Buy now, pay later service Klarna has taken on American Express for the crown of “best rewards card”, this is what they offer
Klarna has recently shaken up its rewards offerings — proudly announcing to journalists that “Klarna Max membership [is] now cheaper than AmEx Platinum and offering benefits worth twice as much yearly”.
But now we’ve seen the full details of the Klarna UK membership offering, do the claims stand up to scrutiny and what do you actually get from each?
We’ve taken a look to find out:
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What is Klarna Membership
Klarna currently offers four tiers of membership in the UK: Everywhere; Plus; Premium; and Max.
All of these come with a physical and electronic card allowing you to spend via Klarna anywhere that accepts Visa cards.
They also come with a monthly fee. Of the four memberships, three (Plus, Premium and Max) offer cashback on spending as well as purchase and price protection, a global data allowance and all of them are fee-free to use overseas.
The amount of data and cashback – as well as other offerings – vary depending on the level of your membership.
Klarna Membership costs and key benefits
Here’s a quick breakdown of the costs and key benefits of the Klarna membership schemes:
Klarna membership costs:
- Everywhere – £4.99 a month
- Plus – £9.99 a month
- Premium – £19.99 a month
- Max – £44.99 a month
Klarna Membership rewards:
- Everywhere – Priority phone support; No foreign exchange fees
- Plus – 0.5% cashback; x2 cashback at featured stores when you shop in the Klarna app; Purchase and price protection; 30 day best price guarantee; 1GB of global data a month
- Premium – 1% cashback; x3 cashback at featured stores when you shop in the Klarna app; Global travel insurance; Subscription access to 14 sites and services; 2GB of global data a month
- Max – 1.5% cashback; x4 cashback at featured stores when you shop in the Klarna app; Comprehensive travel, rental-car, and cancel-for-any-reason insurance; Unlimited airport lounge access worldwide via LoungeKey Pass (1,900+ lounges and travel experiences); Subscription access to 18 sites and services; 5GB of global data a month; Free unlimited 5G data and 20GB global roaming data with Klarna Mobile; 70% refund on trips and events cancelled at least 24 hours in advance
Klarna estimates that the rewards on offer are worth £1,200 a year for the Plus account, £3,600 for the Premium membership and a massive £6,000+ for people on the Max plan.
It adds that using Klarna means you’re not ever going to be trapped in a cycle of debt and the interest charged on it if you don’t clear the balance on a credit card in full.
We’ve got a full breakdown of what’s on offer and what it would cost elsewhere here.
American Express Rewards cards
American Express currently offers three rewards credit cards in the UK: the American Express Rewards Credit Card; the American Express Rewards Gold Credit Card; and the American Express Rewards Platinum Credit Card.
The first thing to say is that applying for a credit card is automatically different from taking out a Klarna card.
You get automatic protection on purchases thanks to the Consumer Credit Act. Amelia’s put a full guide together on what that all means.
You also get harsher rules on who can apply and be accepted for what card, and what your credit limit on that card will be.
Oh, and if you don’t clear your balance in full every month, there’s the dreaded interest charges Klarna makes reference to. American Express charges 29.1% APR interest on uncleared balances on its reward cards.
Featured deal
Our top pick
Customer rating
3.8/5
- Switch bonus£240
- Perks8% regular saver
- Monthly fee0
- Offer ends7 October
- FSCS Protected? Yes
- Bonus requirements To get the £240 switch offer, you need to complete a full switch with the Current Account Switching Service. Then, within 60 days of your initial switch request, you need to set up two active direct debits, deposit £1,500 into the current account, set up a Santander Regular Saver, and deposit £200 into it.
- Regular saver 8% (variable) regular savings account. Includes 5% (variable) bonus for 12 months
- Existing customers? You can't have held a Santander account on 1 January 2026.
American Express Rewards cards costs and key benefits
Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s on offer from American Express rewards:
American Express rewards costs:
- Rewards Credit Card – £0
- Rewards Gold Credit Card – £195 (£0 in your first year)
- Rewards Platinum Credit Card – £650
American Express rewards benefits:
- Rewards Credit Card – 1x reward point for each £1 spent; 10,000 bonus reward points when you spend £2,000 in your first three months;
- Rewards Gold Credit Card – 1 point for every £1 spent on purchases on your card; 2x points for every £1 spent directly with airlines or in a foreign currency; 3x points for every £1 spent at American Express Travel agency; 30,000 bonus points when you spend £3,000 in your first three months of cardmembership; airport lounge access; travel insurance; hotel room upgrades; car rental
- Rewards Platinum Credit Card – 1x point for every full £1 spent on your card, 2x points for every £1 spent at amextravel.co.uk; 75,000 points when you spend £6,000 in your first three months of cardmembership; premium lounge access; premium travel cover; premium hotel room upgrades; travel accident cover; global dining credit (worth £200 in the UK and another £200 overseas); event invites
All the cards also offer travel accident protection; 24/7 Global Assist and customer service; purchase and refund protection and fraud protection.
We have a full guide to the best American Express cards and an in depth review of the Platinum Rewards Card for more details.
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Plus, new TopCashback customers get a high paying £18 welcome offer
Which is better, Amex Rewards or Klarna memberships?
The first thing to say is that rewards points are fundamentally different from cashback.
Cashback can be spent anywhere, on anything. Rewards might offer good value, but you’re limited in how you use them and they are useless anywhere except your card account.
It’s estimated that Amex reward points are worth about 0.5p – but used right they can be worth far more, and outside the rewards store they are worth exactly nothing. Then there are the bonuses, where you get a huge influx of points if you hit certain spending thresholds. That changes the equation again.
The second thing to say is that the other perks — on both Amex and Klarna — are only worth it if you need them and use them.
The subscriptions on the Klarna memberships are great, if it’s something you already use or pay for, but I’d chalk a lot of them up as a “nice to have” perk rather than a valuable one.
There’s a clear travel focus for all the cards — with travel insurance, airport lounge access, and hotel upgrades, car rental and mobile roaming data available on both — so these cards are better for frequent travellers than people who stay home more.
Finally there’s the underlying credit card vs Klarna member difference. That means, firstly, it’s harder to get the American Express cards (you need to earn at least £35,000 a year for the Amex Platinum card, for example) and you need to pass a potentially harsher credit check and won’t be sure of your credit limit until after you’re accepted. Klarna memberships don’t have these issues.
There’s also the hefty 29.1% interest applied to any balances you don’t clear, but of course this is only a problem if you don’t clear them.
Then again, the Klarna fee is applied every month, whether you use the card or not, but has the advantage of being monthly rather than annual, so you can pause membership if needed.
Overall, I’d say that a lot of the benefits cancel each other out, airport lounge access for airport lounge access, travel cover for travel cover, car rental for car rental, purchase protection for purchase protection.
That leaves you looking at costs and what the other doesn’t offer – which brings me to my two winners:
The value winner
The Amex Rewards card is free. If you’re just looking for a little top-up on your everyday spending and can clear the balance each month there’s nothing but upside to this card. The cheapest Klarna membership still costs you.
The premium winner
I’d give this to Klarna Max. I’m dubious about the value of the subscriptions (looking down the list there are only a couple I’d pay for myself), but the flexibility of cashback, free mobile use abroad and cheaper fee edges it for me over the Amex Platinum Rewards card. I’ve left the points vs cashback to one side. The Klarna sales events vs the Amex spending bonus mean which is better will depend very much on how you use them. That said, if I was a more frequent traveller, the £200 overseas dining credit on the Amex could well tip the balance that way.
Final thoughts
These cards work best if you funnel all of your spending through them to maximise your rewards. There should really only be one rewards card in your wallet, and that’s doubly true of a card you’re paying a fee for.
Package deals, whether through a bank account, credit card or Klarna membership all pre-choose, or at very least limit, how you’ll use the money.
So I don’t have either Klarna or Amex cards. Instead, I have a simple, fee-free, cashback card. Currently, the Lloyds Ultra pays 1% on all your spending for the first year. I’d choose that.
