Love cookies? Get an exclusive 30,000 points Amex Gold sign-up bonus if you do

UPDATE – APRIL 2023:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly directory of the top UK travel credit card offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Credit Cards’ menu above.  Thank you.

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Here’s an interesting one. American Express is offering a targetted bonus of 30,000 Membership Rewards points on the Preferred Rewards Gold credit card.

You will only be in with a chance of seeing this offer if you agree to accept tracking cookies when you visit the American Express website.

There is also a special offer for the Platinum Cashback cards. No other cards are impacted – whilst The Platinum Card and the Marriott Bonvoy American Express are also showing higher bonuses, these deals are open to all.

You can learn more about the benefits of the American Express Preferred Rewards credit card in this article.

Let me show you what I’m talking about.

Visit the American Express website page for American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (click here) and ensure that you accept cookies when the notice pops up.

Note that the representative APR is 60.1% variable, including the annual fee. The representative APR on purchases, and for your free first year, is 24.7% variable.

This is what you will see:

If you bring up the small print, this is what you see:

“The 30,000 Membership Rewards bonus points will be awarded onto your Account once you have applied and been approved before 6 July 2022 and you have spent and charged £3,000 within the first three months of Cardmembership. Cardmembership begins from Card approval. All introductory offers are subject to change and can be withdrawn at any time. Please note that bonus points will appear in two instalments of 20,000 and 10,000 and can take up to one month to be awarded to your Account.

When you visit our website from any device we collect information about your use of this site, such as information about the device or browser you use to access the site, the way you interact with this site, your general location and your device’s IP address. You may not be able to initiate or complete some activities within our secure online services unless these Cookies and Similar Technologies are present. By collecting this information we have been able to give you a unique offer. This offer is unique to you, and is based on your acceptance of cookies. Therefore, please note that this extra offer is correct at the time of viewing, but may change or become unavailable if you return to this page at a later date or use a different device. Whilst your personalised offer may disappear if you don’t apply now, taking out credit should be considered carefully. Please do not rush your decision.”

For comparison, this is what you see if you DON’T accept cookies:

What is the point of this?

I have no idea. Amex doesn’t tell you in advance that you will get an improved ‘private offer’ by agreeing to accept cookies so it won’t help their opt-in rates.

What is interesting about the American Express website is that the ‘Accept’ and ‘Decline’ buttons for cookies are the same size and in the same colour. I would expect that more people than average do click ‘Decline’ because they make it easy to do so.

If you compare this to the Barclaycard website, your options are ‘Accept’ (in a stand-out font) and ‘Preferences’ (in a lighter font). There is no ‘Decline’ option and you need to have a lot of time on your hands to understand how the ‘Preferences’ sub-menu works. I would expect the ‘Accept’ rate to be exceptionally high for Barclaycard.

Whatever the reason, some people, perhaps everyone, can get a higher 30,000 Membership Rewards points bonus on American Express Preferred Rewards Gold by using this link and accepting cookies.

(The bonus is, of course, still subject to the standard Amex Gold rules – you must have gone 24 months without holding a personal American Express card and you need to spend £3,000 within your first three months.)

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2023 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:

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.

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:

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.