All information about the American Express® Green Card has been collected independently by Traveling For Miles. The American Express® Green Card is not currently available through Traveling For Miles.

Business cards

• The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express – 2 points/dollar on up to $50,000 of eligible spending per year and 1 point/dollar thereafter (terms apply).
• American Express® Business Gold Card – 4 points/dollar on the two categories* in which a cardholder spends the most each month on up to $150,000 in eligible spending per year and 1 point/dollar thereafter (terms apply).

*Restricted to select spending categories – see the card’s t&c for more

Bottom line

American Express Membership Rewards has a strong lineup of airline transfer partners and that’s a big part of why Membership Rewards points are so popular, but while other programs have expanded the number of hotel partners they offer, the hotel partners associated with Membership Rewards have remained the same for years and, frankly, they’re not particularly exciting.

Still, to end on a positive note, it’s important to recognise that Membership Rewards seems to offer worthwhile transfer bonuses more frequently than Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One or Citi ThankYou, and while these bonuses often don’t do much to make transfers to the hotel programs suddenly look super-attractive, the bonuses to the airline programs can yield great value and that’s when you start to see why credit cards that earn Membership Rewards points are as popular as they are.