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Review: the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card (Amex Gold)

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This is our review of the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (Amex Gold) Credit Card.

This review is part of our series of articles looking at the major UK loyalty credit cards and discussing whether or not they are worth applying for. These articles are linked to the relevant sections of the ‘Credit Cards‘ area in the menu bar. Our other UK airline and hotel credit card reviews can be found here.

Key link: American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card application page

Review American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (Amex Gold) credit card

Key facts: No annual fee in year 1 and £195 thereafter. You can cancel at any point.

The representative APR is 87.3% variable, including the annual fee.  The representative APR on purchases, and in the first year which has no fee, is 30.0% variable.

Reward credit cards generally have high interest rates and are not suitable for anyone who does not pay off their full balance each month. If you do not clear your balance, you should look for a non-rewards credit card with a low interest rate instead.

What is the Amex Gold sign-up bonus?

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold offers 20,000 Membership Rewards points when you spend £3,000 within three months.

This is the most generous sign-up bonus available on any free UK loyalty credit card – albeit that Preferred Rewards Gold is only free for the first year.

Membership Rewards points can be converted 1 to 1 into Avios. Click here to see what other airline and hotel programmes are Membership Rewards transfer partners.

This means that you can receive 20,000 Avios points for free by applying for this card, spending enough to trigger the sign-up bonus and then transferring the points to British Airways.

What are the rules for qualifying for the sign-up bonus?

The bonus is only available to customers who have not held a personal American Express card in the previous 24 months. 

You will receive the sign-up bonus if you have a Corporate or Business American Express card via your job and you receive Membership Rewards points from it.

You will definitely receive the bonus if you are only a supplementary cardholder on someone else’s American Express card. As far as Amex is concerned, that card belongs to the primarily cardholder and does not make you an ‘existing cardholder’.

If you do not qualify for the bonus, you can still apply.  You still receive the other card benefits outlined below, including the four free airport lounge passes, £120 of Deliveroo credit and ‘no fee in the first year’.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold UK credit card review

What are the other benefits of Amex Gold?

Four airport lounge passes:

You receive four free airport lounge passes, valid at any airport lounge in the Priority Pass network. You receive four additional free passes each year when you renew your card.

Heathrow (including the Aspire and Plaza Premium lounges in Terminal 5), Gatwick, Luton and Stansted – amongst many others – have participating lounges as do most major airports worldwide. After your four free visits, you can make further lounge visits at a discounted rate of £24.

£120 of Deliveroo credit:

You receive £120 of Deliveroo credit each year.

This arrives in the form of 2 x £5 credits each month. You receive £5 cashback each time a Deliveroo order for £5+ is charged to your Preferred Rewards Gold card, up to £10 of credit per month.

Up to 12,500 bonus points each year:

You will receive up to 12,500 bonus Membership Rewards points each membership year based on your total spending. The first 2,500 points arrive after £5,000 of spending and a further 2,500 points are earned after each incremental £5,000, up to a total of 12,500 points.

This means that you are averaging 1.5 Membership Rewards points per £1 on your first £25,000 of annual spending, which is an excellent earn rate.

Other benefits:

You will receive a 10% discount and free additional driver on Hertz bookings. You will receive Preferred Plus status in the Avis car rental programme. We looked at the Hertz benefit in more detail in this article.

There are 1,000 4-5 star hotels worldwide which offer a $100 in-hotel credit and an upgrade if available when booked by an Amex Gold cardholder for 2+ nights. Full details are on the Amex Travel website here.

Review American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (Amex Gold) credit card

What is the Amex Gold annual fee?

There is no fee for your first year of Preferred Rewards Gold.

For future years, there is a fee of £195. I would personally struggle to justify the fee in light of the benefits unless I was making heavy use of the $100 hotel credits, the airport lounge passes and the Deliveroo credit.

You can apply for the card with a minimum personal income of just £20,000.

What do I earn per £1 spent on the card?

You receive 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on the card.

Foreign currency transactions and flight tickets bought directly from an airline earn 2 points per £1. This is a valuable extra benefit for anyone who buys a lot of flights.

Much of the time, but not always, airline transactions which are paid for in a foreign currency earn 3 points per £1 as the offers double up.

Travel bookings made via the American Express Travel website, and paid for online, earn an impressive 3 points per £1.

What is a Membership Rewards point worth?

Anything from ‘quite a bit’ to ‘a lot’ is the answer.  I wrote this lengthy article on what American Express Membership Rewards points are worth.

I tend to value airline miles at 0.75p – 1p each (this is conservative) so that is your valuation if you transfer to an airline programme.

Both Avios and Virgin Flying Club are Membership Rewards transfer partners at a 1:1 rate. The sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points would convert into 20,000 Avios. You can also transfer to Emirates, Etihad, Singapore Airlines and Delta amongst others.

Some of the hotel programmes also offer good value. Your options are Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy and Radisson Rewards. Club Eurostar is a decent deal given that Eurostar ticket prices have risen sharply since the pandemic.

You can take a look at the full list of Membership Rewards options here. If you are strategic you should be able to get 1p per point of value when you use them.

Review Amex Gold credit card

Is Amex Gold a good card to use when travelling?

Yes, to the extent that you receive double Membership Rewards points when using the card abroad.

However, because Amex adds a 2.99% foreign exchange fee, you might want to get a separate free credit card to use abroad. 

Unfortunately there are no credit cards with 0% foreign exchange fees worldwide which earn airline or hotel points. (The Virgin Atlantic credit cards have 0% FX fees in the Eurozone.)  One option is to get a free card from Currensea. Currensea is a simple but clever idea. You pay abroad with your Currensea Mastercard debit card. Currensea translates the cost to Sterling with just a 0.5% fee (83% less than Amex charges) and withdraws the money from your bank account. You can find out more about Currensea by clicking here. Currensea is free so there is no risk in giving it a try.

Conclusion – is Amex Gold worth it?

The American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card is our recommended ‘first’ miles and points card for someone who is new to all this.

The sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points is EASILY the most generous incentive available on a free UK loyalty credit card.

I recommend signing up and giving the card a try, if only for the first free year.

As well as the bonus, the four free airport lounge passes and £120 of Deliveroo credit are well worth having.

For day to day spending, 1 point per £1 is middling, although the 12,500 bonus points you can earn each year based on your spending increase your average ‘points per pound’ rate sharply.

Because American Express Membership Rewards points can be transferred to so many partners, including Avios, you have time to learn more about which airline and hotel programmes would work best for you.

In time you might move on to a dedicated airline or hotel credit card, but Amex Gold is a good place to start.

The application form for the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card can be found here.

(Want to earn more miles and points from credit cards?  Click here to visit our dedicated airline and hotel travel credit cards page or use the ‘Credit Cards’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)

Disclaimer: Head for Points is a journalistic website. Nothing here should be construed as financial advice, and it is your own responsibility to ensure that any product is right for your circumstances. Recommendations are based primarily on the ability to earn miles and points. The site discusses products offered by lenders but is not a lender itself. Robert Burgess, trading as Head for Points, is regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as an independent credit broker.

Comments (20)

  • Lumma says:

    It’s quite the eclectic mix of benefits for that annual fee which makes you wonder who the card is aimed at.

    Unless you book tens of thousands of pounds of flights each year on a personal card, I don’t see why anyone would pay the fee on this one

    • JDB says:

      If you can make use of the Deliveroo credit that covers more than 60% of your annual fee. The gold card is, oddly, more squarely aimed at travellers than than the platinum card. I spend a fair amount of money in foreign currencies and with airlines (so three points if both) where I want chargeback/s75 protection. The points received nearly cover the FX fee. These extra points, plus the extra 0.5 at each £5k and the regular easily achievable bonus points make it by far the highest earning points card. If you are expensing the costs, it’s even better.

      I am getting incessant emails and brochures in the post to get me to upgrade my card to Platinum for 75,000 MR so I have to keep reminding myself it’s the best card and to resist the lure.

      • CJD says:

        What’s even more odd about the Gold card’s earn rate is that the Platinum card is the one which is explicitly marketed to people who like travel, yet as you say, Gold has a better earn rate once you factor in the bonus 2,500 points every £5,000 of spend, double points on airline spend and double points on FX spend.

      • Lumma says:

        I’d only value the Deliveroo credit at £120, if it was something like £30 a quarter with no minimum spend, so you could genuinely get the occasional completely free meal. As it is, to maximise it, you need to make two purchases a month on arguably the most expensive delivery app to get the cashback.

        The extra 0.5 bonus you get on spending up to £25k only bring it up to the earning rate of the BAPP and Barclaycard Premium cards and if you pro rata’d those annual fees, you could also get a 241 and an upgrade voucher on top without spending a great deal more on card fees

  • Lucas says:

    “ Unfortunately there are no credit cards with 0% foreign exchange fees worldwide which earn airline or hotel points.”
    I’ve been using the Yonder credit card anywhere that doesn’t take AMEX, it also has 0% FX fees and does earn points that can be redeemed against a variety of things, airlines and hotels included (albeit limited and at a not so great redemption rate). Still worth it for the two scenarios mentioned though.

    • Tariq says:

      Yes, Yonder gets conveniently ignored here. The earn rate won’t make you rich but it’s a bonus when you take into account the cashflow benefits that it has as a credit card – albeit a shorter payment date cycle than other cards I find. Certainly better than the no cash flow direct-debit type cards like Currensea. And premium Yonder has travel insurance including car hire insurance.

  • paul says:

    At one time, points conversion to Virgin would have been mentioned towards the beginning of the article.

    Thanks to their decimation of the loyalty program they are lucky to squeeze in a mention at the end.

    Good work HfP – the only way corporate will wake up is when they are no longer in people’s radar.

    Hopefully the next articles might remove them altogether.

  • Sudz74 says:

    As someone who only took out the card at the start of the year I am finding it increasingly useful. The offers have been great, for instance Intrepid £100 off £1,000 spend a while back and the same for Trailfinders this week (though the latter didn’t appear on my supp card). Along with all the usual suspects in terms of hotel offers.

    I had assumed the deliveroo credit was no use to me but once I discovered “pick up” option, am enjoying a twice-monthly free treat from Gail’s (more options in cities).

    The effective 1.5 points for spend in blocks of £5K up to £25k could rival Avios cards with first year/bigger fees if Avios are your thing.

    If you can find someone to refer you, the SUB is 40,000 before 27 May ( and referor gets 14,000).

    • JDB says:

      @Sudz74 – yes, for whatever reason, the gold card seems to get better/more offers than any other card.

    • D.Wil says:

      I agree, I switched to the platinum last December to make the most of the 80,000 bonus points and ahead of a big holiday where the lounge access was great.

      I don’t know what current cashback the golf has but recently used a 10% LNER deal to get £250 of my season ticket, that’s great. £100 IHG cashback too. This combined with the UK and abroad dining credit is pretty much covering my fee.

      I just find it odd that the plat card doesn’t have the tiered reward bonus for spend.

      May threaten to move to a gold and see if they give my anything to stay

  • Victor says:

    I got this card after reading this review earlier in the year. It’s fine for me for a year with one exception, it only gives a £1500 limit for the first 3 months & wont increas it until after that. Bit of a nuisance when you want to use it to book a holiday costing more.

    • Rob says:

      That’s absolutely not standard. I tend to get £20-25k on new Amex cards.

  • Dude says:

    Does anyone know who owns one, if the Barclaycard Avios does intermittent cash back offers in the same way AMEX do with Hilton, Marriott etc?

    Looking to keep the AMEX for using these offers, as well as all the other great benefits, but would double dip if I had the option.

    • Rob says:

      Nothing matches Amex. Anything you get on a MC/Visa will be similar (because they come from the same providers) as any other MC/Visa card, eg 5% back at IHG. Amex negotiates its own deals and part-funds them.

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