Amex Preferred Reward Gold: Boosted welcome bonus

Earn points & cashback worth up to £257

From 11 October 2023 to 9 January 2024, the welcome offer is increased on the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold credit card. Plus there’s the chance to get bonus points if you keep the card more than a year.

Here’s what you need to know.

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What is the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold credit card?

This card from Amex is free in the first year, but costs a huge £195 a year from the second year onwards – so it’s best to only get this one for a single year and then cancel it.

You’ll earn Amex Membership Reward points with your spending. There’s a set 1 point per £1 spent. These points can be swapped for gift cards at a value 0.5p per point. Or you can swap them 1:1 for Avios, and then swap them again for Nectar points they’re worth 0.67p per point.

However there are also bonus points triggered when you hit spending thresholds, so the card can potentially give you a return of close to 1%.

You can find more details on how the Preferred Rewards Gold card works, the value of it’s cashback work and other features in our full review.

Standard American Express Preferred Rewards welcome offer

Earn 20,000 points

When you first apply for the card you may be able to get a welcome bonus, usually 20,000 Amex Reward Points. That’s worth £100 as a gift card or £133 as Nectar (via Avios). To be eligible for the Gold card bonus you cannot have had any Amex in your name in the last two years.

There’s also a minimum spend required to trigger the bonus. Spend a penny less and you’ll get nothing. This is usually £3,000 in the first three months.

The generic offer for this Amex card runs all year. You’ll get a little more if you apply via a refer-a-friend offer or a cashback site, but personally I’d always wait for one of the increased offers that tend to run two or three times a year.

Boosted American Express Preferred Rewards welcome offer

Earn up to 30,000 points

The latest increased offer runs from 11 October 2023 all the way through to 9 January 2024.

It’s worth 5,000 more points than the standard offer. Sadly this is less than previous iterations of the promotion, which offered a total of 30,000 or 35,000 points (direct and refer-a friend respectively).

As with the normal offer you need to spend £3,000 in three months to get this offer. Doing that will earn you another 3,000 points and a total of 28,000 or 33,000 points. As with most other Amex welcome offers you can’t have had any Amex account in your name in the last 24 months (that doesn’t include supplementary cardholders).

A new element with this boosted offer is the additional bonus that’s paid if you keep the card beyond the first year. You’ll get another 5,000 points, worth £25 as gift vouchers or £33 as Nectar via Avios if you make a single transaction in month 15.

However, since the newly increased £195 annual fee will have kicked in by then, you’re still down £160ish. So personally I wouldn’t bother with this part of the deal, and instead cancel the card when the first year ends.

Bonus cashback

Earn up to £70 extra

There’s the potential to get a bonus of up to £70 on top if you apply via TopCashback or Quidco. The rates do change, so compare both sites to see which pays the most.

Going via one of these sites will give you the increased 30,000 point bonus and not the bigger 35,000 refer-a-friend offer.

But since the extra 5,000 points via this approach are worth £25 in gift vouchers or £33 in Nectar points (via Avios), you’re better off using the cashback sites (though do check – in the past the cashback rate has been as low as £10).

This table breaks down what you’ll make from the offer depending on whether you go via TopCashback or a friend’s link.