I previously wrote about whether or not you can transfer your American Express Membership Rewards points to someone else’s account. In that post, I determined that although it is technically not allowed via the Amex rules, it is easy to get around this on the Amex Membership Rewards website. Specifically, I have often transferred my Amex points to Rob’s linked loyalty programs and Rob’s Amex points to my linked loyalty programs.
However, I still questioned whether this worked only for accounts with the same last names and wondered whether transfers would be denied to accounts with different last names. I kind of got an answer to this question last night…
Last night due to computer problems, I actually had to call American Express to transfer Rob’s Membership Rewards points to Delta for our upcoming trip to Whistler. The representative I was on the phone with asked me, “to which individual would you like to transfer the points to?” Here my answer was easy, Rob, and it was easy because I was transferring from his Amex account to his Delta account. However, I pressed the rep on what he meant by his question and he basically told me the “policy” of only transferring Membership Rewards points to your own loyalty accounts, but said he would have done the transfer for me to any individual because Rob and I had been loyal card members for a long time.
So, in summary, I think the answer to whether or not you can transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to someone else’s loyalty accounts is somewhat subjective. Especially if you call them on the phone instead of transferring points via the Amex Membership Rewards website. Being nice can’t hurt either.