Updated: 9 April 2026

Spending Membership Rewards: The Smartest and Dumbest Ways to Use Your Points

Last September I was about to redeem 80,000 Membership Rewards points for a Bol.com gift card. Simply because I saw the balance sitting there and thought: let me do something with it. Fortunately I clicked around a bit more and realised just in time that those same 80,000 points could get me a return business class flight BRU → IST via Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles. Value of that flight? Around €2,400. Value of that Bol.com voucher? Maybe €250.

That difference is absurd. And yet thousands of Belgian Amex cardholders make exactly that mistake. They spent months earning points, only to squander them on something worth a fraction of what was possible. I was almost one of them.

If you have Membership Rewards points, whether you earn them with the Amex Platinum or another American Express card, the way you spend them determines the difference between saving a few hundred euros or capturing literally thousands of euros in travel value. This article shows you exactly which methods are smart, which are foolish, and why that nuance matters so much for Belgian travellers.

Why the way you spend your Amex points changes everything

Let me give a simple calculation that puts everything in perspective. Imagine you have 100,000 Membership Rewards points sitting in your account. That's quite a decent amount, especially if you've grabbed the welcome bonus and have been using the card regularly for a few months.

If you redeem those 100,000 points for a statement credit on your bill, you'll get roughly €350 for them. Not bad, you might think. But those same 100,000 points can be transferred 1-to-1 to British Airways Avios, with which you can book a return flight BRU → LHR → MLE in business class that normally costs €3,800. That's more than ten times the value.

Honestly, I find it almost painful to see how many people "eat up" their points through gift cards or small orders in the Amex webshop. The point isn't that those options are bad in an absolute sense. The point is that you can get much more if you take the effort to approach it differently. And that effort is literally five extra clicks.

The value of your Membership Rewards points therefore doesn't depend on how many points you have, but on how you spend them. According to TravelLux.be, this is the most important lesson for every Belgian Amex cardholder.

The smartest ways to spend Membership Rewards points

Right, let's start at the beginning. What are the truly smart ways to give your Amex points value? I've ranked them from most valuable to good, based on my own experiences and what I've tried out over the past years.

1. Transfer to airline partners for business or first class

This is by far the most powerful method. You transfer your points to the loyalty programme of an airline and book an award ticket with them. The transfer is usually 1:1, meaning 1,000 Membership Rewards points = 1,000 airline miles.

From Belgium you have fantastic options. Brussels Airlines is part of Miles & More (Lufthansa group), which means you can transfer points to your Miles & More account and book flights on Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, and all other Star Alliance partners. A return business class BRU → BKK (Bangkok) costs you around 112,000 miles. That flight? Normally €3,500 to €5,000 in euros.

My personal favourite is the transfer to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer. Last December I booked a Singapore Airlines business class from BRU → SIN (via FRA), 70,000 miles one-way. The seat, the service, the food: that was an experience worth roughly €4,000. Price in points? 70,000. Per point I therefore got about 5.7 cents of value. Try getting that with a Bol.com gift card.

Other strong transfer partners from Belgium:

• Air France-KLM Flying Blue: ideal for flights from Brussels-South (Thalys) and Paris CDG
• Emirates Skywards: for that dream flight in first class to Dubai or the Maldives (BRU → DXB → MLE)
• Qatar Airways Privilege Club: Qsuites business class, considered by many to be the best business class in the world
• British Airways Avios: perfect for short hops to London and onward connections
• Etihad Guest: strong for routes to Abu Dhabi and Asia
• Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles: surprisingly good sweet spots to Istanbul and beyond

The beauty is that you have 15+ airline partners to choose from. You're never locked into one programme. Points sit in your Amex account and never expire as long as your card is active, so you can wait patiently until you find the ideal destination and availability.

2. Combining Fine Hotels + Resorts bookings with points

This is a somewhat lesser-known trick, but enormously powerful. With the Amex Platinum you have access to the Fine Hotels + Resorts programme: more than 14,000 luxury hotels worldwide where with every booking you automatically receive a free room upgrade, early check-in, late check-out, daily breakfast for two, and a welcome gift of approximately €100.

Fantastic on its own. But you can also use Membership Rewards points to pay for (part of) the hotel costs. The value per point is lower here than with airline transfers, around 0.8 to 1 cent per point, but the combination with the FHR benefits makes the total package very strong. Last year I booked two nights at the Ritz-Carlton Bali via FHR. Room upgrade to ocean view suite, breakfast for two, €100 spa credit. The "free" extras alone were worth more than €450.

3. Transfer to hotel partners for specific sweet spots

You can also transfer your points to hotel programmes like Hilton Honors or Marriott Bonvoy. Honestly: the value per point is usually lower here than with airlines. The transfer ratio to Hilton is often 1:2 (1,000 MR = 2,000 Hilton points), but Hilton points are worth less per unit. Yet there are sweet spots. A night at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island for 95,000 Hilton points is a bargain when you consider that room rates are above €800 per night.

My advice: only use hotel transfers if you have a very specific stay in mind where the math works out. For most situations you're better off with airline transfers.

The dumbest ways to waste your Membership Rewards

Now it gets painful. Because I've made a few of these mistakes myself in my first year as a cardholder. Learn from my blunders.

Statement credits: the "easy" trap

You can redeem points as credit on your Amex statement. Sounds attractive, because it feels like cash. But the value? Around 0.3 to 0.5 cents per point, depending on the timing and the promotion. 100,000 points get you perhaps €350. Those same points were worth €2,000 to €5,000 as airline miles for business class. That's a difference that gives you a stomach ache once you realise it after the fact.

I get it, though. Sometimes you need the money now and not in three months in the form of a plane ticket. But if you can plan even a little, a statement credit is almost never the smartest choice.

Gift cards and merchandise: the biggest points destroyers

This is truly the bottom of the points universe. Gift cards through the Amex webshop give you about 0.3 cents per point. Sometimes even less. That €25 Amazon gift card costs you 8,000 points, while those same 8,000 points as airline miles easily represent €100 in flight ticket value.

Merchandise is even worse. That wireless headset for 45,000 points you can buy at Coolblue for €89. Do the maths: 45,000 points divided by €89 = 0.2 cents per point. That's twenty times less than what you can get with a smart airline transfer. Twenty times.

Paying off small purchases with points without a strategy

Amex sometimes offers the option to pay for recent purchases with points, directly in the app. Convenient? At first glance, yes. Smart? Almost never. The valuation per point is comparable to statement credits: you're leaving an enormous amount of value on the table. It's the Membership Rewards equivalent of stuffing your savings into an old sock.

The calculation trick every Belgian traveller should know

I personally use a simple rule of thumb before spending points. I call it the "cent-per-point check" and it takes you thirty seconds.

Step 1: look at how many points something costs. Step 2: look at how much that product or flight costs in euros if you simply pay cash. Step 3: divide the euro price by the number of points. That's your value per point.

Example: a Brussels Airlines business class return BRU → JFK costs 104,000 Miles & More miles. That same flight costs €3,200 if you pay with euros. 3,200 divided by 104,000 = 3.1 cents per point. That's strong.

Another example: a Bol.com gift card of €50 costs 16,000 points. 50 divided by 16,000 = 0.31 cents per point. Ten times less. Once you apply this trick a few times, you can never order a gift card again with a straight face.

At TravelLux.be I always try to get at least 1.5 cents per point. Anything below that I ignore, unless I have a very good reason.

How to earn enough points quickly for that dream flight

Right, now you know how to spend them. But how do you get enough points? Because 100,000 points sounds like a lot.

The fastest way for Belgian travellers is the welcome bonus of the Amex Platinum. Via the TravelLux.be referral link you receive the maximum welcome bonus of 150,000 points. That's enough for multiple business class flights within Europe, or a substantial chunk of a long-haul business class flight. Applying directly through Amex gives you fewer points, so that referral link really makes a difference.

On top of that, you earn a standard 1 point per €1 spent. Those who activate the Booster option (€10/month extra) earn as many as 4 points per €1. If you spend around €3,000 per month via your Amex (groceries, fuel, restaurants, online purchases), you earn 12,000 points per month with the Booster. On an annual basis that's 144,000 points, on top of the welcome bonus. In your first year you can therefore easily exceed 290,000 points.

Don't forget either: the points never expire as long as your card is active. There's no rush. You can save at your own pace until you have enough for exactly the trip you want.

Honestly, that's one of the things I appreciate most. With some other programmes, points expire after 12 or 24 months. With Amex you don't have that pressure. You save at your own pace.

My personal favourite redemptions from Belgium

After three years of spending Membership Rewards points, I've developed a few favourites that I'm happy to share with other Belgian travellers.

The route BRU → IST in Turkish Airlines business class is an absolute bargain: 45,000 miles return. Transfer from Amex is 1:1. The Turkish lounge in Istanbul is absurdly good (freshly prepared food, hammam, sleeping rooms), and if you have a longer layover, you even get a free hotel room via TK. The flight normally costs around €1,800 return in business. That's 4 cents per point.

Another favourite: BRU → SIN via Singapore Airlines. I mentioned it earlier. 70,000 miles one-way in business class. The Book the Cook service, where you choose your meal in advance from an extensive menu, makes it extra special. And if you're continuing to Bali or the Maldives, you book the second segment separately in economy for a fraction of the cost.

For those who want to stay closer to home: 20,000 Flying Blue miles get you a return to Barcelona, Rome, or Lisbon in economy. Those are points you can earn in a month or two. Not spectacular in terms of cent-per-point value (around 1.5 cents), but very accessible.

And then the big dream. Last March I booked a return BRU → DXB → MLE in business class with 120,000 Emirates Skywards miles. Emirates business to Dubai, then onwards to the Maldives. Cash value of that flight: around €5,500. That was one of those moments when you realise this points system truly works if you approach it the right way. In our comprehensive Amex Platinum review you can read more about how we organised that trip.

Frequently asked questions about spending Membership Rewards