Europe trip using AMEX points

[drd71]

I have about 400000 AMEX points.

I’m a newbie when it comes to redeeming points to travel so any suggestions are appreciated.

My wife and I really don’t care which airline we fly (within reason), AMEX have about 10 airlines that you can transfer points to. My question is, how do you determine which airline’s program has the best conversion of points and how many of those points would be needed to get 2 business class return tickets to Europe and back. Is there a website which shows conversion rates to various airlines and roughly how many points it will cost to obtain tickets?

 

[RB]

Probably best to do some google searching to start to get a bit of a feel for things. There are plenty of blogs/sites that have regular columns. The following is not specifically about Europe but gives a bit of background

Destinations for AMEX Membership Rewards points | finder.com.au

 

[BriarFlyer]

The best conversion rate you will get is 2:1, so your 400,000 AMEX points will yield 200,000 airline points. Some of the better value business class redemptions to Europe are Cathay Pacific's Asia Miles -- 170,000 - 180,000 pp return depending on airline -- or Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles @ 232,000 pp but with no carrier charges (so, a low cash component.) So you will need to build up that balance or purchase one fare.

 

[BriarFlyer]

The following is not specifically about Europe but gives a bit of background

Destinations for AMEX Membership Rewards points | finder.com.au

This article is not current. It shows the old 1:1 conversion rate prior to devaluation earlier this year.

 

[Mattg]

The AwardHacker website can be useful for this kind of thing, but it doesn't show every Australian Amex Membership Rewards transfer partner.

I do agree with @BriarFlyer that KrisFlyer is the best overall option for low number of miles required, low taxes and good availability. Also, with KrisFlyer can save a significant chunk of miles by flying only as far as somewhere like Istanbul, Cyprus, Marrakech, Casablanca, Tbilisi or Beirut.