American Express adds Accor as Points Transfer Partner but in the UK

Good news for frequent travellers in the UK as American Express has now added ALL Accor as a new Membership Rewards transfer partner.

This means eligible American Express cardholders in the UK can now transfer their Membership Rewards points directly to the ALL Accor loyalty programme and redeem them for hotel stays across Accor’s global network.

Transfer Ratio

The newly introduced transfer ratio is:

• 300 Membership Rewards points = 100 ALL Accor Reward points

Users can initiate transfers through the Membership Rewards portal, subject to applicable terms and conditions.

That gives a point value of as low as 66ps/point which is quite poor for UK market wherein you can transfer to most airlines partners at 1:1

Not Available in India Yet

At the moment, this transfer partnership is available only for select UK-issued American Express cards. American Express has not introduced ALL Accor as a Membership Rewards transfer partner in India yet.

Not to mention that Amex has recently started adding Accor as transfer partner across markets like in Australia (5:1), New Zealand(5:1) and South Korea(3.5:1), so chances are India might be on the cards.

Final Thoughts

Accor as a transfer partner on American Express Cards is the need of the hour in India, especially after Axis Bank recently removed the partner. However, if Amex introduces it in India at anything worse than a 4:1 transfer ratio, it would become largely unattractive.

That said, the reality is that Amex may not be able to offer a highly lucrative ratio for obvious commercial reasons. Still, if they launch it with a decent transfer ratio, say around 3:1, along with a relatively low annual transfer cap, it could certainly add meaningful value to Amex Reserve.