Amex Preferred Rewards Gold cuts its annual spend bonuses

American Express has emailed holders of the Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card to say that, from 15th October, the annual spend bonus is being reduced.

It won’t impact too many people, I suspect, but at the same time Amex clearly believes that the savings will be worthwhile.

Let’s take a look.

After the ‘free first year’, American Express Preferred Rewards Gold comes with an annual fee of £195 per year.

Because American Express has a totally free credit card offering the same level of base rewards (The American Express Rewards Credit Card offers 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent), Amex needs to justify the annual fee on Preferred Rewards Gold with added value.

This means:

• £120 per year of Deliveroo credit (2 x £5 vouchers per month, maximum one per order)

• Four airport lounge passes per membership year, valid anywhere in the Priority Pass network

• Double points on foreign spend

• Double points on airline spend when booked direct

• Up to 12,500 bonus Membership Rewards points per year based on your spending

It is the latter benefit which changes from 15th October.

At the moment you receive:

• 2,500 bonus points for hitting £5,000 of card year spend
• 2,500 bonus points for hitting £10,000 of card year spend
• 2,500 bonus points for hitting £15,000 of card year spend
• 2,500 bonus points for hitting £20,000 of card year spend
• 2,500 bonus points for hitting £25,000 of card year spend

…. for a maximum possible bonus of 12,500 Membership Rewards points.

This will change to:

• 5,000 bonus points for hitting £10,000 of card year spend
• 5,000 bonus points for hitting £20,000 of card year spend

…. for a maximum possible bonus of 10,000 Membership Rewards points.

The maths is a bit messy but basically:

• spend under £5,000 per year and you are neutral
• spend £5,000 to £9,999 per year and you are worse off
• spend £10,000 to £14,999 per year and you are neutral
• spend £15,000 to £19,999 per year and you are worse off
• spend £20,000 to £24,999 per year and you are neutral
• spend £25,000+ per year and you are worse off

No-one will lose more than 2,500 Membership Rewards points per year which we’d value at £25.

I don’t think that this change, in itself, is a reason to drop Preferred Rewards Gold and swap to, say, The American Express Rewards Credit Card.

A bigger impact on whether you can justify the fee would come from:

• how many bonus points you get from ‘double points on airline spend’

• how many bonus points you earn from foreign currency spend (although if you’re not getting your foreign expenses reimbursed by your employer, using a card with 0% FX fees would be a better deal than double points)

• how many of the Priority Pass airport lounge passes you use

• how much of the £120 of annual Deliveroo credit you use

Fundamentally, you need to get £195 of value from these four benefits and the ‘up to 10,000’ bonus Membership Rewards points to justify the annual fee, or there is no reason to keep paying it.

Our full review of the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card is here and you can apply here.

The representative APR is 86.8% variable, including the annual fee.  The representative APR on purchases, and in the first year which has no fee, is 29.7% variable.

Our full review of The American Express Rewards Credit Card is here and you can apply here.

The representative APR is 29.7% variable.

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