American Express launches a spend-based bonus promotion for Gold and Platinum cardholders

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American Express has launched a new bonus points offer for many people – but not everyone – who have Preferred Rewards Gold or The Platinum Card. The deal may also be available to Green, Centurion and Amex Rewards Credit Card holders.

It is a very simple ‘spend this, get that’ offer.

On my Platinum card, I have:

‘Spend £6,600 betweeen 11th July and 11th August and receive 6,000 bonus Membership Rewards points’

My wife has a more reasonable offer on her Gold card:

‘Spend £700 between 11th July and 11th August and receive 1,000 bonus Membership Rewards points’

There are a couple of things you need to note:

You are not automatically registered. You need to go to the ‘offers’ section of your Amex online statement page and click ‘save to card’.

It doesn’t start until 11th July

Spend via ‘Payment Aggregators’ such as PayPal does not count

Looking at our comments section yesterday, there are many different versions of this offer. The most aggressive was:

‘Spend £13,300 between 11th July and 11th August and receive 10,000 bonus Membership Rewards points’

I think the smallest was:

‘Spend £300 between 11th July and 11th August and receive 500 bonus Membership Rewards points’

Important ….

If you are tempted to hit your target by putting your Summer holiday spending onto your American Express card, remember that Amex charges a 3% foreign exchange fee.

The bonus points above do NOT offset the 3% fee. You are still better off using a specialist credit card which offers no rewards but has no FX fees. The free Tandem Money credit card is even better, offering 0.5% cashback on your FX spending as well as not charging any FX fees.

I think it is fair to say that I won’t be triggering my 6,000 bonus points, although I am sure we can divert £700 of spending onto my wife’s Preferred Rewards Gold.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – December 2021 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit or charge card, here are our November 2021 recommendations based on the current sign-up bonus.

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the top current deals:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

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.

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and free for a year Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and a long list of travel benefits Read our full review

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

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:

Barclaycard Select Cashback Credit Card

1% cashback and no annual fee Read our full review

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, Amex Rewards Credit Card

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Stu_N says:

2 Jul2 July 06:58

Spend £800, get 500 on Plat. I have a FHR stay during the period that will be billed to me in € so that will offset some of the FX.
TravellingJake says:

2 Jul2 July 07:01

Should I be able to see the Amex offer in the app? I also can’t see anything when logging in to the website. Is it because I’m a supplementary cats holder?
- Polly says:
  
  2 Jul2 July 07:30
  
  Yes, you need to be logged into the main card holder account. Or register your supp seperately to get your own offers.
Simon says:

2 Jul2 July 07:07

No spend bonus for me on Gold, but I do have “receive 10,000 bonus Avios when you purchase 20,000 Avios for £335” which has just appeared..
- Simon says:
  
  2 Jul2 July 07:10
  
  Sorry – early morning SNAFU – that was my BA Amex card, not Gold….
- Holger Sell says:
  
  2 Jul2 July 07:33
  
  Yeah got the same offer as you. Even with the bonus you get 30k miles for £335 which is still 1.1p per mile. Do t think that is attractive enough in my view but love to hear Rob’s view
  - Rob says:
    
    2 Jul2 July 08:32
    
    Covered this the other week – not attractive. 30% cheaper by buying a digital Economist aub for a Canadian ….
Ken says:

2 Jul2 July 07:10

A load of London centric offers on my Platinum but I do have 10% off Cafe Nero. Whoohoo

Pushing the boat out with that offer.
Shoestring says:

2 Jul2 July 07:12

On Gold, the extra points *will* often offset the 2.99% fee. You’re already earning 2.67 MR points per £1 foreign spend (assuming you spend £15K in a year to trigger the 10K MR bonus).

With my ‘spend £1600 to earn 2000 MR points’, I’d effectively be earning (2.67 + 1.25) = 3.92 MR points/ £1
- Polly says:
  
  2 Jul2 July 07:35
  
  Think this is amex new game. Making us spend to get our lost bonus points! We would be doing the spend anyway. Annoying as the pressure is on year round if that’s the case, as opposed to getting a simple spend bonus initially.
  Saying that we only have 1 card with an offer like this…
  - Shoestring says:
    
    2 Jul2 July 07:41
    
    tougher for me as that spend month (11 July-11 Aug) I’ll be out at our place in the sun (from the 13th anyway) & spend is mostly food & drink – I wouldn’t eat out on my own & my wife doesn’t arrive +2 until end Aug…not sure if I can be bothered to overpay bills in the UK just to get £20 of points
    - Shoestring says:
      
      2 Jul2 July 07:41
      
      *end July they arrive
      - Shoestring says:
        
        2 Jul2 July 07:56
        
        Me as it means I can’t get my Amex bonus 🙂
    - Polly says:
      
      2 Jul2 July 07:57
      
      Harry
      Just thinking on your sit that month. Do you use your gold out there or use tandem? Have not used our gold enough it seems when abroad. Forget to actually. Using curve more. But we don’t get the 15k in on gold tho to make it as worthwhile as you do, l think…
      - Shoestring says:
        
        2 Jul2 July 08:21
        
        tend to mash it up between Clarity & Gold – not everywhere takes Amex
        
        yep have been hitting £15K these last few years (then stopping Gold spend until new year)
        
        Tandem comes recommended? why?
- Ken says:
  
  2 Jul2 July 08:04
  
  Surely that is only the case if it’s the last £2k of spend to take you to £15k, and you wouldn’t spend anything else in your Amex year.
  - Shoestring says:
    
    2 Jul2 July 08:18
    
    you could argue that – or spread it out over £15K
    
    so the math would go 2.67 MR + (2000/ 15000 [for my target)])
    —> 2.8 MR points/ £1 – you’re quids out vs 2.99% – but effectively buying Avios (with your foreign spend) @ 2.99p/ 2.8 MR = 1,07p/ point
    
    which isn’t too bad
    - Doug M says:
      
      2 Jul2 July 12:10
      
      I don’t think that’s a fair canculation. You’re ignoring the £140 fee, OK maybe you offset that against the lounge passes, but that’s expensive passes. The opportunity cost is still greater, that £15K spend on a Tandem card would have got you £75 cash back, that pushes the cost to 1.25p an Avios. If you can do the £15K from UK spend it’s (assuming your £2K offer) 18K for nothing, so that means paying £450 in Fx fees for an additional 15K Avios (or points), 3p an Avios on those terms. Obviously each to their own, but nothing to me justifies a 3% Fx fee in terms of points earning opportunity. This is where I really miss the Lloyds Amex and the £24 fee for all you can eat Fx fees and 1.25 Avios £. Sadly missed.
      - Doug M says:
        
        2 Jul2 July 12:22
        
        Should be 27K for nothing
      - Shoestring says:
        
        2 Jul2 July 17:31
        
        I can ignore the £140 due to lounge passes, referrals, Amex offers, Amazon offers – so far on this Gold card I have 24K in referrals, £50 in lounge passes, £200 in Amazon savings, £40 in Europcar credit, £120 in Morrisons credit plus sundry others to come eg Shop Small. So with respect don’t talk to me about opportunity cost 🙂 – having Tandem not Gold would have cost me £650+ in opportunities missed…
        
        You’d probably pay 0.8p to buy Avios – I know I do eg on Avios + Money RFS redemptions – so I can’t get all hot and bothered about paying 1.1p – which is what paying the 2.99% on foreign spend boils down to.
- Rob says:
  
  2 Jul2 July 08:33
  
  But that assumes you can only hit £15k with foreign spend.
Andy S says:

2 Jul2 July 07:18

Not on my plat card either!
Alan says:

2 Jul2 July 07:33

No sign of this offer showing showing for me in amongst the 39 offers on my Plat card (all of which are pretty useless!).
- Polly says:
  
  2 Jul2 July 07:36
  
  Same here, and we live near London but pretty useless. Only one spend target out of 5 family cards. Not good, amex!
  - Paul says:
    
    2 Jul2 July 07:46
    
    Same here but I assumed it was because I live in the North and am not worthy enough! 😂
    - Polly says:
      
      2 Jul2 July 07:52
      
      Veey few of us are worthy, it seems these days. Thanks amex…..
      - RedEyeDonkey says:
        
        2 Jul2 July 11:01
        
        It seems like when they do these offers but only give them to certain cardmembers they do more harm than good to their overall cardmember satisfaction – thanks to HfP we all know what we’re missing out on. It doesn’t bother me (though I’d love more of the good offers I’ve missed!) as I get great overall value from the Plat especially travelling with the family when P2 can get a free massage, as she likes that kind of thing, at the Centurion and I can take our kid to the kiddies area to read some books but I can see some more marginal cardmembers thinking ‘I never get lucky on the offers anyway’ as one more reason to leave at the same time as the fee just went up etc.
- Sandra says:
  
  2 Jul2 July 08:04
  
  Nothing on mine either. I do have a whole list of totally useless offers for places where I never have and never are likely to spend any money. I find it really annoying that there’s no way of deleting offers I’m not interested in to prevent me having to wade through them every time I want to search for a new offer!
  - sean says:
    
    2 Jul2 July 08:39
    
    Save them to your card they weill then disappear form the general list into the saved list!
- Nate1309 says:
  
  2 Jul2 July 08:24
  
  +1 not on either of our cards
Combatjohnny says:

2 Jul2 July 07:37

I got spend 1700 for a 2000 bonus on my gold card