Combine Amex Points Now, Because I Think Card-Specific Transfer Rates Are Coming

You now have to combine Amex points manually when you open a new card, and I don’t think that’s the real story.

American Express updated its Membership Rewards terms in October 2026 so that every new card gets its own Rewards Account instead of flowing into your existing pool. On its own, that’s a minor annoyance fixed with one tap. But the new wording also says point values can vary by which products are linked to an account, and that’s the line I’d pay attention to. My prediction is that Amex is building the plumbing to offer different transfer rates on different cards, and the obvious first target is Hilton.

To be clear up front: the account change is confirmed in Amex’s own terms. The transfer rate part is my read of where this goes based on what other issuers are doing, not something Amex has announced.

What Amex Actually Changed

The old terms said that if you had multiple Membership Rewards cards, Amex “may automatically link them to the same Rewards Account,” and in practice it always did. The October 2026 update replaces that. Each enrolled product is now linked to its own Rewards Account, and opening a new card creates a new one. You can link some or all of your cards together through the Manage Connections option in the Amex app or website, or by calling the number on the back of your card, and once linked the points consolidate into a single balance.

Existing pooled accounts appear untouched since the terms only describe what happens when you open a new product, though Amex hasn’t said that explicitly. Whether a welcome bonus posts to the new card’s separate account and moves over cleanly on linking is also unconfirmed so far. If you’re mid-spend on a new card, link the accounts now rather than waiting for the bonus.

The Line That Matters

Here’s the sentence in the updated terms I keep coming back to: the ways you can use points, “including available redemption options and points values,” may vary depending on the products linked to your Rewards Account. The previous version only said your ability to use points may differ by product. Adding “points values” is new.

Amex already does this on the redemption side. The Business Platinum gets a 35% airline rebate on Pay with Points that the personal Platinum doesn’t. The Schwab Platinum can cash out at a rate other cards can’t. Business Checking linked to a Business Platinum deposits at a better rate than Business Checking alone. The one place every Membership Rewards card has always been equal is transfer partners. A point from a no-fee Blue Business Plus transfers to Air France at exactly the same 1:1 as a point from a $895 Platinum.

Separate accounts per card make it technically possible to end that. If every card has its own account, Amex can attach a transfer table to each one and let the premium card carry the better ratio.

Why Hilton Is the Obvious Target

Amex transfers to Hilton Honors at 1:2, and that ratio is a relative advantage nobody else matches. Chase, Citi, and Capital One don’t transfer to Hilton at all. With Hilton points worth roughly half a cent each, the 1:2 rate (with the occasional bonus) is what makes a transfer defensible rather than a giveaway. Amex also issues all of Hilton’s cobrand cards, so the relationship runs deeper than a standard partner.

If I were Amex and wanted to make the Platinum or Business Platinum more compelling without touching the annual fee again, giving those cards 1:2 to Hilton while dropping lower-tier cards to 1:1.5 or 1:1 is a clean way to do it. It costs nothing on the cards Amex most wants you to hold and makes the fee-free cards less of a backdoor. I could be wrong about the specific partner, and I could be wrong about the whole thing. But the structural change is real, and this is the use case it enables.

What to Do With Your Amex Points Right Now

Don’t panic-transfer. Nothing about transfer rates has changed today, and moving points to Hilton, or any other partner, without a booking in mind is how you end up with a balance that loses value sitting there.

What I would do is three things. Link any new cards to your main Rewards Account now so you can see one balance. Audit which card actually earns most of your points, because if rates ever do split by card, that’s the account you’ll want your balance sitting in. And if you already have a Hilton redemption planned for the next few months, there’s no reason to wait on the transfer.

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