Amex Preferred Rewards Gold Card

sfax

Does anyone have this card and intend to keep it beyond the first (fee free) year?

I’m struggling to see its benefits having looked at what you can get for your points. You seem to only be able to get £1 for 200-222 points regardless of how you exchange them (even hotels and flights booked through Amex).

So is it best to exchange all of your points for air miles? As it stands, I’ll spend about £20k/year and yield maybe 25,000 points which is only £112 against an annual fee of £135.

I’m only trying it out as I got bored with my Halifax cashback card but I was hoping for a lot more TBH. Will be swiftly back to Halifax where I was getting £250 cashback per year, unless I’m missing something…

InsideInsurance

Your much better off switching them for things like Avios points.... with a bit of tactical shopping etc you should get a much better yield than 25,000 points from your spend due to bonuses etc (They fairly often have a 30% bonus on transferred points etc)

Free flights or upgrades are certainly better value, 20,000 points and £30 gets you to Moscow -v- an average price of around £400

You certainly should opt in to all marketing by them too, I believe Gold get less offers than Platinum but I get a lot of "free" offers/ vouchers etc. Certainly adding up the total value of the ones I've made use of exceeds the card fee excluding the benefits of the MR points.

reclusive46

Agreed about the Avios thing. They have a 50% extra thing not long ago. Also with all the foursquare and shop shall offers, not hard to get your moneys worth. You do get free gifts on the gold sometimes as well.

Also try and get hold of retentions at the end of the year. My brother managed to get a £100 when saying he was going to leave. Paid off most of his annual fee.

sfax

Thanks for the replies. I have a dumb newbie question: 1 Amex PG point = how many Avios points? I have tried to check this myself on Amex, on Avios app and Google but no dice

sfax

sfax wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I have a dumb newbie question: 1 Amex PG point = how many Avios points? I have tried to check this myself on Amex, on Avios app and Google but no dice

Anyone know the answer to this please? Just being lazy and trying to avoid calling them

reclusive46

sfax wrote: »

Anyone know the answer to this please? Just being lazy and trying to avoid calling them

http://catalogue.membershiprewards.co.uk/l2Category.mtw?categoryName=uk_2a_airline_transfer_partners&parentCategoryName=uk_2_travel&newCategorySearch=true

sfax

reclusive46 wrote: »

http://catalogue.membershiprewards.co.uk/l2Category.mtw?categoryName=uk_2a_airline_transfer_partners&parentCategoryName=uk_2_travel&newCategorySearch=true

Much appreciated. I almost got there (clicked Rewards then Travel but didn't see the links of the left hand side). Spent ages faffing around. :doh:

InsideInsurance

Don't ever get the Amex Platinum if you struggle with the rewards site then, the benefits are split over half a dozen different places, they still show expired or sold out options etc. Add to that some other countries offers are open internationally but only shown on the host countries site.

They do appear to be trying to get better but still a long way off, they've done a new airport lounge finder because whilst not complex rules the volumes are large but searching all the Indian international hubs none of the AmEx own lounges show up

To answer the Q though, 1:1 is the normal ratio for Avios but they often do bonuses (50% was the most recent). Plus if you opt in for marketing then many people got an offer of effectively triple points for November which of cause you store and combine with an avois transfer bonus and you effectively get 4.5 airmiles per pound spent

Penelopa.Pitstop

You will get 20K Rewards points for taking the card and when you spend £20K in current double points promotion (supermarket, petrol, travel) you should be able to get another 40K points. In last promotion buying petrol at supermarket meant triple points.

I think it's really good card if you travel a lot and collect airmiles. I resigned after annual fee hike but I will go back as a new customer again later. Now clocking miles on other cards.