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Got Amex Gold? Get 3,000 free Membership Rewards points by adding the Gold credit card

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I know that a lot of Head for Points readers have taken out an American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card in the last few weeks as they try to top-up their Avios before the April 28th devaluation.

As a reminder, Amex Gold is free for the first year and comes with 20,000 or more Membership Rewards points (full details in my review).  These can be converted into 20,000 Avios points or a whole load of other things.

If you’ve already got one, you are eligible for a further 3,000 Membership Rewards points for free.

Take a look here. You can apply for the Amex Gold credit card, to sit in your wallet alongside your Amex Gold charge card.

The representative APR is 14.9% variable.

Why would you want this? Well, there is one good reason – you receive 3,000 Membership Rewards points for signing up!  As the Amex Gold credit card is free, you are getting points for literally nothing (except for possibly a ding on your credit report).

There isn’t much else to add:

You need to spend £500 in three months to receive the 3,000 Membership Rewards points

You will earn 1 Membership Rewards points for each £1 spent

There is no annual fee

In theory you must cancel your Gold credit card if you cancel your Gold charge card. The Gold credit card is not available as a stand-alone product. (This is important, as otherwise it would be an easy way of keeping your Membership Rewards account active if you chose to cancel your charge card.)

However, some people report that they are allowed to keep the Gold credit card.  There is no pattern as to why, but if Amex allows you to do this then you do not need to empty out your Membership Rewards account.

Is there much point to having this card? Fundamentally, Amex is encouraging you to run up debt that you cannot afford to instantly repay (otherwise you would use your charge card). It will make your wallet thicker without adding any extra flexibility to how you spend, since it can’t be used anywhere where your Amex Gold isn’t accepted.

That said, 3,000 Membership Rewards points is worth having – that is 3,000 Avios or Virgin Flying Club miles.

Got a Platinum charge card?

Don’t worry, there is a similar deal for you too.  A while ago I wrote about the ‘private’ Platinum Credit Card from American Express which also offers 3,000 Membership Rewards points.  Not to be confused with the Amex Platinum cashback cards, this card is ONLY available to Platinum charge card holders.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Membership Rewards

Comments (48)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • James Ward says:
    22 Feb22 February 05:53

    The MR points for my Gold credit card appear to be in a different MR account than the ones in my Gold charge card. They aren’t pooled.

    Is this normal in your experience or that of other readers?

    • James says:
      22 Feb22 February 05:56

      Call Amex and they will merge them, it happened to me also.

    • Adam says:
      22 Feb22 February 14:18

      Same thing happened to me too. A quick message via the online message system and the back office team will merge the accounts. Took a few days as it was a manual process.

  • James says:
    22 Feb22 February 05:55

    And the plat too, right?

  • Boi says:
    22 Feb22 February 06:52

    Hubby definitely still has the gold cc despite cancelling his prg card in May 2014. We were adviced to keep it by Amex advisor as a safe haven for our MR until we decide what to do with them, So it was something transparent, they didn’t overlook cancellation .

    • Polly says:
      22 Feb22 February 07:44

      Boi, quick question. By keeping the gold cc, does this stop you from applying for a new gold or Plat card say 10 months after cancelling your PRG ? The fact that you have the gold cc linked to your PRG, would that be considered you were still in possession of a PRG, and thus not receive a new bonus if accepted for say a Plat? Rob, maybe you are aware of this too? I never added a cc to either my plat or PRG for that reason.

      • Boi says:
        22 Feb22 February 08:01

        I Don’t know…but that’s a good question. when he logs on to his account the PRG is in red and says cancelled and cannot be accessed. I Don’t think they are linked anymore but that’s a guess.

        • Jason says:
          22 Feb22 February 08:12

          What would be good, is, if you could cancel the charge card, keep the gold credit card and 6 months later get another charge card and link the 2 accounts again! 🙂

          • Rob says:
            22 Feb22 February 09:52

            The very fact that you have a Membership Rewards account – which is the criteria for not getting another bonus – means that you should NOT qualify again.

          • Nuno Pinto says:
            23 Feb23 February 09:29

            OFF Topic,
            Hi Ruffus,

            I have a American Express Preferred Rewards Gold and add my wife to my account, she has a card for the same account.

            Can i invite her to have her own card and have the bonus for the referral or I need to cancel her for my account and wait 6 months?

            Thanks

          • Rob says:
            23 Feb23 February 10:11

            She can apply for her own card, it doesn’t matter that she is a supplementary cardholder on yours.

      • Stuart says:
        22 Feb22 February 08:30

        An older post on this card indicates it would count as a MR card and therefore push back your signup bonus timetable.

  • Globetrotter7 says:
    22 Feb22 February 07:32

    I rang Amex a few months ago about this but I was told it wasn’t abailable. Might give it another try as my gold charge card is coming to 1 year.

  • James67 says:
    22 Feb22 February 07:57

    Hi Rob, can I apply for amex platinum less than 6 months after cancelling gold? I have quite a lot of spending to doin next few months so would like to take out a new card as only amex I have at moment is standard BA. I was planning on spg but bored waiting for another 20k bonus to appear.

    • Polly says:
      22 Feb22 February 08:19

      James, you definitely have to wait a FULL six months to apply for plat after gold, as they are in the same category. So keep using you BACC until it’s about 7 mths just to be safe. At least you are still earring avios. Also check with amex the exact date of your cancellation, as it could be related to your final statement date, not the actual date you cancelled it. Obviously you can apply within the six months but won’t get the bonus, which is useful, of course.

      • James67 says:
        22 Feb22 February 08:44

        Thanks Polly, will just leave it nearly a full year then and go for spg. If a 20k bonus does not appear by April I’ll just settle for the 10k. My BACC does nothing as I have the old BMI cards, only took iy out for the 9k bonus. May call amex and see if they want to offer me some incentive to use it.

        • Jason says:
          22 Feb22 February 09:23

          James

          You don’t need to wait a full year, I had 2 amex platinum cards last year, the first one I cancelled beginning of April, the 2nd one I applied for mid October. I got the bonus on both applications.

    • Nick says:
      22 Feb22 February 09:54

      I just call amex to check the 6 months has expired if im in any doubt. They will even sent you a letter with the cancellation date of the card if you ask them to, so you have certainty in writing.

  • mark2 says:
    22 Feb22 February 08:18

    Thanks Rob for another top tip.
    I just applied and was accepted. I was surprised that it seemed to be a full application when I already have Gold.

    • JQ says:
      22 Feb22 February 08:30

      That’s how Amex works. My downgrade from BAPP to BAfree was also treated as a full application (but the advisor was able to autofill most of the fields instead of forcing me to repeat all the info over the phone). However, it’s very likely that you won’t have had any credit searches for the Gold credit

      • James67 says:
        22 Feb22 February 08:49

        JQ am I missing something here, why would anybody want to do this? Don’t you miss out on the card application bonus, and certainly you must miss out on any referal bonus surely?

  • Stuart says:
    22 Feb22 February 09:16

    How do you apply? Do you have to call Amex? Couldn’t see it on the mobile version of the link

  • mark2 says:
    22 Feb22 February 10:15

    With Platinum, is it best to apply for the five supplementaries in one go or a few at a time please?

    • Rob says:
      22 Feb22 February 11:20

      Given that time is running out (28th) might as well do all at once.

      • Alan says:
        4 Mar4 March 11:41

        Just to confirm that my 2nd and 3rd lot of 10k bonuses now appeared (original article closed to comments but this one seemed the most appropriate on to reply on!)

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