American Express Membership Rewards®, Capital One rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards®—none are traditional travel brands, but they each offer access to some of the best redemptions in the industry.
Despite their versatility, no single credit card program partners with every airline and hotel. You’ll still need to find the best fit for your purposes or double up on programs. So how many reward currencies are too many? Should you opt for one program or several? Both strategies can be effective, but one solution might better suit your specific needs.
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What Are Flexible Rewards?
Flexible rewards, also known as transferable points, are a type of credit card currency that allows cardholders to redeem balances in various ways. You can book travel directly from your card account, transfer points to partnering airline and hotel programs for additional award options or select more traditional redemptions like cash back or gift cards.
Unlike co-branded airline or hotel cards, where you accumulate miles with a single program, flexible rewards let you transfer points to different travel partners as needed. These programs offer numerous opportunities to maximize point value with no upfront commitment or loyalty.
Major transferable points programs include American Express Membership Rewards, Bilt Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One rewards, Citi ThankYou® Points and Wells Fargo Rewards.
Reasons To Choose Transferable Points:
- Expanded award availability. Access to awards across multiple airlines increases the likelihood of finding suitable travel options.
- Access to sweet spot bargains. When you’re ready to book, you can compare prices across partners and transfer points where you find the best price.
- Freedom from commitment. You decide how to redeem points only when needed, avoiding commitment until the right opportunity arises.
- Protection against devaluation. Even if one airline or hotel program devalues its points, you can alternatively use your points with an unaffected transfer partner.
- Bypass blackout dates and other restrictions. Flexible rewards may provide other reservation channels, like booking portals or redeeming statement credits, when conventional awards aren’t available at a fair price.
Advantages of Collecting Multiple Reward Types
Access to More Transfer Partners
By partnering with multiple travel brands, flexible rewards broaden your opportunities for finding an award you’re happy with. But the exact list of airlines and hotels varies by card issuer: For example, Chase Ultimate Rewards partners with World of Hyatt, while Citi ThankYou Points partners with Choice Privileges. If you’re seeking awards with multiple specific brands, you may prefer to earn multiple types of credit card rewards.
Opportunities for Lower-Priced Redemptions
Often, the exact same flight itinerary may be bookable through several frequent flyer programs. For example, if you found an award on a Star Alliance carrier, you could potentially book with your choice of Air Canada Aeroplan or United MileagePlus miles.
While either booking channel may lead to the same seat on the aircraft, they each have a different price in the required miles and mandatory cash fees. With multiple types of rewards, you can maximize your point efficiency and secure the best price possible.
Better Earning Optimization
We often put more emphasis on reward redemptions than earning options—after all, the fun part of a reward is what you reap. But to redeem points, you need to earn them first. To truly maximize your earnings, you may find yourself using multiple cards (and multiple rewards programs) with specialized earning rates.
For example, the American Express® Gold Card (Terms apply, see rates & fees) card is an exceptional way to earn points on restaurant spending: You’ll earn 4 Membership Rewards® points per dollar at restaurants, plus takeout and delivery in the U.S., 4 Membership Rewards® points per dollar at U.S. supermarkets (on up to $25,000 per calendar year in purchases, then 1 point per dollar), 3 Membership Rewards® points per dollar on flights booked directly with airlines or through American Express travel and 1 point per dollar on other eligible purchases. A customer whose spending patterns vary across many categories might do better with a flat-rate card like the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (rates & fees). It earns 2 miles per dollar on all eligible purchases, 5 miles per dollar on flights booked through Capital One Travel, 5 miles per dollar on Capital One Entertainment purchases through 12/31/25 and 10 miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars when booking via Capital One Travel.
Disadvantages of Collecting Multiple Reward Types
Extra Accounts To Track
With multiple online accounts, rewards balances and bills, being a part of many rewards programs could be a recipe for disaster for some cardholders. By nature, you’ll need to stay organized and on top of what you owe so you don’t inadvertently find yourself in debt and paying credit card interest that more than cancels out your rewards value.
Keeping track of all the cards and programs can be a hassle, but more and more tools are coming out aimed at that pain point. Award Wallet makes it easy to track points balances and expiration dates. CardPointers helps make sure I have all my Amex offers applied. There are lots of good tools out there.
More Program Rules To Memorize
More programs might mean more opportunities, but it also layers complexity. If you’re the type of person who falls prey to analysis paralysis, having 20 or 30 airline programs at your disposal might be a curse. Be honest with yourself: Do you find the puzzle fun? Or does attempting to land the best deal add stress to your life?
Smaller Balances Within Programs
Perhaps the biggest downside of spreading your rewards out is that it takes longer to accumulate points for major redemptions. Someone charging all their purchases to a single card will be able to watch their rewards balance on that card grow faster than if they had divided the same number of purchases among five different cards. You might be able to reach your reward thresholds or goals faster by consolidating your points within a single bank ecosystem.
Choosing the Right Number of Award Programs
Just by being in a single flexible rewards program, you’ve already opened up your opportunities for redemption options. For many people, that may be enough.
Other people may wish to double (or triple) up. Each program has its benefits and drawbacks, which is precisely why it can be opportunistic to join multiple programs. Having a card in each program gives you more options to take advantage of partners, transfer bonuses and deals.
Ask an expert
Is it better to be in more or fewer rewards programs?
I’m currently in all the major credit card programs. Sometimes, I wish I was in fewer because there is a lot to keep track of—though at least I’m not worried about transferable points expiring. It can be a lot of work to deal with the particularities of airline programs.
If juggling all those rules sounds like more work than it’s worth, we have an alternative approach: Choose one flexible rewards program and supplement it with cash-back rewards. Adding cash rewards to your arsenal can fill in the gaps without adding unnecessary complexity. The best cash-back credit cards include choices with flat-rate rewards for simplicity and others with featured spending categories, which can be a great way to amp up your earnings potential.
Bottom Line
Choosing a single flexible rewards program already provides versatility and value, expanding your redemption options broadly. However, some may benefit from multiple programs to cater toward a variety of spending needs, access more partners and transfer bonuses, and diversify rewards.
To view rates and fees for American Express® Gold Card please visit this page.
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