Amex launches new Membership Rewards spend bonuses for October – check yours

American Express has launched a new round of spend bonuses for holders of its Membership Rewards cards, primarily Preferred Rewards Gold and The Platinum Card.

You can register for these on the American Express website or in the app. It will be under the ‘Offers’ tab and you need to click ‘Save’ to register.

These offers do not start until 1st October.

As you can see here:

…. the 1st October start date is not made clear unless you read the small print. You may potentially want to hold back some major expenditure for a couple of weeks if you can in order for it to count.

What sort of bonuses are on offer?

They vary by individual.

My wife’s Gold card, as you can see above, offers 1,900 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending £3,700. It won’t be happening.

My Platinum card has a totally different offer:

Yes, a whopping 200 points for spending a whopping £300. In fairness, at least I will trigger this one. I won’t be trying to do £3,700 in a month onto my wife’s Gold card and I’m not sure why Amex thinks I possibly could.

Meanwhile, Rhys got 2,500 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending £2,500 on his American Express Rewards Credit Card (ARCC). It seems rare to get one this generous.

Don’t incur any costs to hit these bonuses

Looking at my own targets as well as those of other HfP readers, it seems that most people are getting, roughly, an extra 0.5 to 0.66 Membership Rewards points per £1 spent.

The worst I have seen reported by a reader is 1,800 points for spending £7,000.

This may not even be enough to make the card a better choice than something else in your wallet.

More importantly, do NOT spend money abroad purely to ensure you hit your target. There is no way that the 3% foreign exchange fee added by American Express justifies the small number of bonus points.

I DID recently put a large holiday bill onto my British Airways American Express card, but the maths was totally different. I was offered 10,000 Avios for spending £5,000 which, with the base Avios, was worth 17,500 Avios for a £5,000 spend. I was happy to pay the FX fee on this basis.

An extra fraction of a Membership Rewards point, on the other hand, won’t do the trick.

You can register for this offer on the Amex website. Don’t forget that it doesn’t start to count your spending until 1st October.

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 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 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