The answer is yes, in a way, but with limitations and at a significant risk.
It’s not uncommon to have more than one American Express card that earns you Membership Rewards points. You might want to move points between the cards in certain situations, but is that even possible? The answer, as with most things related to points, is not black and white.
Why would you want to move points?
I’m not sure if these rules are new, but you can only link one Amex card per country to an Emirates Skywards account. I found this out the hard way after trying to connect my new(ish) Platinum card to my Emirates account. I got a weird error, which I raised with Amex, who let me know of these rules.
If you happen to have a EUR or USD currency card, then it will not be counted as a UK card. That means you can link one UK card, like a Platinum or Gold card, and one currency card.
I needed to move a small number of points from Amex to Emirates for a redemption, but I had used up all the MR points on the one card I had linked to Emirates. My aim was to move the points from another Amex card into that one, and then transfer those to Emirates.
As an aside, we’ve found some well-priced (in terms of points) flights with Emirates. We even managed to upgrade some of the business seats to first class.
At this stage, I had no idea it was possible, so I got in touch with the Amex customer service team and was told yes, it is possible to move points.
Can you actually move points?
The criteria I was told for moving points
- The accounts must all be in your name and registered under the same login.
- The accounts must be in the same country.
The quoted transfer time was seven to ten days. I requested the transfer at 9pm on 11th August. The connecting of accounts took place on the morning of the 18th of August. That’s slightly less than seven days.
This isn’t a points transfer, it’s a connection.
The initial conversation with Amex led me to believe that points would be moved from one card to another. They asked me how many points I would like to move, and said transfers take seven to ten days.
When I checked in after a few days the agent used a different term: connecting accounts. This made me think that no transfer would actually take place, and instead, they would pool the points between my cards. This felt like a much better option.
As it turns out, I was right. They have connected my three MR earning UK cards: Two Amex Golds (each for a different company) and my Business Platinum card into a single pool.
Points earned on one card will appear on all three. Transferring points to a hotel or airline frequent flyer programme will reduce the points across all three cards.
You cannot connect currency cards and regular Amex cards. The currency cards are not technically UK cards, and the redemption rate on those cards is different to the UK ones. For Emirates, using the UK card, you transfer points at a rate of 4 MR points to 3 Skywards miles. On the Currency Card, points are transferred at a 3:2 ratio.
Did this help me with my Emirates transfer issue?
No, in fact it made things much worse. After my cards were connected, it disconnected my Amex account from Emirates. Trying to add it back in led to the very helpful message “Sorry, there has been an error”.
I raised this with the Amex customer service team, who told me that you can only link one Emirates account per year to an Amex card, and perhaps I should transfer my points to a different airline instead.
So, a clear warning is that if you are going to link your accounts, there is a risk that you will not be able to transfer any points to Emirates at all after the connection has taken place.
The other airlines I have connected to my Amex account all remained active, so this seems to be isolated just to Emirates. BA, Iberia, Etihad and Virgin all survived.
I was offered 2,000 Membership Reward points as an apology (these were credited to my account immediately), but I’m still left with no way to transfer Emirates points for an entire year.
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