Amex Gold - what to do with points?

Kamran

Dear all, hope you're well!

I took forum advice and a year ago got myself an Amex Gold card for all spending. With referral bonuses and all personal spending, I've accumulated approx 53,000 points. It's not huge, but it's certainly better than the nothing that my debit card would have given me

I had a few questions that I'd be grateful for some advice on:

1) By my calculations, £140 per year for the amex gold doesn't work out great value. It's essentially £140 for the lounge club. I really like the lounge club - but is it worth £140 per year (and then £15 per visit) - i get that it's dependent on how much you use it, but does it represent reasonable value at £140 per annum? With 2 free passes it comes to around £35 per visit if you go 5+ times per year.

2) I'll most likely cancel the amex gold card in a few weeks (unless someone can convince me to keep it, which I'm open to) - but what to do with the 53,000 points? I like to travel but am not jetting off every month or anything. I have some existing avios points with BA but otherwise I don't really have any preference/affiliation with any airline. I spoke to amex and they said that if i cancel the card without moving the points somewhere i would lose them. So i'm thinking just bite the bullet and shift to avios. Any other recommendations?

Thanks! :T

InsideInsurance

Reward Flights with BA are £35 + 8,000 to 20,000 miles so 53,000 MR plus your existing Avios points could add up to a couple of very cheap flights

Alternatively depending on how many points you've got in BA already you could be fairly close to upgrade a pair of tickets to business class or such

reclusive46

Remember you can always downgrade to the Green card in the mean time, while you decide what to do. The annual fee is much less on that (£60).

blenz101

Converting to frequent flyer miles will give you by far the biggest bang for your buck if you compare the cost of reward bookings against cash tickets.

Each MR point is generally considered to be worth around 1.5p if used for a 'good value' transfer and then subseqnt redemption.

For the level of MR you have Avios may well be the best option, particularly if you are in the South East and can make use of the reward flight savers for short haul. Long haul in economy will generally provide the worst value.

Remember (as this is MSE) you need to consider if you are actually getting true value because if you would never normally have booked BA over a low cost carrier or you are forced to fly from Heathrow and incur travel and overnight in an airport hotel vs flying from your local airport the true value you get from your "free flight" is greatly reduced. I would also recommend exploring the availability and miles required - both peak and off peak - to the destinations you wish to consider on BA.com before making a transfer as it is a one way process.

If you stay in hotels then maybe consider Hilton/SPG points etc. Have a look on their websites for points required, if you genuinely need to stay in the hotel and would have paid cash this can be a great use of points.

Most rewards will require you to redeem in block of say 1000 points, a top tip when closing your account is that you can convert single points to Nectar ensuring your account is completely empty when you close it.

As for getting value from the £140 fee only you can decide - the lounge club cards are an OK perk but for most people it is the membership fee to be able to collect (at a great rate) such a flexible reward currency. If you travel a lot (especially with work) then redeeming for statement credit can also be an attractive feature of this card. You can also buy currency without it appearing as a cash advance and earn points (if done correctly!).

Given you already don't know what to do with your points already my gut feeling is that this may not be the best product for you. MR points are highly valued by those who know their way around the hotel and frequent flier schemes but I certainly wouldn't pay a membership fee if I was likely to get 0.5p per point of value as opposed to over 1.5p.

Don't forget also if you keep the card beyond your renewal (big purchases coming up? Need lounge access?) then you can always cancel the card at any point during the year for a prorata refund of the fee.

Kamran

blenz101 wrote: »

Don't forget also if you keep the card beyond your renewal (big purchases coming up? Need lounge access?) then you can always cancel the card at any point during the year for a prorata refund of the fee.

fantastic idea - I'm off on honeymoon in August and would have been great to use lounge access!

Kamran

reclusive46 wrote: »

Remember you can always downgrade to the Green card in the mean time, while you decide what to do. The annual fee is much less on that (£60).

Thanks for this. Just had a look at the amex site and the green card seems to be a MR card without the lounge club access, at first glance. It was actually the other way round I was after - I'd like to keep lounge club access but not have the card (and its £140 fee) because have just switched over to the BA Premium Plus Amex in the hope of spending £10k for the companion ticket.

Kamran

blenz101 wrote: »

Given you already don't know what to do with your points already my gut feeling is that this may not be the best product for you. MR points are highly valued by those who know their way around the hotel and frequent flier schemes but I certainly wouldn't pay a membership fee if I was likely to get 0.5p per point of value as opposed to over 1.5p.

I think i'll probably keep the amex gold until after the honeymoon, so I continue to enjoy lounge club access and then cancel it when I'm back. In the mean time I'll switch to spending on the BA Amex Prem Plus like I said to try and hit the £10k spend asap for the companion ticket.

msallen

Kamran wrote: »

Thanks for this. Just had a look at the amex site and the green card seems to be a MR card without the lounge club access, at first glance. It was actually the other way round I was after - I'd like to keep lounge club access but not have the card (and its £140 fee) because have just switched over to the BA Premium Plus Amex in the hope of spending £10k for the companion ticket.

If you're just after lounge access (and don't have sufficient status with BA or any other airline) then there are better options than Lounge Club anyway. Priority Pass is probably your best bet. There are three versions with three different annual fees depending on whether you want 0, 10 or unlimited entries included (other entries at £15 like Lounge Club). Whatever you do thoug, DO NOT pay full price for Priority Pass - the internet is awash with discounts for it, or else you can join via a cashback site.

blenz101

Kamran wrote: »

I think i'll probably keep the amex gold until after the honeymoon, so I continue to enjoy lounge club access and then cancel it when I'm back. In the mean time I'll switch to spending on the BA Amex Prem Plus like I said to try and hit the £10k spend asap for the companion ticket.

Good stuff, sounds like you will incur a very minimal amount of next years membership fee and still get to use your two free lounge visits.

As an extra word of warning if you are flying on BA don't forget that Lounge Club will not get you into a BA lounge and at Terminal 5 (their home at Heathrow) there are no 3rd party lounges available... make sure you check your honeymoon airport location(s) against the Lounge Club database.

As you may already be aware you can reapply for the Gold card again in 6 months and still get another sign up bonus. Many people alternate these cards in a 6 month cycle - if you get your future wife involved you can 'synchronise' the applications so at any one time you are holding the right mix of cards and then refer each other for the next batch.

thebigbosh

Although this doesn't answer your original question (think the Avios route sounds best for you - if you like lounging it up you could love taking annual biz class flights) I've got a good little trick for you. Refer your partner to the Gold card and you'll both get the sign up bonus. Then get a supplementary card on their account and continue with Gold and racking up the points for another year. They'll get the bonus as long as they haven't had Gold or Platinum Amex cards in the past 6 months. If you do go the Avios route, you could combine your current points and their sign up bonus and get a nice flight somewhere. And if you want to level up more, think about the BA Black Card which gives you a companion voucher after 10k spend in a year. Which, with 53k MR earnings in a year seems possible from your spending. Et voila, lots of miles and biz class flights long haul.

Kamran

msallen wrote: »

If you're just after lounge access (and don't have sufficient status with BA or any other airline) then there are better options than Lounge Club anyway. Priority Pass is probably your best bet. There are three versions with three different annual fees depending on whether you want 0, 10 or unlimited entries included (other entries at £15 like Lounge Club). Whatever you do thoug, DO NOT pay full price for Priority Pass - the internet is awash with discounts for it, or else you can join via a cashback site.

Funny you should mention it - I was on the Priority Pass site yesterday and was put off by the whopping annual fee. Thanks for the heads up, will have a look on ebay for some discount vouchers or something.