American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Card

daleuk_3

Preferred Rewards Gold Card - in order to get the 20,000 reward points, I have to spend £2000 in 3 months... the obvious way is to use all my normal spending here and repay in full.

Is there a way of say depositing £2000 with some company, an online wallet or sports book, through this card. Then generating a reversal or refund back to the card. Thus meeting the £2000 throughput for the offer?

[Deleted User]

The refund would cause a reversal of the points.

And it also sounds like you would be making a cash transaction, so would be charged a transaction fee and interest.

InsideInsurance

A refund most likely would cancel the MR points so doesnt work.

Any other route is going to incur card fees and would be risking money laundering (eg paying into paypal, transfering to another paypal and from that paypal to your bank). The card transaction fee almost certainly would exceed the value of the MR.

Any cash transaction will initially fail unless you have cash withdrawals authorised which arent as standard plus incurs fees and interest from the second you withdraw it.

You need to actually spend, is spending £2,000 in three months by paying for absolutely everything you can on AmEx really that hard for you?

[Deleted User]

There are several options for doing this, the one you choose will depend on your appetite for risk and if you want to have a long standing relationship with Amex (which I would recommend - they are one of the only issuers that seem to reward loyalty).

Option 1 is simply to do all your normal spending on the card. This assumes that your normal spending will hit the £2k requirement within the 3 month window. If it won't, but you have the funds available to pay off the card then you can simply stock up on supermarket gift cards and use these for your shopping for the next few months. Buying several hundred pounds of gift cards will count towards the spend target.

Option 2 - possibly the least hassle is to buy £2k worth of sterling Amex travellers cheques and have them home delivered. These can be paid into your bank (can with mine anyway, check before you do this yourself!) which can then in turn be used to pay the card bill. However, such a large purchase of cheques may raise suspicions on a new account - this is probably a better tactic to hit any annual spend target you may have once the card is up and running. This will cost you 1.5% in fees (for the cheques).

Option 3 - simple but you have to time it right and be willing to potentially !!!! Amex off. Buy a fully refundable item or service (perhaps an flight for some time in the future). The transaction should trigger the bonus points to hit your account. You must then transfer the points out of your account quickly and cancel/refund your purchase to bring your balance back down to £0 before payment is due. Once the points are out of your account, Amex can't get them back off you. Clearly this option carries the largest risk and may well screw up future Amex applications. Also you would have to have a solid plan for how you want to use the points.

These all work, I've used variations of them all myself but obviously this would be at your own risk. I would recommend option one though. Use the card for all your normal spending - if you're getting near the end of the time period then use supermarket gift cards to push you over the target. (also you get double points in supermarkets so worth putting spending that way anyway).

Have you applied for the card yet? If not you can get a higher 22,000 point welcome bonus if you are referred by an existing cardholder, me for example! Send me a PM if you'd like a referral.

Eduardo001

I applied for this card a few months ago after it got a write up on Roll Like Boss - it's a great card for rewards.

I was going along nicely spending towards spending the £2000 - booked a few flights / hotels etc. Anyway, I had spent about £1980 and then bought some shoes on Asos for £50. So that tipped me over the £2000 and Amex rewarded me the 20000 points.

However, the shoes I bought from Asos didn't fit and I had to return them. And after Asos credited my account, Amex took back the 20000 points! So refunds don't count towards the £2000 spending...

I received the 20000 points a few days later though after some more spending.

My advice would be to just pay for everything on the card - you can really rack up a LOT of points with double points on travel, petrol, supermarket and overseas spending etc.

[Deleted User]

Eduardo001 wrote: »

However, the shoes I bought from Asos didn't fit and I had to return them. And after Asos credited my account, Amex took back the 20000 points! So refunds don't count towards the £2000 spending....

I believe that the bonus points are linked to the individual transaction that pushes you over the £2000 target, not the actual amount.

For example, in your case the shoes effectively earned you 20,050 points (because they pushed you over the limit). If however buying the shoes took you to say £1999 spend. You then bought something for £1 which would qualify you for the bonus - the transaction would earn 20,001 points. I think if you then returned the shoes (taking you back below £2000) you would still keep the bonus points as they are tied to the £1 transaction, not the one for the shoes. If that makes sense.

Not sure if this theory scales up though. I.e. Could you buy something for £1900 and something for £101 (thus getting the bonus) and then return the £1900 item and keep the bonus...

lisyloo

is spending £2,000 in three months by paying for absolutely everything you can on AmEx really that hard for you?

Personally I've found it difficult and I have actually listed (on another thread) many places I couldn't use the card.
One example is my bike insurer Carole Nash (not a small fly by night company).
Luckily my partner has some business insurance to buy, but I'm still finding it pretty touch and go even using his personal and business spending as well.

However one option (if you do buy gifts from Amazon) is to purchase an amazon gift certificate and put it on your amazon account.
Clearly you don't want to put £2000 worth on you account, but if you were £100 or £200 short of the quota and it's a place that you regularly buy Xmas and birthday gifts then it's one solution that could work for you.
Also any other shop like tescos/M&S.

lisyloo

So refunds don't count towards the £2000 spending...

But options 3 was saying don't get the refund until you've redeemed (and preferably spent) the points. They won't be able to get them back off you then.

johnk

lisyloo wrote: »

Personally I've found it difficult and I have actually listed (on another thread) many places I couldn't use the card.
One example is my bike insurer Carole Nash (not a small fly by night company).

I'm expecting my card soon and intend to use Lazyloki's method 1. My understanding is that most of supermarkets and petrol stations take AmEx. For the other relatively big spending of online shopping, if a shop does not accept AmEx, there might be the option of Paypal which I can pay by AmEx without charge, I think.

lisyloo

I had some that didn't accept paypal or Amex (example - Carole Nash) also at least one retailer wanting to charge me for using Amex.
A good tip is that if you want to use paypal then don't login - in my experience that takes me through to my paypal account and only gives me access to my mastercard credit cards. There is a message saying "some payment methods are not available". If you pay as a guest then you can type in your Amex card - although you may need to type this in every time. That tip worked for me.

If your paying in any foreign currency then I believe there will be conversion commission with paypal/Amex.