I must admit to be very ignorant with regards to my American Express membership reward points. I have searched the Am/Ex site and still a little clueless. My husband and I are planning on using our points towards towards next summer. I know that we have to plan far in advance. We live in Atlanta and are considering going to Bermuda. Here is my confusion. Exactly how many points, assuming we would fly Delta, would we need for two coach tickets to Bermuda? Also where can I find this information? Am I wrong in thinking that the Am/Ex points are the same as Delta sky miles? I tried to call Am/Ex and they put me on hold for so long, I gave up. My last question (as of right now - LOL) is that I know people plan far in advance for 2 or more first class tickets but since we are fine going coach, will this shorten the time we have to book or is the same?

I hope I made some sense out of this. Thanks for your help.

Is it a Delta American Express card? Have you been accumulating Delta skymiles with the card? If that is the case, then the miles that you have accumulated with the card would show up on your Delta statement. Therefore, you would contact Delta to use them. You would need 30,000 points per ticket to fly coach to Bermuda.

You don't redeem the miles through American Express.
You call Delta to check seat availablility, then transfer your AmEx points to your Delta account. Delta does all their own scheduling and reward coordination from that point on.

For Bermuda you need 30,000 points (coach).

Here's the summary from www.americanexpress.com/rewards :




1. Visit www.delta.com/skymiles for a complete list of SkyMiles award options.

2. Call Delta at 1-800-323-2323 to check seat availability and the number of frequent flyer miles needed for your desired flight. Tell the representative you intend to use frequent flyer miles - this may limit availability. Ask the Delta representative for information regarding ticketing time limits or fees associated with redeeming SkyMiles.

3. If seats are available, click the Transfer Now button above to transfer Membership Rewards points to your frequent flyer account. You cannot reverse a points transfer. You may transfer a maximum of 999,000 points to a single Frequent Flyer account on any given day. Allow 3 - 5 business days to complete a transfer.

4. Call Delta at 1-800-221-1212 and follow the procedure for ticketing to complete your reservation.

traveleis has given a very thorough explanation of how Amex Membership Rewards and Delta Skymiles work together.

I'd just like to add that do not assume it will be easier to get coach seats vs. first class seats. Sometimes the opposite is true. I've encountered instances where coach was not available but first class was. There are 2 levels of awards - Skysaver which requires less miles but have limited seats or Skychoice which require double (usually) miles but waives capacity controls. It's 30,000 miles per person for Skysaver coach or 60,000 miles per person for Skychoice coach to Bermuda (first class Skysaver is also 60,000 so you might as well try for that first before going the Skychoice route). For Skysaver seats, start calling as early as possible. If you're not successful at first, keep trying as additional seats may be released. You can also asked to be waitlisted if the flights are Delta operated in case you don't get your first choice of flight time/day initially. There's no charge (yet) to change flight time/day once ticketed, but there is a fee if you need to change cities or carriers. Delta will automatically hold your award reservation for 14 days before they require you to ticket (you can often get them to extend another 14). The Amex transfer takes 3-5 days, sometimes less.

Hope this helps.

Yes this helps a ton. I have never used points before and really had no clue how to go about it. Thanks for the advice.