Which Amex to use - gold or platinum

united4ever

I have two amex cards. a gold rewards and a platinum one and trying to work out which I should be using.

the anniversary of the platinum is November and I have about £17 cashback - if I use it for everything in the next few weeks I could get the cashback of £25 which is the minimum I believe - they don't give cashback for less than £25.

The gold one I have been using intensively over the summer abroad and have 32000 reward points - I need 40000 reward points to get a £200 amazon voucher. the anniversary is next june. What I can't work out easily is how much you need to spend to get a reward point in the uk. Anyone know?

OriolaW

For the Gold

Points, points and more points
Earn a welcome bonus of 20,000 points just by spending £2,000 on your
Card over the first three months of Cardmembership. That's enough for two return flights with British Airways to old favourites such as Paris or Amsterdam. Or why not say yes to something different and check out Chambery, Basle or Stuttgart? Taxes, fees and terms apply.
Plus spend £15,000 or more during any Cardmembership year and earn an additional 7,500 bonus points after every renewal, so now you can celebrate two birthdays every year

YES, you can earn double Membership Rewards® points on
your shopping.
In your first year, you'll earn DOUBLE points on everyday
essentials when you use your Card.
2 points for every full £1 spent and charged at major supermarkets
and petrol stations - imagine what you could turn your weekly shop
into.
1 point for every full £1 spent and charged to your Card virtually everywhere else.
Remember, there's no cap on points earned, even when you're
earning double points. And your points are there for whenever you
need them. They simply don't expire.

http://www.americanexpress.com/uk/gold-rewards-card-exclusive/reward-points.shtml?PID=829&BUID=CCG&PSKU=VL&AFFID=NEO&CRTV=DFLT

Hopefully I haven't misunderstood and this helps somewhat

b1982

united4ever wrote: »

The gold one I have been using intensively over the summer abroad and have 32000 reward points - I need 40000 reward points to get a £200 amazon voucher. the anniversary is next june. What I can't work out easily is how much you need to spend to get a reward point in the uk. Anyone know?

If this is a new card, you get double points for supermarket and petrol spends in the first year (this includes Amazon from which you can buy almost anything). Travel spends are always double points. One points for everything else.

united4ever

b1982 wrote: »

If this is a new card, you get double points for supermarket and petrol spends in the first year (this includes Amazon from which you can buy almost anything). Travel spends are always double points. One points for everything else.

Good to know - do hotel stays count as 'travel'. Thanks:)

[Deleted User]

Yes they do. Hotels, flights, trains etc all count as travel. If you pay for 'travel' spend while abroad you double up on points - 1 extra for foreign spend and another for travel spend. For example, pay for a hotel abroad and you get triple points.

Also, for flights, book via the Amex travel webpage. It will be the same price as booking direct but you get an additional point for each £1 spend (so 3 in total). You can also do this for hotels but you'll have to be more careful that it is the best price.

InsideInsurance

united4ever wrote: »

I need 40000 reward points to get a £200 amazon voucher

This would value your MR points at approximately 0.5p each. Depending on your spending patterns you are probably realistically getting a maximum average of 1.5 points per £1 spent and so your return is only 0.75% whereas the Platinum Cashback card gives you 1.25% return

The MR points are great but to make the most out of them you really need to be using them for other things, namely transferring them to airlines or hotel programmes and then spending them there. Combine that with the bonus transfers they have etc and you can achieve 2%-3% return

zerog

InsideInsurance wrote: »

This would value your MR points at approximately 0.5p each.

Since amazon vouchers are purchaseable on ebay for between 80-95% off (earning MR points in the process) I'd say it's even less.

Lazyloki wrote: »

Also, for flights, book via the Amex travel webpage.

I wish I had read this earlier. This is a really good idea, especially when the flights are not priced in GBP, as it seems to convert it at the prevailing rate without a forex fee. I've just wasted £50 and missed out on 900 MR points by paying directly to the airline in EUR with Amex (for the insurance) and got charged the German credit card surcharge too. For my next flight I thought of going through a UK travel agency which at least charged in GBP, but it also charged for CCs and didn't take Amex.

Oh well, I'll just ask for 5000 MR compensation for them still not automatically applying double points to spend with major airlines...