American Express Preferred Rewards Gold without Bonus

[samiito97]

Hi all,

New to this so excuse the (potentially dumb) question.

Looking to get a CC and Amex Gold is recommended.

Average monthly spend is maybe £400 and in theory I could hit another £1300 with council tax (if I can figure out how to pay that via Amex) and Octopus credit.

Still leaves me £500 off which I’d maybe be scrambling to hit.

My question is, if I don’t hit the £3k minimum is the card still worth getting?

I did look at Barclays Avios/Avios Plus but they told me I’m not eligible (which is strange as Experian has my credit score at 999 and Transunion at 590/710)

Thanks

[Scott]

The card is free in year 1, so the only down side of not hitting the sign-up bonus target is you’d be barred from attempting to get the bonus again unless you later cancelled the card and waited 24 mths to reapply

As your monthly spend is quite low, you’re not going to collect many Membership Reward points with the card, so what’s your thinking for getting this card over, e.g. a cashback card?

[Rob]

In theory yes (if you’d use the Deliveroo credits and the airport lounge passes) for the first year, less so for year 2.

However …. the snag is that, even after you cancel the card you’d have to wait 24 months to get another bonus on most of the Amex cards.

If you think your expenses will go up over the next year or so, or a big purchase may come along, you may be better off waiting and not blowing your chance of getting a decent bonus.

[samiito97]

Scott wrote:

The card is free in year 1, so the only down side of not hitting the sign-up bonus target is you’d be barred from attempting to get the bonus again unless you later cancelled the card and waited 24 mths to reapply

As your monthly spend is quite low, you’re not going to collect many Membership Reward points with the card, so what’s your thinking for getting this card over, e.g. a cashback card?

The best cashback card I could see is the Amex Cashback Everday (but let me know if there is one better) that is 5% for 5 months and 0.5% for 7 months which works out at about 3.2% (assuming average spending)

Would this work out to be significantly better than Amex Gold (including the other benefits)?

I just hadn’t really considered cashback

Rob Burgess wrote:

In theory yes (if you’d use the Deliveroo credits and the airport lounge passes) for the first year, less so for year 2.

However …. the snag is that, even after you cancel the card you’d have to wait 24 months to get another bonus on most of the Amex cards.

If you think your expenses will go up over the next year or so, or a big purchase may come along, you may be better off waiting and not blowing your chance of getting a decent bonus.

It’s hard to know if a big purchase will come along but it’s probably likely at some point

I think in any case I probably should have a credit card (at least for section 75 protection) so maybe it’s better if I get a non-Amex card (I’m not sure what the best would be given Barclays have said I’m not eligible for the Avios Mastercards) and then re-assess in the future?