Why You MUST Use American Express to Collect Points

With all of the blogs out there telling you how to find award availability, it can become overwhelming.

First though, what do I mean by award availability, because this term confused me for almost a year.

In simplest terms, it just means finding a flight where you can use points to book it.

When I first started to try to find flights, I would be searching a route on google flights, and then when I'd go to Air Canada's website to search that same flight, and click, 'Book with points AEROPLAN', the flight wouldn't be there.

And if it was there, it'd be 300K points, for one person, one way!

In fact, I just had someone ask me the other day if he was doing something wrong as he would do what I did, and the points would be astronomical, just like the trip I quickly searched below for him, where he is trying to get to Cancun in March of 2025.

As you can see, this costs him in Economy, 53,900 per person, each way.

Now for a family of 3, that's 323,400 Aeroplan points + $642 in fees, round trip. That's a lot of points!

For months this went on when I first began my journey of learning about miles & points. I could never find any flights where I could book using points, and if I did, it would be soooo many points!

Now a days, after learning more and more about how the experts do it, it can be quite easy.

For instance, I quickly realized that American Express (Amex) Membership Reward (MR) points are one of the best, if not the best, points to accumulate. Mainly because they convert to so many other airline and hotel points (including Aeroplan).

A perfect example, this person whom asked me about flying to Cancun, only collected Aeroplan points. This limits you on where you can fly to and from unfortunately.

If they had collected Amex MR points, they would've had many more options, such as flying on Delta Airlines out of Detroit, using Delta SkyMiles points.

Which as you can see below, a flight on the same day as the one searched on Air Canada above; March 10th, is only 47,000 points per person, each way. So for a family of 3 that's 282,000 points + $378 in fees, roundtrip. This is 41,400 less points then if you booked through Air Canada using Aeroplan points.

However, this is where knowing the tricks of collecting miles and points and finding award availability really comes into play.

I now know that you can search Delta flights on Virgin Atlantic Airways website, and many times it's even LESS points. See below the exact same flight, flying on the same Delta Airlines flight. It would now only cost you 33,000 points each, one way, for a total of 198,000 points + $378 in fees, round trip, for a family of 3.

That's a whopping 125,400 points less then if you were to book using Aeroplan points through Air Canada!

To book this flight on Virgin Atlantic, you would then simply transfer your American Express Membership Reward points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points, at a 1:1 conversion.

Then book it, savng you a ton of points!

But wait, you can save even more points!!

How?

By waiting for a transfer bonus, such as the one going on right now, where you get 30% more Virgin points when converting Amex MR points.

So you'd technically only need to transfer 152,308 American Express Membership Reward Points to Virgin, which will convert to 198,000 points with the bonus.

Now you've just booked a similar flight roundtrip (we are now flying out of Detroit vs Toronto), for 3 people, which WAS going to cost your family of three a total of 323,400 Aeroplan points for JUST 152,308 American Express Membership Reward points.

Which works out to 171,092 less points being used!

AMAZING!

Now, just a little heads up, this example, where you could save a ton of points, is being done by collecting and using American Express US Membership Reward (MR) points, because you can't transfer Canadian Amex MR points directly to Virgin!

In fact, and I just recently learnt this, but US American Express Membership Rewards (MR) transfer to way more airline and hotel partners, see below:

Then Canadian American Express Membership Rewards (MR) points, which you can see below the airline and hotel transfer partners:

You'll need to be aware of this as a Canadian when reading the many blogs out there about miles and points and all the Amex MR transfer partners BECAUSE for us Canadians, we don't have near as many as our friends to the south whom are collecting MR points using their US American Express credit cards, which sucks!

But not to worry, as a Canadian you can apply for a US American Express credit card and start collecting US Membership Reward (MR) points, which I wrote about in my article; The Journey Continues: Getting Our 1st US Credit Card.

You could also convert Canadian Amex MR points to US Amex MR points, however, the points are treated like currency, so it wouldn't be a straight 1:1 conversion, probably more like a 1.4 Canadian Amex MR points conversion, to get 1 US Amex MR point.

Which would still be worth it in this scenario, as you'd only need to convert approximately 230K Canadian Amex MR points to get the 152,308 American Express US Membership Reward points needed to book the above trip.

Which is still almost 100K less then if you booked on Air Canada and used Aeroplan points.

Now I know your still wondering, "what if I ONLY have Aeroplan points and how can I use them, but less of them, to get to Cancun from either Toronto or Detroit?

Well......,

A good first option would be to incorporate a layover, or a positioning flight, to save on points.

For example, if you were to fly out of Toronto and added a layover in Montreal on your way to Cancun, and same for on the way home, it would only cost you 96,900 Aeroplan points + $642 in fees for a family of 3.

Or, and being from Windsor myself, if I don't feel like driving to Toronto, I would head over to United.com and search from Detroit to Cancun, check marking 'book with miles'.

Why you ask?

Well, this is the nice thing about alliances, such as Star Alliance, which Air Canada is part of, is you can use Aeroplan points on airlines that are MEMBERS of that alliance, which United Airlines is, that's why I'm searching for flights on United.

Upon seeing the results, I would then head over to Air Canada to find this exact flight to book it using my Aeroplan points.

Note however, no airline makes all of its flights available to partner airlines' award programs.

So, you'll only be able to use Aeroplan points to book whichever United flights have "partner award space" available, and vice versa.

For finding United flights, the award space usually must have an "X" or "I" for you to find it when searching on Air Canada (just like in the pic above).

And voila, there is the exact United Airlines flight which we searched and found on United's website, now bookable on Air Canada so you can use your Aeroplan points.

What do you think about that!?