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Ever heard of a flexible point currency? The leaders among points and miles, these types of rewards can be used in a variety of ways. This includes transfers to airline and hotel partners, statement credits, gift cards, flights, and other types of travel. There are just a handful of well-known flexible point currencies, including Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards. Although they're both extremely valuable, which is better?
Let's take a look at how you earn these points, the different methods of redeeming them, and which one may be a better fit for you.
Page Contents
- Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. Amex Membership Rewards: Earning Points
- Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. Amex Membership Rewards: Card Restrictions
- Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. Amex Membership Rewards: Redeeming Points
- Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. Amex Membership Rewards: Transfer Partners
- Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. Amex Membership Rewards: Combining Points
- Which Should You Choose: Chase Ultimate Rewards or Amex Membership Rewards?
Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. Amex Membership Rewards: Earning Points
Both American Express and Chase are credit card issuers, which means they have a variety of different cards on offer. Both issuers provide personal and business credit cards and even offer premium travel credit cards. It's clear that they compete with one another, but there are differences in the ways you'll earn points and the benefits you'll receive as a cardholder.
Personal cards
American Express has a handful of different personal cards on offer, including its high-end The Platinum Card® from American Express. This card charges an annual fee of $695 (Rates & Fees) but provides more than $1,000 in available credits each year. It also offers elite status with both Marriott and Hilton. Aside from this, the card earns an industry-leading 5x points on airfare purchased directly from airlines (on the first $500,000 per year, then 1x), 5x per $1 spent on prepaid hotels via Amex Travel, and 1 point per $1 on other purchases. Enrollment is required for select Amex benefits.
Related: All of the Cards That Earn American Express Membership Rewards Points
Chase also offers a premium travel credit card in the form of the Chase Sapphire Reserve® (Rates & Fees), which charges a $795 annual fee. Although it doesn't offer as many credits as Amex's premium card, it does give you a $300 annual travel credit usable on a broad array of expenses. It also earns 4x points on all flights and hotels booked directly, 3x points on dining, 8x points on all eligible purchases through the Chase Travel℠ portal, and 1x everywhere else.
Related: All of the Cards That Earn Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
Aside from these flagship options, both issuers provide a handful of other cards. These include the American Express® Gold Card, providing 4X Membership Rewards® points at U.S. supermarkets (on up to $25,000 in purchases per calendar year, then 1X). Conversely, there's 3% cash back at drugstores with the Chase Freedom Unlimited® (Rates & Fees).
Notably, the cash back earned by the Freedom Unlimited and the Chase Freedom Flex℠ can be converted into Chase Ultimate Rewards if you hold one of Chase's Ultimate Rewards cards with an annual fee. Coupling these cards together allows you to maximize the rewards you earn on all your spending, not just your travel and dining purchases.
Winner: Chase. The ability to maximize rewards on so many different categories can't be beat.
Business cards
Chase and Amex don't quite compare when it comes to business credit cards. There are a couple of Chase cards that'll earn Ultimate Rewards, such as the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card (Rates & Fees). This card earns 3x points on the first $150,000 of annual spending across several business categories, including travel purchases, which is a feature missing on Amex business cards. And the Ink Business Cash® Credit Card (Rates & Fees) earns cash back that can be converted into transferable rewards if you hold a compatible Ultimate Rewards-earning card, which can be valuable since it earns 5% back on $25,000 of spending in bonus categories that include office supplies.
However, Chase is lacking any high-end business card offerings like The Business Platinum Card® from American Express. This premium card is much like its consumer version but provides a unique opportunity to receive 35% back on points redeemed for flights (up to 1,000,000 points back annually).
Amex also has The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express, which earns 2x points on the first $50,000 spent each year with no category requirements, then 1x. This card is especially valuable since it charges no annual fee (Rates & Fees) but still earns points that can be transferred to partners. There is no Chase equivalent.
Winner: American Express
Related: How To Get a Business Card in 3 Steps
Shopping portals
Another way to earn both Chase and Amex points is through shopping portals. While Chase has its own shopping portal, Amex relies on Rakuten to earn points. There's not a huge difference in earnings between the pair, but the rewards you'll earn with Chase will depend on which card you hold. This can be frustrating if you end up losing out on points because you don't have the right card.
Winner: American Express
Card offers
Both Chase and Amex have offers available to cardholders, though they're targeted, so not everyone sees the same thing. Chase Offers tend to focus on money back — either as a percentage or a flat rate.
Amex Offers are a different game: You'll find multipliers for specific merchants, bonus points for spending a certain amount of money, or money back on your purchases. Time it correctly, and they're an easy way to significantly boost your Amex balance.
Winner: American Express
Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. Amex Membership Rewards: Card Restrictions
Both Chase and American Express have their own restrictions when it comes to opening credit cards. Chase uses the 5/24 rule, which looks at how many credit cards you've opened in the last 24 months.
American Express has a more complicated set of rules that are more fluid than Chase. Generally speaking, you'll be able to hold five traditional credit cards and 10 cards with no preset spending limit at a time.
American Express tends to be much more restrictive when it comes to earning welcome offers. Much of the time, you'll only be eligible to earn a welcome offer for a card once per lifetime. This is in contrast to Chase, whose most restrictive language limits you to earning a bonus once every 48 months (though this is limited to its Sapphire line of cards).
Winner: Chase
Related: Understanding Rewards Credit Card Application Rules and Restrictions
Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. Amex Membership Rewards: Redeeming Points
The points that you earn with Amex and Chase can be redeemed in a variety of ways, with some providing much more value than others.
Transfers
The best way to redeem your points with both currencies is via transfers. This involves converting your points to hotel and airline partners — but we'll talk more about that below.
Amex and Chase will occasionally offer transfer bonuses for these partners. In the past, these have been more common with Amex, but Chase has been doing its best to catch up. Bonuses can range from 10% to 50% and include partners such as Avianca LifeMiles, Marriott Bonvoy, Virgin Atlantic, Hilton Honors, British Airways Avios, and more.
According to recent AwardWallet user redemptions, the average value of an Amex point is 1.96¢. Meanwhile, the average value of a Chase point is 1.95¢. These are heavily influenced by taking advantage of each program's transfer partners.
Gift cards
It's possible to redeem your Chase and Amex points for gift cards, but this generally represents a poor use of points. Expect a value of 0.5 to 1 cent per point when redeemed this way.
Travel portals
Amex and Chase both operate a portal through which you can book a variety of travel. Amex Travel offers flights, hotels, rental cars, and cruises, while Chase's portal also includes activities and event tickets.
Generally speaking, you'll get between 0.7 to 1 cent of value when booking travel through these portals using your points. There are two exceptions to this.
If you hold the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (Rates & Fees) or Ink Preferred (Rates & Fees), your points are worth up to 1.75 cents each (depending on your specific redemption) when redeemed in Chase's portal. If you've got the higher-end Chase Sapphire Reserve®, your points are worth up to 2 cents each towards travel.
Within the Amex ecosystem, the Business Platinum Card provides a 35% rebate on some flights. These include firs- and business-class flights booked with any airline or flights in any cbin booked with your selected airline. Taking advantage of the rebate yields you 1.54 cents in value per Amex point. Enrollment is required for select Amex benefits.
Cash back and statement credits
Chase's Pay Yourself Back allows you to redeem your points for cash back at varying values, depending on what card you have and the eligible purchase categories — typically around 1¢ each. Amex allows for redeeming points at 0.6¢ apiece as a statement credit.
Pay With Points
It's possible to use your points for purchases on other websites, though this is another low-value redemption. Paying on Amazon will fetch around 0.5¢ in value from each point.
Winner: Chase. None of these options are great, but the ability to book all your travel with a value of 1.75 or 2 cents each puts Chase ahead of Amex.
Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. Amex Membership Rewards: Transfer Partners
Chase and Amex both have a long list of transfer partners, including options with hotels and airlines. Amex beats out Chase with numbers at 21 to 14, though not all are equally valuable.
American Express Membership Rewards transfer partners
Related: How to Transfer Amex Points: A Step-By-Step Guide
Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partners
Related: How to Transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
As you can see, Chase and Amex have a few partners in common. This includes Avios partners (such as British Airways), Marriott Bonvoy, Air Canada Aeroplan, Flying Blue, JetBlue, Emirates Skywards, Singapore Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic.
That's quite a lot of overlap, but this can be helpful if you've got points from both programs and want to pool your points for a redemption.
Best transfer partners For Amex
Although it offers transfers to some hotel programs, Amex is strongest when it comes to its airline partners. Its best — by far — is ANA Mileage Club. This Japanese airline maintains a distance-based award chart that allows for some of the cheapest redemptions around. This includes round-trip business class flights to Europe for just 88,000 miles.
Other good options include:
- Air Canada Aeroplan: Allows stopovers for just 5,000 more points.
- Avianca LifeMiles: Some of the cheapest Star Alliance redemptions around.
- Flying Blue: Monthly promotions for discounted rewards make these especially valuable.
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club: Books business-class flights on ANA between the U.S. and Japan from just 45,000 points.
- Cathay Pacific: Despite a recent devaluation, there are still some good sweet spots for Oneworld awards.
Related: How to Redeem American Express Membership Rewards Points — And Which Options Are Best
Best transfer partners for Chase
World of Hyatt is well-known as Chase's best transfer partner. This is thanks to the generous award chart the program employs, which will get you a stay in a hotel starting at 3,500 points.
Other good options include:
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Flying Blue
- Virgin Atlantic
Medium-value partners
While these transfer partners aren't the best, they still can provide decent value in certain circumstances. All of these are shared between the two programs:
- Avios (British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia, Qatar Airways): These can be good for some distance-based redemptions but can charge extortionate fees.
- Emirates Skywards: You'll pay a lot, but it's one of the only ways to book Emirates first-class flights with points.
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer: Singapore gives much better award space access to bookings on its platform.
Note that Qatar Airways is only a partner of Amex, but since Avios are interchangeable between all programs, it's essentially also a Chase partner.
Least valuable transfer partners for Amex
These partners are going to give you the least value for your points.
- Aeromexico Rewards: Expensive rewards
- Delta SkyMiles: Expensive rewards
- Etihad Guest: Expensive rewards, eliminated partner sweet spots recently
- Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles: Expensive rewards
- JetBlue TrueBlue: Redemption costs are directly tied to the cash cost of the flight so there's no true sweet spot.
- Qantas Frequent Flyer: A distance-based chart with high prices, though an around-the-world ticket can still have good value.
- Choice Privileges: Far less valuable than using Amex points with other methods. Plus, you can transfer Citi points to Choice for 2x the value.
- Hilton Honors: Far less valuable than Amex points.
- Marriott Bonvoy: Fully dynamic pricing regularly results in nightly rates of 100,000+ points.
Least valuable transfer partners for Chase
These partners are the least valuable for Chase points:
- JetBlue TrueBlue
- Southwest Rapid Rewards: Point cost is directly tied to the cash cost of a flight, and your points may be worth more in Chase's portal.
- IHG One Rewards: A fully dynamic pricing system with ridiculous nightly rates.
- Marriott Bonvoy
- United MileagePlus: Continued devaluations make redemptions with this airline a poor value. The exception: No program offers a redemption as potentially valuable as the Excursionist Perk.
Winner: Amex. It has more partners and more valuable partners than Chase.
Chase Ultimate Rewards vs. Amex Membership Rewards: Combining Points
Amex and Chase are both fairly strict when it comes to combining your points. Amex doesn't allow you to pool points with anyone else, though if someone is an authorized user on your account (and has been for at least 90 days), you can transfer your points to their loyalty program account.
Chase allows you to combine your points with one other member of your household. Business owners are able to transfer their points to other employees listed on the business account.
Winner: Chase. While neither is ideal, its program is a bit more flexible.
Related: Which Rewards Programs Let You Pool Points and Miles With Others For Free?
Which Should You Choose: Chase Ultimate Rewards or Amex Membership Rewards?
American Express and Chase points are both highly valuable and should be treated as such. In this breakdown, Amex and Chase tied at 4–4 on the different scoring criteria. Your best bet is to earn rewards in both currencies to take advantage of all their benefits.
However, if you're determined to stick to a single program, consider the type of activities that you're doing. For example, if you want to travel but don't want to research transfer partners, Chase cards will provide better value for redemptions within the portal.
On the flip side, Amex offers more transfer partners, and its points are regularly redeemed at a higher value than Chase points. You're also able to earn Amex points with a no-annual-fee card without needing to combine it with another card — a benefit Chase doesn't provide.
If you're a frequent traveler, you'll also want to consider which program has which transfer partners. Hyatt loyalists looking to keep their Globalist elite status will find Chase points especially rewarding, while those looking for discounted business-class rewards will want to focus on Amex.
In the end, choosing Chase Ultimate Rewards or American Express Membership Rewards is going to be a personal decision. Do your homework, check out earning and redeeming, and select the program that best suits your needs. Or maybe hedge your bets by collecting both.
Which program do you prefer: Amex Membership Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards? Let us know why in the comments.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: The Platinum Card® from American Express (Rates & Fees), Chase Sapphire Reserve® (Rates & Fees), Chase Freedom Unlimited® (Rates & Fees), Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card (Rates & Fees), Ink Business Cash® Credit Card (Rates & Fees), The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express (Rates & Fees), and Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (Rates & Fees)
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