For a long time Amex Membership Rewards gave you a small set of hotel options that rarely made sense to use — Marriott, Hilton, and Choice. The transfer ratios meant you were usually trading valuable points for less valuable ones. Now there is another option, Leaders Club, the loyalty program of Leading Hotels of the World, and you can move points at 4:1.

A 4:1 ratio sounds like a bad deal until you look at what Leaders Club points are actually worth. Because those points trade at a much higher value than the typical hotel point, the math lands at roughly 2 cents per point when you transfer from Amex. That is why Frequent Miler and others flagged this as better than it looks. Free nights start at 4,000 Leaders Club points, which is 16k Membership Rewards points, so the entry point for a luxury stay is lower than you would expect from the ratio alone.

What you are really unlocking is access. Leading Hotels of the World is not a single chain, it is a portfolio of more than 425 independent luxury hotels in more than 80 countries, including places like Ritz Paris and the Baglioni Resort Maldives that you could not book with Amex points before. Amex is now the second transferable currency to partner with Leaders Club after Citi, which transfers at 5:1, so on paper Amex gives you a slightly better baseline than Citi before any transfer bonuses.

When is that actually worth it for you. It is worth it when you have a specific independent luxury stay in mind and you have checked what that night would cost in cash versus points. Leaders Club points do not have a fixed value, so the value moves with the property and the date. If you are booking a hotel you would pay cash for anyway and the points math gets you to that roughly 2 cents per point level, the transfer can make sense. If you are transferring speculatively because the partner is new, or you would be just as happy at a chain where you already have status, it does not.

Do not transfer first and search later. Find the Leaders Club availability, note the points price, compare it to the cash price you would actually pay, and divide cash by points to get your personal cents per point. Then move just enough Amex points at 4:1 to cover that stay. That keeps you from getting stuck with points in a program you rarely use, which is the main trap with any niche hotel transfer.