Amex - Preferred Rewards Gold vs Platinum Cashback

thesaver79

Hi,

I've recently got a Preferred Rewards Gold Card. I also own a Platinum Cashback card. I got the former primarily for the 20000 welcome bonus it comes with.

Am I wrong to say that, bonus aside, the cashback is much more valuable than the reward points? I haven't really done the maths though.

Any opinions are welcome!

grumbler

Mse article: Credit Cards Rewards

www.RewardsChecker.com

thesaver79

Thank you. I can infer some useful information but no direct comparison between the two. As far as I can see, at least.

zerog

thesaver79 wrote: »

Am I wrong to say that, bonus aside, the cashback is much more valuable than the reward points? I haven't really done the maths though.

Well the only way to answer that question is to do that maths!

If you never go on holiday, then the MR points are usually worthless unless you can get Tesco gift cards at a 90% discount.

If you always fly business on BA, then the points will be valuable to you as you can book in prem economy and upgrade with points for much less cash.

thesaver79

zerog wrote: »

Well the only way to answer that question is to do that maths!

If you never go on holiday, then the MR points are usually worthless unless you can get Tesco gift cards at a 90% discount.

If you always fly business on BA, then the points will be valuable to you as you can book in prem economy and upgrade with points for much less cash.

I was hoping that someone else would've done the maths already

I travel quite a lot, which is what led me to apply for the card. I may transfer the 20000 points intro bonus to my BA Executive Club account, as I have some miles there already.

I am still trying to figure out where to spend after that, at least for the first year... I have no intention of paying the annual fee of £125 for the second year.

w211

Also need to bear in mind the annual fee of £125 (currently, it's free for the first year) for the Preferred Rewards Gold Card.

w211

Ah, you've already replied to what I've just said!

Sometimes, if you wait, there could be a special offer/bonus for transferring points into Avios, last year there was a 40% bonus for a while (instead of 1 point = 1 Avios, it was 1.4 Avios).

zerog

thesaver79 wrote: »

I was hoping that someone else would've done the maths already

Many people have done the maths, but without any specific details of what you want, nobody can answer your question.

Do you want a discounted flight, hotel status, or do you just want the gift cards? If flights, then what are your travel patterns? What class and routes do you travel, do you book flex tickets or cheapest only?

BA miles can be worth anything from 0.001p each to 5p each. If flying from the UK, you will always have to pay lots of cash to use the miles, but the BA Amex may be worthwhile.

[Deleted User]

I also have both of those cards. The maths are quite simple but it really depends on how much you fly and what you value Avios at. Personally I value Avios as 1p per point.

The Plat CB card with get you 1.25% cash back so that beats the PR Gold in that respect. However, you get 2 member reward points (=2 avios = 2p) per pound spent on travel (hotels, flights, train tickets, transport for london etc) and 2 per pound in supermarkets for the first year (Amazon seems to count as a supermarket spend for some reason and I've been getting double points there too).

Use the PR Gold until you hit the £2000 spend to collect the welcome bonus. After that use the PR Gold for your travel/supermarket spend and the Plat cashback for everything else.

Also bear in mind that if you spend £10k per year on the cashback card you'll get 2.5% in your anniversary month. If you spend £15k per year on the gold you'll get a 75000 point bonus on your anniversary.

Last thing to consider is that it's fairly common for Amex to run conversion bonuses on Avios (sometimes up to 50%). All in all, if you're willing to put up with the faff involved in collecting lots of Avios then you will get more out of them than the simple cash back if you were to use them to upgrade to biz class on long haul flights. Alternatively you can use them to pay for european short hall flights using the Euro Reward Saver scheme with BA (flights to most of western europe for 9000 avios + £30 for a return).

If you really want to make the most out of Avios then consider the Amex BA Premium Plus credit card. If you hit £10k spend in a year you get a companion voucher for BA - this allows you to bring along someone else on a reward flight without costing you extra avios. All you have to pay is the fees and taxes.

Incidentally, shameless plug here, if anyone would like a referral for the PR Gold card then drop me a PM (both you and I will receive extra bonus MR points).

thesaver79

Lazyloki,

Thank you for the great answer. It makes perfect sense. I reckon I'm going to do exactly what you're recommending during this first year.

Can I throw two questions given that we're here, even if not 100% on topic:

1) I made a transaction today to buy a monthly Travelcard with TFL. It shows up in the Finance category rather than travel. I've sent an email to check if they can correct that manually. Any experience on this?
2) For the first £2000 I spend, do I get "normal" reward points on top of the welcome bonus?

[Deleted User]

In answer to your questions:

1) I've never bought a ticket with TfL over the counter with my PR Gold but I have used it to top up my Oyster and pay for Heathrow Express. I received double points on Heathrow Express and triple (!) points on my TfL top-up. I'm not sure why this is but the line from my statement had the 10 points for the spend plus 10 travel bonus plus 10 first year welcome bonus... Not sure if that will always be the case though.

If your points don't post correctly then just email customer service, they've always been very helpful with me. They gave me a bonus £75 on my platinum credit card after I noticed that some of my very first transactions didn't receive cash back.

2) Yes, you will receive points as normal on all of your spend plus a bonus 20,000 when you reach £2000 in the first three months. Bear in mind that it's £2000 spend, not 2000 MR points accrued (as you will receive double points on supermarket and travel). Note that it does sometimes take a few days for points to post to your account