Maximising spend on Amex charge card

dgjlee

Hi all, just got myself an Amex Gold charge card and apart from the usual spending we all do, does anyone have any good tips on other spends or bills it can be used to pay with? It's a shame normal household bills cant be setup to come of it. I want to maximise those points!

[Deleted User]

You get double points for the first year at supermarkets and as far as I'm aware the double points cover all spend so one thing you could do it buy gift vouchers from Tesco and use those for other spending. Tesco sell vouchers for loads of shops so if you wanted to buy something from House of Fraser for example, go to tesco and buy HoF cards for the right amount and pay on your Amex. This way you could probably get double poiints on a lot of your spending.

Also, make sure you sign up for Foursquare and sync your Amex card to the account.

[Deleted User]

Lazyloki wrote: »

if you wanted to buy something from House of Fraser for example, go to tesco and buy HoF cards for the right amount and pay on your Amex.

Remember though, if you do this, and then want to return your HoF purchases, you'll only get a gift card back, which you won't be able to return to Tesco.

dgjlee

Good advice, thanks.

pingles

i was surprised how much of my monthly spend could be charged to my amex- pretty much just utilities that can't be.

i've tried purchasing a few bits from online retailers and noticed that they didn't take amex (one recently was renting a lens for my digital camera). but they did have a paypal option that they didn't charge more for. paypal let you pay with an amex so is something to keep an eye out for slightly smaller retailers.

also, not so much about maximising spend, but there'll be periodic promotions on MR redemption, giving you 20%, 40% more points when you transfer them to avios, virgin flying club etc.

there's also been occasions where gift vouchers have been incorrectly priced (but MR exchanges honoured). flyertalk.com is a great place for those discussions.

michaels

Lazyloki wrote: »

You get double points for the first year at supermarkets and as far as I'm aware the double points cover all spend so one thing you could do it buy gift vouchers from Tesco and use those for other spending. Tesco sell vouchers for loads of shops so if you wanted to buy something from House of Fraser for example, go to tesco and buy HoF cards for the right amount and pay on your Amex. This way you could probably get double poiints on a lot of your spending.

Also, make sure you sign up for Foursquare and sync your Amex card to the account.

Or Morisons where you get a petrol discount if you buy vouchers for other stores?

dgjlee

I've done the Paypal trick and it works. There used to be an issue where there was a conversion from dollars to pounds but that doesn't happen anymore. All good tips and advice, keep them coming.

[Deleted User]

I think (I could be wrong) that you also get double points on spend at Amazon. Not sure if this comes because it counts amazon as a supermarket or because the company is based offshore (bloody tax-dodgers!) so counts as foreign spend (no foreign spend charges though).

[Deleted User]

Oh, and referrals! If you refer a friend for the gold card you get 12,000 MR points and the friend will receive 22,000 when they make the minimum spend to trigger the welcome bonus. Amex also allow transfer of MR points between people for a flat fee (£25 maybe?).

So, if you have a good friend (or partner) you could refer them for the card and when they've received the bonus they could transfer the points to you and close the account. This would bag you 34,000 bonus points in total.

Russinating

As above, referring is the real maximiser. I've referred three people which is 36,000 points. I wouldn't even earn that much from spending in probably 3/4 years.

thesaver79

Russinating wrote: »

As above, referring is the real maximiser. I've referred three people which is 36,000 points. I wouldn't even earn that much from spending in probably 3/4 years.

I'm jealous!! How do you all get to refer so many people??