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Best Apps for Maximising Membership Rewards Points in 2026

Updated: 17 July 2026 · Reading time: 14 min

Honestly: I barely looked at my points during the first six months with my Amex Platinum. That sounds nonchalant, but it was mostly ignorance. I paid, the points accumulated, and every now and then I opened the app to check whether the balance was still growing. Strategy? Zero. The best apps for maximising Membership Rewards points didn't exist for me, because I didn't even know they were out there.

Until one rainy Sunday I actually sat down to dissect the entire points system. Calculator at the ready. Spreadsheet open. And then it started to dawn on me: the way you manage, track, and ultimately deploy your points — that's the difference between "I got a bit of a discount" and "I booked a business class flight to Bangkok for a fraction of the price". That difference isn't in the card itself. It's in the tools around it.

What follows is an overview of the apps I use daily, weekly, or monthly to make the most of my Membership Rewards points as a Belgian traveller. No paid partnerships, no affiliate deals with those apps. Just what works for me in 2026.

The official Amex app: more than a balance checker

Let's start with the obvious. The American Express app (available for iOS and Android) is where everything begins. And honestly, most cardholders only use the app for half of what it can do.

Yes, you can see your points balance. Yes, you can see your transactions. But the part that many Belgian Amex Platinum holders overlook: Amex Offers. These are discounts at more than 100 brands that you have to activate yourself in the app. If you don't activate them, you don't get them. It's that simple. I missed out on discounts at Booking.com, Zalando, and various restaurant chains for months, simply because I didn't know I had to click "activate".

A concrete example from my own usage: last month there was an offer of 5,000 extra points for a spend of €200 at a particular retailer. That's effectively 5,000 free points, on top of the standard 1 point per euro (or 4 per euro if you have the Booster option). It literally took me three taps on my screen. Three taps, 5,000 points. That's the kind of thing I like to add up over an entire year.

Additionally, I use the app to keep track of my monthly spending. Why? Because the Booster option (€10/month extra, 4 points per euro) only pays off if you spend enough. At less than €250 per month, you earn fewer extra points with the Booster than the €10 it costs. At €1,000 per month, you earn 3,000 extra points, which at a reasonable redemption value of 1 cent per point amounts to about €30 in value for a €10 investment. I do that calculation in my head every month, and the app provides the figures for it.

AwardWallet and MaxRewards: all your points in one place

As soon as you start seriously tracking loyalty points, you run into a problem that almost everyone recognises: fragmentation. You have Membership Rewards points with Amex, Miles & More miles with Brussels Airlines, Avios with British Airways, perhaps a Priority Pass account, a hotel chain loyalty programme, and before you know it you're switching between six different apps.

AwardWallet solves that. The app gathers all your loyalty programmes on one dashboard. You link your accounts (Membership Rewards, Miles & More, BA Executive Club, Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy, you name it) and see everything in a single overview. Including expiry dates, which matters for some programmes. Membership Rewards points never expire as long as your Amex card is active, by the way, but with other programmes that's different.

The free version of AwardWallet is limited to a handful of accounts. The paid version costs a few dollars per month. I use the paid version because I now track 9 loyalty programmes, and I think it's worth the price. But if you only have Amex and one airline programme, the free version is sufficient.

MaxRewards is a similar alternative that is especially popular with American users. The app does something extra: it automatically activates Amex Offers for you. That saves the monthly manual checking. The downside: MaxRewards doesn't work perfectly with European Amex accounts. I tried it and couldn't manage to link my Belgian Amex. This may have been resolved by now in 2026, but check before you take out a subscription.

For Belgian travellers, AwardWallet is therefore the more reliable choice. Not the prettiest app, not the trendiest, but it does what it needs to do: provide an overview.

Transfer partner apps: where the real value lies

This is the part that took me the longest to understand, and where the most value can be found. Membership Rewards points are essentially "tokens" that you can redeem in various ways. The least interesting way: statement credits or gift cards. The most interesting: transfers to airline and hotel partners.

The Amex Platinum in Belgium offers transfers to Brussels Airlines (via Miles & More), Lufthansa, Air France-KLM (Flying Blue), British Airways (Avios), Emirates Skywards, Qatar Airways Privilege Club, Etihad Guest, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles, and about fifteen other programmes, among others. Each of those programmes has its own app, and those apps are indispensable for finding the best redemption value.

Why? Because the value of your points varies enormously per programme and per route. A concrete example: converting 50,000 Membership Rewards points to Avios and using them for a return business class flight to London from Brussels can yield a value of more than 2 cents per point. Redeeming those same 50,000 points as a statement credit gives you perhaps 0.5 cents per point. That's a fourfold difference.

The apps I use for this:

• British Airways app: searching for Avios bookings, especially strong for short-haul flights within Europe
• Flying Blue app (Air France-KLM): regular Promo Rewards with discounts on certain routes
• Miles & More app (Brussels Airlines/Lufthansa): logical if you depart from Brussels Airport
• Emirates app: for longer flights, interesting sweet spots to Asia
• Singapore Airlines app: KrisFlyer sometimes has excellent availability in business class

It sounds like a lot, and it is. But you don't need to use them all at once. My approach: when I'm planning a trip, I first check Google Flights for the cash price, and then I open the two or three most logical transfer partner apps to see how many points the same flight costs. If the points rate is worth at least 1.5 cents per point, I book with points. Below that, I don't.

Flight search tools for award tickets: Google Flights, SeatSpy and more

This is where it gets concrete for many Belgian travellers. You have points, you want to fly. But how do you find the best award availability without spending hours in each airline app separately?

Google Flights is my starting point for every trip, including award bookings. Not because Google directly shows award availability (it doesn't), but because it gives you a reference price. You always need to know what the cash price is before you decide to book with points. Otherwise, you don't know whether you're getting a good deal or wasting your points on a flight that only costs €180 in cash.

For actually searching for award availability, I use a combination of tools. SeatSpy is one of them: a website (not an app, but mobile-friendly) that shows availability for Avios bookings. You enter your route, and you see on a calendar which days have award seats available in economy, premium economy, or business. That saves you manually clicking through date after date in the BA app.

Point.me is a more recent tool that searches across multiple loyalty programmes. You enter your route and dates, and the tool shows which programme offers the best price. It's not free (a few dollars per search or a monthly subscription), but if you're planning a big booking, it pays for itself. I used it for our trip to Australia last year and it saved me at least 20,000 points compared to what I had found on my own.

Cowtool (formerly ExpertFlyer) is useful for setting up award alerts. You define a route and class, and the tool sends you a notification as soon as a seat becomes available. Handy for popular routes where business class award seats disappear quickly. Think Brussels to Miami in the summer, or Bangkok during the Christmas holidays.

One caveat: all these tools take time to learn. The learning curve isn't steep, but it's there. If you take a flight once a year, the investment isn't worth it. In that case, just book through the airline app or via the Amex travel portal and you're done. But if you book three or more flights per year, and especially if you want to fly business class with points, the difference is noticeable.

Hotel booking apps and Fine Hotels + Resorts: where the Amex app meets points

Besides flights, there's a second major area where Membership Rewards points prove their value: hotels. And here, the Amex Platinum plays a dual role.

First, there's the Fine Hotels + Resorts programme (FHR), accessible via the Amex app or website. This isn't a points programme in the strict sense: you pay cash for the hotel, but you get a complimentary room upgrade, early check-in, late check-out, daily breakfast for two, and a welcome gift of approximately €100. Together, that can easily add up to €300-650 in extra value per stay. The FHR network includes more than 14,000 hotels worldwide, and you simply make the booking in the Amex app.

Where it gets really interesting: you can also transfer Membership Rewards points to hotel partners such as Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy. The exchange rate is less favourable than with airlines (often 1 MR point = 1 Hilton point, and Hilton points are worth less per unit), so this is rarely my first choice. But during promotions with transfer bonuses of 30% or 40% extra (which appear a few times a year), it can definitely be worthwhile.

My strategy with hotels: if it's a luxury hotel that's part of the FHR programme, I book via FHR and pay cash. The extra benefits almost always compensate for the price difference with Booking.com or Hotels.com. If it's a standard hotel, I book through the hotel chain's own loyalty programme (Hilton, Marriott) and only use points if there's an active transfer bonus.

The Hilton Honors app and Marriott Bonvoy app are useful tools in that regard for checking availability and points prices. They're not specifically "Membership Rewards apps", but they're inextricably linked to how you deploy your points.

When the Amex Platinum (and all those apps) aren't for you

I wouldn't be writing this article if I didn't use the Amex Platinum myself and wasn't satisfied with it. But it's also fair to say: this entire ecosystem of apps, transfer partners, and points optimisation isn't for everyone.

If you fly fewer than twice a year, if your monthly spending is below €1,000, or if you simply don't feel like diving into points programmes, then you probably won't recoup the annual fee of €780. The lounge access and Fast Lane at Brussels Airport are nice extras, but they don't justify the full amount on their own if you're not using the rest of the benefits.

Typical profiles I come across where it's less suitable: someone who mainly holidays in Belgium, someone who always books budget flights with Ryanair (where Amex isn't accepted), or someone who sees the whole points business as a hassle. And that's fine. There's no shame in simply using a Visa or Mastercard with low fees.

The value of the Platinum card lies in the combination of everything: lounge access (~€500/year in Priority Pass value), Fast Lane Brussels Airport (€169/year), Dining for 2 (up to €300/year), the travel insurance, no foreign transaction fees on international payments, and the points themselves. If you regularly use at least four or five of those benefits, the maths works out. If you only use one or two, it probably doesn't.

My personal app setup in 2026: what I use daily

To make it concrete, this is what my phone looks like in practice in terms of "points apps":

• Amex app: quick daily check, monthly Offers activation
• AwardWallet: weekly, to see all balances at a glance
• Google Flights: with every trip planning as a reference for cash prices
• British Airways app: for European trips, for Avios sweet spots
• Flying Blue app: for flights with Air France or KLM, especially during Promo Rewards
• Miles & More app: for Brussels Airlines bookings from BRU
• SeatSpy (browser): when planning business class award flights
• Hilton/Marriott apps: for hotel bookings, especially when a transfer bonus is running

Does that take time? Yes, quite a bit. I estimate I spend on average an hour per week on points optimisation, spread across small moments. But honestly, I also find it a kind of hobby. The maths works out positively for me: the value I get from my points I estimate at €2,000 to €2,500 per year. For someone who approaches it less intensively, €400-700 per year is more realistic. Both scenarios can make the card worthwhile, depending on your profile.

Anyone who applies for the Amex Platinum via the TravelLux.be referral link receives the maximum welcome bonus of 150,000 Membership Rewards points. That's more than with a direct application via the Amex website. Note: a minimum spend of approximately €4,000 to €6,000 in the first three months applies, and the welcome bonus is one-time only. Transparency: I also receive points if you apply via this link, which is why I stick to one rule: only recommend it if the numbers work out for you.

On the official Amex Belgium page you'll find all terms and conditions and details.

Also read on TravelLux.be:

• Amex Platinum Belgium: honest review after two years of use
• Best ways to redeem Membership Rewards points: the complete guide for Belgians
• Lounge access at Brussels Airport: all options compared