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American Express changes the bonus rules when you are referred for an Amex Gold card

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Amex is clearly reading our articles.  The refer a friend rules for American Express Preferred Rewards Gold have been changed back this morning.  

They now say, as they used to:

“Please note, bonus points will appear in two instalments of 2,000 and 20,000 and can take up to four weeks to be awarded to your Account.”

The Gold Business card has NOT changed back.  It still says: “Please note, bonus points will appear in two instalments of 2,000 and 20,000. You will receive 2,000 points when you reach £1,000 spend – these points will appear on your fifth statement.”

It isn’t clear what is happening here.  Did someone at Amex make a mistake, or was a change rolled out early by mistake?

For the last couple of months, the American Express call centre has been occasionally warning people who ring up to cancel their cards that changes are coming to the rules regarding when you can re-apply.  You can read more about that here.

At present, you can re-apply for a card from the same card family (I explain ‘card families’ here) six months after cancelling your previous card.

The grapevine has gone a little quiet recently, although I am still getting occasional emails from readers who are being told – conflicting – stories by the call centre in Brighton.  A couple of weeks ago Amex emailed cardholders encouraging them to ‘refer a friend’ and said clearly in that email that anyone who has not had a card for six months was OK, so it would be odd if any changes were made in the short term.

One change may have gone through though.

Here are the rules for referring friends to American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.   You can see the rules here on the Amex website (click).

The bonus if you are referred is 22,000 Membership Rewards points compared to the standard bonus of 20,000 points.  If you are applying for Amex Gold – or any other Amex – and want a referral link sending across, drop me an email at rob [at] headforpoints.com.

1. Offer only available to new Cardmembers. The 22,000 Membership Rewards® bonus points will be awarded onto your Account once you have been approved and you have spent a minimum of £2,000 on goods and services purchased and charged to your Account within three months of Account opening. The annual fee is £140. With this offer, you will receive the first year of Cardmembership complimentary. From year two of your membership, a £140 annual fee will automatically be charged to your Account on or after the anniversary of your Account opening date. You must apply via the button on the previous page to ensure you both receive your bonus. Applicants must be UK residents aged 18 years old or over. If you have already applied for the Preferred Rewards Gold Card without using this referral, you will not be eligible for the bonus points. All introductory offers are subject to change, can be withdrawn at any time and are not available if you have held any other Membership Rewards enrolled American Express Cards in the past six months. Please note, bonus points will appear in two instalments of 2,000 and 20,000. You will receive 2,000 points when you reach £1,000 spend. You will receive the additional 20,000 points when you reach £2,000 spend – these points will appear on your fifth statement.

I am not certain if this last line is new or not.  The wording implies that you will need to wait for five months to receive the majority of your 22,000 Membership Rewards points.  They would usually appear as soon as you hit the £2,000 target.

If you apply for the card directly and so forgo the extra 2,000 referral points, this clause does not appear.

It could be a mistake, or a rule which is not enforced

The summary terms (as opposed to the full terms and conditions quoted above) for American Express Preferred Rewards Gold still say this:

Please note, bonus points will appear in two instalments of 2,000 and 20,000 and can take up to four weeks to be awarded to your Account.

There is no mention of waiting until your 5th statement.

The American Express Gold Business card has changed too

The American Express Gold Business card says, for referred cardholders:

Please note, bonus points will appear in two instalments of 2,000 and 20,000. You will receive 2,000 points when you reach £1,000 spend. You will receive the additional 20,000 points when you reach £3,000 spend – these points will appear on your fifth statement.

No other cards have got this wording

The American Express Platinum charge card says, for referred cardholders:

Please note, bonus points will appear in two instalments of 5,000 and 30,000 and can take up to four weeks to be awarded to your Account.

The American Express Platinum Business charge card says, for referred cardholders:

Please note, bonus points will appear in two instalments of 5,000 and 40,000 and can take up to four weeks to be awarded to your account.

The Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card says, for referred cardholders:

Please note, bonus points will appear in two instalments of 1,000 and 10,000 and can take up to 4 weeks to be awarded to your Account.

The free British Airways American Express card says, for referred cardholders:

Please note, bonus Avios will appear in two instalments of 1,000 and 5,000 and can take up to four weeks to be awarded to your Account.

The British Airways American Express Premium Plus card says, for referred cardholders:

Please note, bonus Avios will appear in two instalments of 1,000 and 25,000 and can take up to four weeks to be awarded to your Account.

The Nectar American Express card says, for referred cardholders:

Please note, bonus points will appear in two instalments of 1,000 and 20,000 and can take up to 4 weeks to be awarded to your Account.

Conclusion

If you are applying for an American Express Preferred Rewards Gold charge card (and this is why I think Amex Gold is your best choice for your first miles and points card) via a referral then be aware of this change to how the bonus is awarded.

As the card is free for the first year, you’re not losing out financially if you do have to wait five months to get the bulk of the sign-up bonus.

Whilst you should clearly take the T&C’s as gospel, let’s wait a few weeks to see if this is really being imposed.  My wife applied for a Gold this week so, if accepted (she was not immediately accepted), she will be a good test case.


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Comments (126)

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

  • Mark says:

    How does the 6 month interval for reapplying work? Exactly 6 months? ^ whole/calendar months? With a card cancelled on 10th September, can I apply now, or must I wait for April?
    M

    • JamesB says:

      6 calendar months plus one day to be on the safe side. I always call them to double check their cancellation date agrees with mine before I reapply.

      • Genghis says:

        Date on the cancellation letter + 1 day is my min

        • Genghis says:

          Or rather + 6 months and a day 🙂

        • JamesB says:

          LOL

        • Doug M says:

          Do you or any one know if post cancellation activity changes the cancellation date. I’ve had a bit of a saga with the fee refund on my SPG, and also a hotel refund meaning although the card was cancelled a couple of months ago I’m still getting statements and trying to get the credit balance transferred to another card.

        • Cal says:

          Is it from when the card is cancelled or when the MR account is closed? My cards are cancelled but I can still log in and I have 19 MR left.

        • mark2 says:

          Doug M, did you get the cancellation letter which tells you the date?

        • Relaxo says:

          Doug- You should be fine. I had a refund issued 2 months after cancelling my Gold card, but it did not reset date for my 6 month churning cycle. Same with pro-rata refund.

        • Genghis says:

          @Doug M. No impact. It’s happened to us many times.

  • Sandgrounder says:

    The 20k and 2k appeared together on my wife’s PRG this morning, it is about 6 weeks old.

  • Joe says:

    If you apply for a supplementary card before you hit the spend required for bonus, does spend on the supplementary card count towards the bonus?

  • shd says:

    If you’re eligible for the Business Gold, it’s a far more attractive deal considering you can apply via T_C_B for an extra £50, compared with the standard Gold which is only £10.

    I applied for the Business Gold on 18 Jan and the £50 tracked immediately and has reached payable in the last week.

    Given there’s no annual fee for the first year, this is as close as it gets to “free money” and the MRs on top 🙂

  • Judge says:

    As a Platinum card holder, how do you now refer people for a Gold card? Since the very clunky “upgrade” to the Amex website took effect, I can only see the option to refer for my Platinum and BAPP cards, not Gold like in the past.

    • Grimz says:

      It should be at the bottom but I have heard people saying to try a different computer as it may be your cookies.

    • Anna says:

      I was just wondering about this – it says you won’t get a referral bonus if your friend takes out a “basic” card, but what is that? None of the cards which appear on the referral screen are described as “basic”.

    • WillPS says:

      It also doesn’t work for the Costco card (no referral bonus).

  • Joe says:

    Thanks

  • JP says:

    I recall at one point I was offered an avios bonus for adding a supp to my BAPP.

    Haven’t seen similar offer on partner’s account – was it a one-time offer, or have other people seen this?

    • RussellH says:

      I got an e-mail yesterday offering me an avios bonus for adding a supp to my free BA Amex.

    • Genghis says:

      We both did it last year and got the 3k avios despite not receiving (or seeing) any notification.

    • Chris Palmer says:

      It pops up from time to time. I haven’t seen it for a while though.

  • Alan says:

    As my wife and I work in a rota for referrals, we will always have a Gold card for a little over 6 months anyway, so the 5th statement won’t be an issue for us.
    Of course, this is a very selfish way to look at it as others may do things differently!

    • Polly says:

      Alan
      We now upgrade to plat before we refer each other. We wait 7 mths tho not to be too greedy. Handy extra 20k pp.
      Agree this will slow down the churn and for amex to deal with it in a nice way. They don’t want to lose our whole cohort of spenders. If it means you are forced to keep spending on the card for 6 mths so be it. Doesn’t stop us spending towards a BAPP and SPG bonus in the meantime alongside minimal GOLD spend.

    • Genghis says:

      @Alan. Now there’s x-referrals, does this not change your approach?

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

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