AMEX GOLD

rugbypark017

Opened one earlier in the month with MSE stating £150 Amazon or £264 Nectar points (with a work around swapping points). Now see it’s saying £100 Amazon and £150 Nectar points. Rewards reduced and wor around gone? 

Marchitiello

I am not familiar with the MSE reference in question but I guess the work around would have been to swap MR (Membership Points) for Avios (at 1:1 value) and then in turn into Nectar which gave you up to very recently a value of £0.008 (or 0.8p). So I guess a 33,000 MR bonus would have been valued at £264. 

However the Avios to Nectar exchange has now been devalued to 0.67p so the same amount of MR would be worth £221, but the sign up bonus is currently 20,000, so with the £3k spend, you would now have only 23,000 MR that after the exchange (what you call workaround, is still in place), will now give you £154.

now, if you have signed up when the bonus for £3k spend was 30,000 MR, you should still be able to use the 33,000 MR to Avios to Nectar worth £221.10 route.

billyboy

Thanks to MSE I got my wife to apply for Gold card (recommend a friend extra bonus) as we had holiday to pay for and was able to spend £3000 in first 3 months. As suggested converted 35000 points to avios then to nectar at 250 avios to 400 nectar. Took full 12 days to happen but received 56000 nectar yesterday.   Thanks  MSE 

dcfc67

offer off 30,000 points has been reduced to 20,000 hence the reduction.

I applied for mine in time to get the 30,000.

If you get referred you would get an extra 2000 points

Zuzi

Slightly off topic - does anyone know whether the promotional points are added as soon as the 3K spend is reached, or does one have to wait until the three months are up? Let's say I reach the spend 2 months in, will I get the points then? Thanks in advance.

Marchitiello

In my experience the spend bonus points are added quite quickly, as are the referral bonus. What has been slow to be added over the last year or so were the additional cardholder sign up bonus, which Amex has recently acknowledged as an issue and sent letter about it. 

jay1804

From my experience about 3 years ago now, the points came within a couple days of the spend being met.

billyboy

came after a few days of spend

WillPS

Should be the day the final transaction to hit the target spend settles (i.e. moves from pending to your statement, normally a day or two after the transaction itself).

Zuzi

Thanks all, I did not think this card was for me at first because the spend seemed quite high but looks like I won't have a problem reaching the 3K soon. I paid in advance for my PT sessions and bought one gift card so far, putting everything else on the card too... my three months are up end of January but I would like to hit the target spend by end of this year. Looking to change the points into Nectar soon, before there is potentially another devaluation (I managed to grab the 30,000 points offer while it was still on).

I actually applied using a referral link found online, but have not noticed any promotional points for that yet. If I get another 2,000 points that would be great, if not, it's still a good deal. I think I *am* spending more than I otherwise would (then again, it could be due to the time of the year) but my plan is to go back to my usual behaviour once the target spend is reached. I am paying the card in full by DD every month.

Marchitiello

Zuzi said:

Thanks all, I did not think this card was for me at first because the spend seemed quite high but looks like I won't have a problem reaching the 3K soon. I paid in advance for my PT sessions and bought one gift card so far, putting everything else on the card too... my three months are up end of January but I would like to hit the target spend by end of this year. Looking to change the points into Nectar soon, before there is potentially another devaluation (I managed to grab the 30,000 points offer while it was still on).

I actually applied using a referral link found online, but have not noticed any promotional points for that yet. If I get another 2,000 points that would be great, if not, it's still a good deal. I think I *am* spending more than I otherwise would (then again, it could be due to the time of the year) but my plan is to go back to my usual behaviour once the target spend is reached. I am paying the card in full by DD every month.

the extra referral points also trigger when the spending target is reached, as the promotion via the referral link is simply amended to show the total, like in your case would have been
 “ Earn 32,000 bonus Membership Rewards®points

for being invited to American Express, when you spend £3,000 on your Card within the first 3 months of Cardmembership.”