Amex Membership Rewards drops Etihad and adds Accor - here's what it means for your points

There have been two changes to where your Amex Membership Rewards points can go this month. Etihad Guest leaves on 22 June. ALL Accor arrived on 13 May.

One out, one in.

Etihad is leaving

From 22 June 2026, you can no longer transfer Membership Rewards points to Etihad Guest.

The rate was a simple 1:1.

Etihad is undoubtedly a good airline, but it doesn't have a loyalty programme to match, for instance: cancel a reward flight now and you lose at least 25% of your miles, up to 75% closer to departure, redemptions had gotten more expensive, and the miles expire after 18 months of inactivity.

If you've earmarked points for an Etihad trip, you've got until 22 June to move them. After that you can still put Membership Rewards points towards a cash Etihad booking through Amex Travel, just at a weaker rate.

Accor is joining

ALL — Accor Live Limitless — is the loyalty scheme behind Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel, Mercure, ibis and around 45 other hotel brands. It's like now at a transfer rate of 3 Membership Rewards points to 1 ALL Reward point.

ALL points have a fixed value: 2,000 of them knock €40 off a stay. That's 2 cents a point, roughly 1.73p, meaning that because of the transfer rate, one Membership Rewards point is worth about 0.58p as Accor.

On rate alone, that's less than you'd get sending the same point to Avios or Virgin Points and using it well. But Accor has two things going for it that airline miles don't. The value is fixed, so it's more unlikely to be devalued out from under you the way an award chart can. And you can spend it against anything billable, so that could be a peak-night room, a dining bill, an experience, with no availability to chase and no blackout dates.

That makes it useful in a few cases. If you stay at Accor hotels anyway, this is points you can spend on a brand you already use. If you've got points sitting idle with no plan, €40 off a stay beats leaving them to rot or cashing out as statement credit at 0.5p per Membership Reward point. And if you're closing your Amex with no plan for the points, Accor turns them into a fixed, definable asset rather than losing them the day you cancel.

It's not where you'd send points you've been carefully saving, but it's a sensible home for the ones you weren't.

The verdict

I know most of you reading this transfer your points to Avios or Virgin, but it's important to keep an eye on other programmes too.

Unfortunately, Etihad had quietly made itself harder to love. Accor's a real option at a middling rate. Net change to your points: not much.

One out, one in, and the revolving door keeps spinning.

Sam

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