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More Amex cuts: Gold, Platinum and Amex Rewards sign-up and referral bonuses reduced

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Last month American Express made some aggressive – and frankly confusing – changes to the rules regarding who qualifies for a sign-up bonus on its personal UK cards.  My summary of the Amex sign-up rule changes is here.

There are now further changes.  This time American Express has changed the sign-up bonuses and referral bonuses on some cards.

Which cards have changed?

The changes impact American Express Preferred Rewards Gold, The Platinum Card and the American Express Rewards Credit Card.

The changes were due to go live at midnight last night and are already in effect.

What are the changes to sign-up bonuses?

On Preferred Rewards Gold:

The sign-up bonus has been halved from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 10,000 Membership Rewards points

The qualifying spend required to earn the bonus has increased from £2,000 within three months to £3,000 within three months

If you are referred by a friend to the card, you will receive a higher sign-up bonus of 12,000 Membership Rewards points (previously 22,000 Membership Rewards points)

On the American Express Rewards Credit Card:

The sign-up bonus has been halved from 10,000 Membership Rewards points to 5,000 Membership Rewards points

The qualifying spend required to earn the bonus has increased from £1,000 within three months to £2,000 within three months

On the American Express Rewards Low Rate Credit Card:

The sign-up bonus has been halved from 5,000 Membership Rewards points to 2,500 Membership Rewards points

The qualifying spend required to earn the bonus has increased from £500 within three months to £1,000 within three months

There is no change to the sign-up bonus or spending target on The Platinum Card.

What are the changes to referral bonuses?

With Preferred Rewards Gold:

The bonus you receive for referring a friend falls from 9,000 Membership Rewards points to 6,000 Membership Rewards points

The annual cap on referral points remains at 90,000 points

With The Platinum Card:

The bonus you receive for referring a friend falls from 18,000 Membership Rewards points to 12,000 Membership Rewards points

The annual cap on referral points remains at 90,000 points (if you refer 8 people, you only receive 6,000 points for the last one as you hit the 90,000 points cap)

There are no referral bonuses for the American Express Rewards Credit Card.

There are no changes at all, for now, to the British Airways, Nectar and Starwood card bonuses.

American Express Rewards Credit Card

What is going on here?

On the face of it, some of these changes do not make a lot of sense.  Primarily, why should you need to spend £3,000 to get the bonus on Preferred Rewards Gold when you only need to spend £2,000 to get the bonus on The Platinum Card?

I get a feeling that American Express is pulling back from its attempts to make Preferred Rewards Gold a mass-market product.  There is no other logical reason for pushing up the target spend to £3,000 in three months, which for Mr & Mrs Average is likely to be more than their remaining cash once housing costs and household bills are paid.

It is possible that the American Express Rewards Credit Card will be positioned as the mass-market product, although doubling the target spend to receive the sign-up bonus will also reduce the market for this product.

I am not really concerned about the changes to the American Express Rewards Credit Card, because the only reason a HfP reader should get this is to ‘protect’ your Membership Rewards points from deletion if you choose to cancel your Gold or Platinum card.  I explain more in this article.

Is Amex risking long term damage by cutting off the ‘path’ for new cardholders?

My first American Express card, a long time ago, was a Gold.  Over time I progressed to The Platinum Card, and then – when it launched in 2004ish – the British Airways Premium Plus card, which was initially free to holders of The Platinum Card.

I suspect that – outside the world of Head for Points readers, who are well educated by our articles on the benefits of each card – most people start off with the free cards and then progress.  This is either as their income increases (so they can afford the annual fees on the premium cards) or as they become more comfortable with American Express as a partner.

Amex has now made ‘progressing’ less attractive.  For example:

if you start with the ‘free for life’ American Express Rewards Credit Card or ‘free for the first year’ Amex Gold, you are disqualified from the bonus on the free British Airways card or the Starwood card

if you start with the free BA Amex but decide that narrowing your focus to just Avios rewards makes no sense, you are locked out of the bonus on Gold, Starwood etc

if you start with the Starwood card but decide that Marriott Bonvoy no longer offers good value redemptions, you are locked out of the bonus on Gold and the free BA card

There are also no upgrade bonuses to persuade people to go from the free BA card to Premium Plus, or from the new credit card version of Preferred Rewards Gold to The Platinum Card.

And what is ‘the best starter card’ now?

HfP has generally promoted Preferred Rewards Gold as the best ‘starter’ card for someone coming into travel rewards.  This is because:

it had a generous sign-up bonus of 20,000 points (=20,000 Avios)

the points could be converted to a LOT of different rewards programmes, so you didn’t have to focus too early whilst you learned the ropes

you got your first year for free

you got two free airport lounge passes

you were free to earn a bonus on the BA or Starwood cards at a later date if you did choose to specialise

The situation is now different:

the sign-up bonus has been halved to 10,000 points (=10,000 Avios)

the target spend has been increased to £3,000 in three months

taking out Preferred Rewards Gold now blocks you from getting a sign-up bonus on a later date for the free British Airways card or the Starwood card – your only option for another bonus is the British Airways Premium Plus card

Overall, I am still tempted to say that Amex Gold is the best starter card for most people.  There is still a bonus, albeit lower, and the two free airport lounge passes will open your eyes to what your miles and points can do for you.  There is still no fee for the first year.

It is arguably better than telling people to start with the free BA Amex, which blocks them from both the Amex Gold bonus and the BA Premium Plus bonus.  In reality, the best ‘first’ card is probably:

The Platinum Card – but most people who are new to Amex won’t want to stump up £450, or

The Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card – because you can still get a bonus on both The Platinum Card and British Airways Premium Plus later, and you only need to spend £1,000 to trigger the sign-up bonus.  However, this is a confusing card for a beginner (even explaining why the Marriott card is called the Starwood card isn’t simple), it has a fee and the two cards you can upgrade to both have even chunkier fees which a lot of the market doesn’t want to pay.

The ‘keep it simple, stupid’ school of marketing is one which I have always believed in, but the current run of changes at American Express seems to be putting that to the test.

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American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

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American Express Business Platinum

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Capital on Tap Pro Visa

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British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

Category

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

Comments (494)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Tony says:
    16 Apr16 April 14:14

    Not so O/T: Just done the legacy Gold Charge upgrade to Plat. I have added and cancelled a supplementary card when I was gold, yet it re-appeared after I upgraded…Very annoyed, does anyone else has the same experience?

    • Walty says:
      16 Apr16 April 14:28

      Yes. Happened twice with me and others on here have reported similar. It’s very messy to fix but you can give them a call. Tell them you didn’t want the supp which is why you cancelled before upgrading. They’ll close it. You’ll still end up receiving a Priority Pass card for it.
      When you do go to add a supp on after this has been sorted, likely chances are you’ll be charged as they deem it as your “2nd supp”. Another phone call to sort that. Can’t remember if I got a PP card for the 2nd supp.

      • Tony says:
        16 Apr16 April 14:33

        Thanks, did you receive 5k MR bonus for your “2nd” supp?

        • Walty says:
          16 Apr16 April 14:37

          Yes but only after I got the fee cancelled, I explained that I didn’t ask for the 1st supp and therefore missed out on getting the 5000 points.

    • BJ says:
      16 Apr16 April 14:35

      Numerous reports of this lately.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      16 Apr16 April 14:50

      Adding your first gold supp gets you the 5k

      • joe says:
        17 Apr17 April 16:11

        TGLoyalty, is that after having received 5K for your first platinum supp?

  • Waddle says:
    16 Apr16 April 14:15

    Gold OT:
    With the Gold card does the supplementary card member get two more lounge passes? If not can the supp use the passes without the main member present?

    • guesswho2000 says:
      16 Apr16 April 14:24

      No and no, the primary is issued with a lounge club card in their name, the passes aren’t directly linked to the gold card.

    • Peter K says:
      16 Apr16 April 14:25

      Only the main holder gets the passes. As their name will be on the lounge club card then they will need to be at the airport to use it.

      • Waddle says:
        16 Apr16 April 14:29

        Thanks both. Can the supp enter using a pass if the member is present but not entering using the passes? For example if OH and I want to get into a lounge, could she as a supp use a pass and I enter by another means such as using my WE?

        • Peter K says:
          16 Apr16 April 16:00

          I imagine technically not but if you ask at the lounge most will be accommodating if quiet.

  • Waddle says:
    16 Apr16 April 14:42

    Putting this question to HfP readers. Not after an answer but for some educated discussion.

    I think the HSBC Prem WE is now a similar value per £ of fee compared with the Plat and it includes a few benefits of the Gold.
    It’s cheaper: £255 (including one supp) vs £450 on the Plat.
    It has some good earning opportunities when one factors in the anniversary bonus which makes it net 52,000 miles for exactly £12k spend in a year, more if foreign spend included.
    There are differences in insurance and other offers but the difference is also in the fee.

    Obviously Plat has some some much more valuable benefits and points opportunities but as a holder of both plus potentially Gold in the future, with referral bonuses now reduced, I’m less inclined to keep the Plat long term.

    I’m considering downgrading to Green after a family holiday in May and doing the upgrade to plat path later on when I need it and instead focus on hitting the anniversary bonus on the Gold. (Have already hit the one on the WE). Am I wrong in this thinking?

    • Waddle says:
      17 Apr17 April 08:32

      I actually already factored in the 2:1 ratio and added the sign-up bonus. The net HSBC points earning is 40k + 40k + 24k = 104k for £12k spend. This equals 52k miles for 12k spend.

      I do get your point about other features. The app is indeed very basic. It does however work well with Curve and Revolut so I’m keeping it for that reason.

      • Polly says:
        17 Apr17 April 09:53

        Same here, thinking of dropping down to the free premiere card, know it’s only 0.5 avios/£ ongoing, but VERY handy for curve, council tax etc. Plenty of extra miles to be earned ….and keep the Plat going, both of us get 6 mths each so effectively 1 annual fee of £450.
        Real shame about the referral drop,down though. That would have kept us going. But there is enough double dipping to be had ongoing, so will manage to keep the hobby going.
        Plus, always a Qatar sale to look forward to, which we could end up cancelling a 241 for anyway, as has happened in the past. So all not lost.
        Yes, and HSBC cs in the dark ages, still.

  • TM says:
    16 Apr16 April 15:38

    I still have mine, whether you can still get it is another question…

  • Tony says:
    16 Apr16 April 16:23

    Another O/T, apologies for posting here but this is the busy thread today.

    Just got an email from BA:

    Get the most out of your Card in 2019 by referring friends. You can refer even more friends and boost your balance with up to 90,000 Avios a year….For each friend approved for the British Airways American Express Credit Card, we’ll thank you with 4,000 bonus Avios.

    I had a BA Blue Amex last year, which was already cancelled. I don’t think referral bonus from blue was 4k though? More like 2k?

  • George says:
    16 Apr16 April 16:33

    Rob – could you do 2019 articles on what other redemption options there are these days ex UK with the ridiculous fees BA and VS are charging? I.e Kris Flyer, Flying Blue etc.

    • Tilly71 says:
      16 Apr16 April 16:53

      OT:
      How long does it take normally for Hilton points to appear in the primary account after pooling points from another account?

      • BJ says:
        16 Apr16 April 19:00

        ATM it ‘s antibodies guess how long it takes any sort of points to post at Hilton. I start chasing them after 7 days.

      • Matthew says:
        16 Apr16 April 22:51

        Always taken 3 working days for me but only done it twice.

      • John says:
        17 Apr17 April 09:03

        For me it has always been almost exactly 24 hours for pooling, while the email with the link to initiate pooling takes about 1-2 hours to be sent.

        My latest 3 Hilton stays posted the morning after checkout! And all perfectly correct too. I’m just hoping that my Amex £75 off £250 credits properly (4 different stays)

        • Alan says:
          17 Apr17 April 17:57

          Ditto, just had a stay post the following morning too, clearly their IT revamp has finally paid some dividends!

    • Marcw says:
      16 Apr16 April 20:23

      You can do your own homework (reading comments).

  • Debbie says:
    16 Apr16 April 17:55

    Im in the UK and just applied for the Amex Gold Reward Credit Card yesterday and it still stated 20,000 bonus for sign up

    • TGLoyalty says:
      16 Apr16 April 18:31

      Changed at about 9pm. If you applied before that you should be fine

  • Dave says:
    16 Apr16 April 18:07

    OT: my Lloyds amex card has been cloned, and used in Santiago

    • Anon says:
      16 Apr16 April 19:10

      Spain, Chile, Cuba?

    • Alan says:
      16 Apr16 April 21:38

      These card seems to be very prone to this, even folks that have never taken them out the drawer at home!

      • Optimus Prime says:
        17 Apr17 April 10:37

        This has happened to my Transferwise debit card.

        Have never used it and last week received a notification about a declined transaction in USA.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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