On July 28, 2026, American Express added The Leading Hotels of the World's Leaders Club as a transfer partner. There was no press release. The option just appeared in the transfer list. It is Amex's 20th partner and its 4th hotel program, joining Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy and Choice Privileges, and the ratio is 4:1, meaning a thousand Membership Rewards points become 250 Leaders Club points.
A 4:1 ratio looks rough, initially, but it's the most valuable hotel transfer Amex offers, by more than double. We built our Leaders Club valuation by pricing it against real property rates, and once that number existed, our algorithm moved the Amex number too.
What Amex actually added
- Ratio: 4:1. Four Membership Rewards points become one Leaders Club point. LHW publishes no ratio at all, and its terms say the rate "will be provided by the Third Party Loyalty Provider at the time of the Points Transfer", so it gets cited to Amex, and you should read the transfer screen before you commit.
- Minimum transfer: 1,000 Membership Rewards points, same floor as Amex's other hotel partners. JetBlue (250) and Qantas (500) are the only partners with lower ones.
- Processing time: three days according to Amex. Only four partners get a published time that isn't the standard 48 hours, and this is one of them, along with ANA, Avianca, and Hilton (Hilton's is actually faster, up to a day).
- Direction: one way. Nothing comes back.
- Not new for everyone. Citi ThankYou has transferred to Leaders Club for years, at 5:1. The Amex transfer is the new one.
Leaders Club has no award chart, which changes how you value it
Every other hotel program gives you something to study. Hyatt has categories. Marriott and Hilton price dynamically, but their points prices still drift away from what the room costs in cash. You find the places where the two don't align, and those disagreements are the sweet spots we like to focus on.
Leaders Club has none of that. A reward night is priced against the hotel's own published cash rate for the date you want. LHW's FAQ says that free nights "start at approximately 4,000 points," and "the number of points varies based on each hotel's published room rates for a particular day." Southwest does the same thing over in the airline world, pricing award flights off the cash fare instead of a chart.
So there is nothing to "hunt" and not really a concept of a "sweet spot" for their points. The points price just follows the cash price wherever it goes.
A few more things worth knowing, from LHW's own pages:
- About 400 properties, roughly 30 of them in the US. Small footprint, and mostly not American.
- Points expire 24 months after the last time they were earned, purchased, transferred or redeemed. A transfer into the program resets the clock. This is extremely similar to Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton.
- Taxes and fees are not waived on a reward night, at least on paper. In practice some hotels collect them and some don't, more below.
- LHW contradicts itself on the entry price. "Approximately 4,000 points" has appeared on its how-it-works, FAQ and benefits pages since 2018. The Amex listing added to that same benefits page on launch day says 4,500 points for U.S. reward stays. Something to keep in mind.
If you hold an Amex Platinum or Business Platinum, you may already have status with Leaders Club and not know it. Complimentary Leaders Club Sterling status has been a Platinum benefit since the September 2025 refresh (maybe we should have seen this transfer partnership coming): daily continental breakfast for two, five confirmed pre-arrival upgrades a year, bonus points. Enrollment is required. It is worth about $100 a year if you stay at these properties, since breakfast for two can run $50 a stay on its own, and nothing at all if you do not.
If you do not have an account, opening one is free. Leaders Club charged $175 a year until mid-2021 and then dropped the fee entirely, so there is nothing to buy before you can transfer.
What a Leaders Club point is worth
We put a Leaders Club point at 7.0 cents. That number came from pricing out real stays, checking the points price against the cash rate for the same room on the same night, at a bunch of properties and dates. The answers landed anywhere from the mid 6s to about 9 cents. The spread comes from various room types and various properties, and changes based on dates. It's just what happens when the points price is tied to a cash rate that moves.
We settled our cpp valuation below the middle of that range on purpose, for two reasons. LHW's listed rate isn't always the cheapest way to book the same room. And taxes are a coin flip: on paper they're all on you, but in practice some hotels collect them at checkout and some just don't, with no pattern we could find. So we feel that an appropriate valuation fro thee points is at 7.0.
Why our Amex number went up
We don't put our thumb in the air to find which way the wind is blowing for our headline numbers for currencies like Membership Rewards. They're computed from the partner network via our own algorithms, so when a partner worth several cents shows up, every currency that can reach it moves.
Amex Membership Rewards moved from 2.3 to 2.5 cents balanced, and from 3.4 to 3.6 aspirational. Two things drive that: the new route is worth more per point than any hotel partner Amex already had, and a 20th partner makes the network itself a little more valuable.
Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One, Bilt, Wells Fargo and HSBC did not move. None of them reaches Leaders Club. That is the sanity check that this was a partner-side change and not a drift in our methodology.
Where this lands in an Amex wallet
Every hotel transfer Amex offers, converted to what a Membership Rewards point is worth on that route at our valuations:
| Hotel program | Ratio | Value per Membership Rewards point |
|---|---|---|
| Leaders Club | 4:1 | 1.75¢ |
| Hilton Honors | 1:2 | 0.80¢ |
| Marriott Bonvoy | 1:1 | 0.70¢ |
| Choice Privileges | 1:1 | 0.80¢ |
The 4:1 is doing what a ratio is supposed to do, which is price a point that is worth several times more. Dividing seven by four still beats doubling a sub-half-cent Hilton point, and it is not close.
One more number matters: At 4:1, a 7.0 cent Leaders Club point converts to 1.75 cents per Membership Rewards point, and our balanced valuation for Membership Rewards across the whole network is 2.5 cents. Amex's best hotel route does not reach the average of everything Amex can do, because the premium-cabin airline redemptions on the other side of that blend run a lot higher. This is very common across many transferable currencies.
So who is this for
It pays when you were going to stay at one of these hotels anyway, and you've stacked a bunch of points and redeeming is better than never redeeming. This is genuinely a good value for a hotel, but the opportunity cost is premium airfare. If you already have the premium airfare solved, this is a great upgrade to the Amex partner program.
The floor is about 4,000 points, which is 16,000 Membership Rewards at 4:1, and at our valuation that is a night worth roughly $280. The entry cost is low for the category. If a Leading Hotels property is where you want to be, this is the best hotel route Amex gives you, by a wide margin.
If you are optimizing for cents per point, this is not the route. The airline side of Amex's network returns more, and there is no chart to outsmart. Chasing Leaders Club for the value alone means paying a conversion premium to reach a program that is designed to hand you the cash rate back in points. It will be interesting to watch and see whether Amex runs any transfer bonuses for this program.
Before you move any points
Most of these sit on the transfer page in the product, next to the ratio, because next to the ratio is where they matter:
- Transfers are one way and cannot be reversed. Confirm the award is bookable before you transfer. This is the fact that makes a transfer different from every other action with credit cards.
- Budget for taxes and fees. On paper they're all on you. In practice some hotels collect them and some don't, and you usually can't see the number until checkout, after your points have already moved.
- LHW is not always the cheapest channel for the same room. Compare the direct rate before you transfer. Our valuation already discounts for this; your specific booking may be bookable at a deeper discount.
- There are no sweet spots to hunt. The points price follows the cash price, so there's no mispriced award to find. Time spent hunting one is time spent on nothing.
- The footprint is small. About 400 properties, roughly 30 in the US.
- Points expire 24 months after your last activity. A transfer in resets the clock, so parking points there speculatively starts a two-year timer on a balance you cannot move back.
