American Express Cashback Vs Amex Preferred Members Gold Card

gavers79

Hi guys,

I've had an Amex Platinum Cash Back Card, which I have had a number of years. In October I get my cash back. I also have a Preferred Members Gold card (which I haven't used yet?)

With all the points the Preferred Members Gold card gives you, pound for pound is it better than my Amex Cash Back (should I ditch it?)

I'm not fussed about whether I get say avios points or cash - it's just whatever works out you get the most of.

Let me know any thoughts....

Thanks

pingles

It's complicated

It depends on how you redeem the Membership Rewards points. Spend them on shopping vouchers, for example, and it's worse than the cashback card- you'll get around 1% value (and you're restricted to specific providers for vouchers etc. whereas the cashback card will give you 1.25% as a card credit). Having said that if you're in the bonus period you may be able to get double that for certain spend categories (travel etc.).

Airline redemptions are better value, but only really worth it (i.e. a 2/3%+ return) when you're redeeming for cabin upgrades or premium international fares. And, for those to be possible, you'll also need to be putting a fair amount through the card (lets say £50-100k/year of spend).

To be more accurate it'd be useful to know how much travel you do and how much are you likely to be spending (and in which categories)?

Jaywilz

It totally depends on how much you are spending on each of the accounts

gavers79

Thanks for this guys

Each year, I'm spending about £12K - £15K on my Amex Cashback card at the moment.

I'm more than happy to use the card for flights - but does that value beat the cashback

[Deleted User]

gavers79 wrote: »

Thanks for this guys

Each year, I'm spending about £12K - £15K on my Amex Cashback card at the moment.

I'm more than happy to use the card for flights - but does that value beat the cashback

How long have you had the gold card for? One of the big attractions of this card is the 20,000 point intro bonus for spending £2k in the first three months. If you are still inside this window then that bonus is very much worth chasing and will beat your cashback by a significant margin.

As for points vs cash back - it really depends on how you plan to redeem. I prefer points. To give you an idea, 17,000 amex points could be converted to 50,000 Club Carlson points - enough for a free night at one of their top hotels with a value of £300ish.

InsideInsurance

MR points can also be useful with the likes of the BA Reward flights where 9,000 points + £35. At the moment there is a bonus of up to 30% on MR points moved to BA so for under 7,000 MR points you can get a European flight. I did this with a couple of colleagues and they were paying £300 for the same flight that I paid £35 for and mine would be a flexible ticket, theirs not.

As to cashback -v- MR, depends on what you're travel is like. If you go frequently, like higher tier flights etc then MR can certainly give you a better return rate especially if you play the game with using bonus transfer windows, look for bonus MR point opportunities etc.

gavers79

From this I think it sounds like Membership Rewards could be the way forward, as in it offers more. Yep I do fly and would look to use points for upgrades. So if the value of this, outweighs cashback - I think I should go MR !