No, not all American Express cards earn Membership Rewards points. Many American Express cards earn cash back.
Both types of credit cards have their advantages, though. If you never, ever travel, or barely ever travel, you probably are better off with a credit card that just makes life simple and offers you cash back. If you are somebody who travels a lot – maybe you think of the airport as your second home, and you stay at hotels so often you’re contemplating starting a blog about the quality of hotel breakfasts – then you should definitely think about getting a travel credit card that offers points.
American Express cards that earn Membership Rewards points are more flexible when it comes to redeeming them, and – here’s the really important part – the rewards points can be worth more than the standard cash from cash back credit cards if you’re strategic about how you redeem them. Also, this isn’t a hard and fast rule, but there’s a good chance that your American Express credit card that offers Membership Rewards points has a lot of travel perks (like trip cancellation and interruption service or baggage insurance) that cash-back credit cards usually don’t have.