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American Express Membership Rewards has undergone several negative changes over the past year — including an Emirates transfer ratio devaluation, a Cathay Pacific transfer ratio devaluation, and the upcoming removal of Etihad as a transfer partner.
Before each of these negative changes, Amex has provided cardmembers with advance notice. However, now it looks like American Express may have removed a transfer partner overnight without any notice.
Amex Removes Qantas From Its Transfer Partner List
Early Monday morning, American Express silently removed Qantas Frequent Flyer from its list of transfer partners. Amex hasn't posted any notice or flag to indicate that this happened — as it has with similar removals.
AwardWallet tracking tools caught that this removal occurred between midnight and 3 am Eastern Time.
Given that Amex has provided notice of its recent devaluations and partner transfers, we suspect this could be a temporary pause. We saw a similar situation earlier this year when Amex paused transfers to ANA. However, in that case, Amex posted a notice on its list of transfer partners instead of just removing the partner entirely:
AwardWallet has reached out to American Express to confirm whether this is a temporary or permanent removal. We will update this post when we get confirmation either way.
Why Amex Losing Qantas Would Matter
While Qantas Frequent Flyer isn’t the most popular Amex transfer partner for U.S.-based travelers, it has several useful sweet spots — particularly for short-distance American Airlines and Alaska Airlines awards, Emirates awards with relatively modest surcharges, and select Oneworld redemptions. Losing Qantas would also further narrow Amex’s list of direct Oneworld transfer options.
It would also be the latest in a string of negative Membership Rewards changes over the past year, further reducing the program’s value for savvy award travelers.
While we wait to see whether Amex restores transfers to Qantas Frequent Flyer, consider transferring points from another transferable currency if you need to top off your account. Here are the current options:
As always, we don’t recommend transferring points speculatively. Only move points to Qantas if you have a specific redemption in mind and have confirmed award availability.
Final Thoughts
This feels more like a temporary pause or technical issue than a confirmed permanent removal — but that might just be positive thinking. Amex has provided advance notice for its recent transfer partner devaluations and removals, including Emirates, Cathay Pacific, and Etihad. Removing Qantas overnight without any notice would be a notable departure from that pattern.
For now, Qantas transfers from Amex Membership Rewards are unavailable. So, avoid making plans that depend on moving Amex Membership Rewards points to Qantas until Amex confirms what happened or restores Qantas as a transfer partner.
