American Express Preferred Rewards card adds new travel benefits
Top rewards charge card gets even better!
American Express has announced a number of enhancements to its Preferred Rewards Gold charge card.
The card was already one of our favourite reward cards, but it’s now got a number of new added benefits, which will be particularly useful if you are a regular traveller.
What you get with the Preferred Rewards Gold Card
The Preferred Rewards Gold card, as the name suggests, is a rewards card. This means when you spend on it, you build up Membership Reward points which can be cashed in for all sorts of goodies.
If you spend £2,000 on the card in your first three months, you’ll get a bonus 20,000 Membership Rewards points. That’s enough for a return flight from London to Marrakesh, although you will have to pay taxes on top.
You then earn one point for every £1 spent on the card, which doubles when you spend with Amex Travel. And you can make use of two complimentary airport lounge visits a year, available at over 350 lounges worldwide.
What’s new?
A number of new travel-related benefits have been added to the Preferred Rewards Gold card package.
For starters, you now have $75 hotel credit and room upgrades (subject to availability) at over 350 hotels worldwide through The Hotel Collection. You’ll need to book two consecutive nights through American Express Travel to get the credit, which can used on things like dining and spa treatments at your hotel.
There’s also 10% off Hertz car rental rates and car rental upgrades if you rent your vehicle for five consecutive days or more, with the option to add an extra driver at no additional cost.
What’s more you can enjoy dining benefits – such as 20% off your food bill or a complimentary bottle of wine – at more than 400 restaurants worldwide with Taste from American Express Invites.
Best of all though, if you manage to spend £15,000 in a year with the card, you’ll get another 10,000 point bonus. That’s enough for a return flight from London to Paris.
Spending your points
You can see a full list of partners you can spend your Membership Rewards points with on the American Express website, but they include airlines like Air France, British Airways, Delta, Emirates and Virgin Atlantic, hotels such as Hilton and Starwood, and retailers ranging from Amazon and SpaFinder to Home and Harrods.
Things to bear in mind
The American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card isn’t your typical bit of plastic though.
For starters, there’s normally an annual fee of a whopping £140. However, that is waived for the first year.
On top of that, this is a charge card rather than a credit card. That means that you MUST pay your balance off in full each month. So don’t go mad spending more than you can afford.
To qualify for the card you need a household income of at least £20,000 and no history of bad debt.
Other cards that reward you for spending
There are plenty of other cards out there that give you a little back for using them.
For example, there are a host of cashback credit cards which will give you a portion of your spending back in cold hard cash. Or if you are a travel obsessive, there are plenty of air mile cards that will help you cut the cost of your next holiday. Or if you are a keen collector of Clubcard, Nectar or other loyalty points, most schemes have credit cards attached.
For a full guide to the top cards around, check out The best reward credit cards.
More on borrowing:
The best cashback credit cards
The best 0% balance transfer credit cards
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