Amex/american express

Martynt74 said:
Do you spend them on anything other that flights?

I had both a BA card and also the regular Membership rewards cards, but with no flights from Manchester and generally only flying around Europe anyway there weren't many benefits. Using them for Amazon vouchers etc seemed a poor use and was around 0.5% in effect.
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No, I save the points specifically for flights myself. I have looked into using them for hotel rooms but that means booking it through BA and honestly, they are never the best pricing when i check it against Expedia or Bookings or Agoda.

Obviously, it is a bit of a bust the last 15 months, no flights and even the free priority pass they gave me is utterly useless...hopefully, i can use it soon and I am hoping (not checked) they haven't moved the points required for flights. As price for flights changes constantly, i haven't checked whether points do.

If you watch any of the finance channels on YT, all of them collect points and not cashback, then use it to book flights and hotels.
 
I can see the points working for you. They seem to make a lot of sense when traveling long haul. Especially if you're near London for BA's hub.
 
Martynt74 said:
I can see the points working for you. They seem to make a lot of sense when traveling long haul. Especially if you're near London for BA's hub.
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Of course, if you don't get long haul, it is probably less value for money. But as a whole, medium to long haul is where the most value is.
 
Got the email this morning, very disappointing. But there you go. I guess they've been hit hard on people not spending (I would average 4k/month easily with work and personal). I've found I'm spending most of my cash at Amazon so have switched to an Amazon MasterCard with an effective rate of 1.5% iirc.
 
Now if only the decrease meant that their merchant fees were also being lowered; then more merchants would accept = more profit for amex/us. Unlikely.
 
Kol said:
Now if only the decrease meant that their merchant fees were also being lowered; then more merchants would accept = more profit for amex/us. Unlikely.
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I've found the vast majority do accept it. It's only really smaller places that don't as I assume they can justify the hit like a bigger shop can.
 
At the moment we've got 'shop small' running around here so thankfully our smaller shops seem to be being recruited as it were which should improve things; interestingly the places I've experienced who seem to accept less and less are the local pubs. I'm very lucky in that our area has A LOT of independent pubs, but barely any of them accept it.

I agree, though, nowadays it's rarer to find somewhere that doesn't accept but I've say it still happens fairly regularly that amex isn't accepted.
 
Mason- said:
Bumping:

Anyone else have an Amex Platinum Cashback Credit Card and just received an email saying the rates are changing -

From:
1% for first £10k
1.25% for over the first £10k
To:
0.75% for first £10k
1.25% for over the first £10k

It’s a bit annoying but there’s no alternative really.
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The cashback rate boundaries on the 0-fee everyday credit card have also reduced - 0.5% from £0-£10k spend now.
 
Tom_ed1987 said:
The cashback rate boundaries on the 0-fee everyday credit card have also reduced - 0.5% from £0-£10k spend now.
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This is the one I have - previously I had to spend £5k before to get the bump to 1% from 0.5%, so this has made an impact.

My NatWest reward card gives me 1% back on supermarket spend (not fuel stations), so I'll probably be trying to remember to use that card going forward when it provides better returns. NatWest normally pay within a month, too - and offer bonuses if you trade against gift cards. Annoying really as I prefer to use AMEX for all of our expenditure as typically 1% back off everything is where I'm at, I enjoy buying everything at 99% of their cost.

Still, AMEX is worth having for me, various cashback deals, such as Shop Small, are well worth having. I'd "accidentally" got fivers/tenners back here and there without remembering I'd saved them to my card. Recently I saved £100 off a laptop from Dell, and this week I saved the spend £20 with Amazon and get £5 back off, so I'll not be abandoning the card yet.
 
theone8181 said:
I've found the vast majority do accept it. It's only really smaller places that don't as I assume they can justify the hit like a bigger shop can.
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I've found even this has changed recently with a lot of smaller shops using those card terminals to connect to their phone like Sumup or Izettle. They seem to accept Amex.

The main places for me seem to be Screwfix/B&Q (although some B&Q's do accept it), Mcdonalds and KFC.
 
wingman said:
T
Still, AMEX is worth having for me, various cashback deals, such as Shop Small, are well worth having. I'd "accidentally" got fivers/tenners back here and there without remembering I'd saved them to my card. Recently I saved £100 off a laptop from Dell, and this week I saved the spend £20 with Amazon and get £5 back off, so I'll not be abandoning the card yet.
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Man, you get awesome offers. Mine are very rarely any good on either of my cards, and that's with around 50 "offers" per card :(

I would like better notifications of offers going live though.


EDIT - Although saying that i do have a 30% cashback on Laithwaites wine which could be interesting!
 
Sainsbury's too accept it, i think most supermarkets do. You can link it to Paypal as the default card so there is that. Obviously Amazon does as well.
 
Martynt74 said:
Man, you get awesome offers. Mine are very rarely any good on either of my cards, and that's with around 50 "offers" per card :(

I would like better notifications of offers going live though.


EDIT - Although saying that i do have a 30% cashback on Laithwaites wine which could be interesting!
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My partner has a different card with AMEX too which helps us out as she typically gets different deals to me, so between us we seem to do alright. But yeah, those ones I mentioned above were all on my card.

I don't always do greatly, sometimes I go months without anything decent popping up, but recently I've done very well.

Agreed, AMEX are awful for showing these deals. That Amazon one was almost at the end of what felt like 40 odd promotions. I typically find out about these deals on HUKD's, then just check if mine has it. The amount of people who comment on HUKD that their card doesn't have that particular deal is staggering mind you. And then you have to rush out and save it because it's limited to the first so many thousand that save it to their card.
 
wingman said:
My partner has a different card with AMEX too which helps us out as she typically gets different deals to me, so between us we seem to do alright. But yeah, those ones I mentioned above were all on my card.

I don't always do greatly, sometimes I go months without anything decent popping up, but recently I've done very well.

Agreed, AMEX are awful for showing these deals. That Amazon one was almost at the end of what felt like 40 odd promotions. I typically find out about these deals on HUKD's, then just check if mine has it. The amount of people who comment on HUKD that their card doesn't have that particular deal is staggering mind you. And then you have to rush out and save it because it's limited to the first so many thousand that save it to their card.
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I must admit, I NEVER check the app...I should start doing it on a regular basis.
 
dLockers said:
Got the email this morning, very disappointing. But there you go. I guess they've been hit hard on people not spending (I would average 4k/month easily with work and personal). I've found I'm spending most of my cash at Amazon so have switched to an Amazon MasterCard with an effective rate of 1.5% iirc.
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Might not be as competitive, but i just spotted this on HDUK. Seems you can just put being a sole trader to be applied.

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/ps100-amazon-voucher-with-prime-american-express-3734361
 
Still got my Amex - 400k in points on there.....Waiting for COVID situation to calm down and use some of the points and companion vouchers to travel a lot.
 
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