American Express allows cardholders to pay with points

Cardholders can pay with points across 750 retail, dining outlets

If you are an American Express credit cardholder, you can now pay with your rewards points at retail and dining outlets.

The credit card issuer has introduced a new initiative, Pay with Points, that allow its cardholders real-time redemption of rewards points at point of sale terminals across 750 retail and dining outlets.

“The initiative has received an overwhelming response in a short span of time as the new-age consumer is looking for instant gratification...With this initiative, American Express aims to take rewards redemption experience to the next

level, leveraging unique technology to bring the rewards programme alive at the most critical customer touch point — the physical point of sale,” Manoj Adlakha, head of consumer cards-business and chief executive officer, American Express Banking Corp in India, told Business Standard.

Customers can pay with their accumulated points at American Express’ merchant partners like Apple premium re-seller stores, Bose, Croma, Reliance Digital, Shoppers’ Stop, Armani Jeans, Marks & Spencer and several dining outlets at Cyber Hub in Gurgaon.

Cardholders need to notify the cashier at the end of their shopping or dining experience about their intent to use their points for all or part of their purchase.

“It provides a great deal of flexibility to customers by giving them the freedom to choose exactly how to use their rewards points. Card members with points balance, even those with less than 100, can use them to shop for merchandise, leveraging a feature wherein they are able to part pay using points and the rest using their card. This capability transforms the standard redemption model by allowing points to be used directly to shop at participating merchant outlets, thus making membership rewards highly topical, omnipresent and engaging,” Adlakha said.

He added that American Express has seen its average card spends increase by 12-15 per cent in the past one year.

“We have added products across the portfolio in the past two to three years. Our penetration in more affluent segments has gone up and this has contributed significantly to growth in portfolio average spend,” he said.