Interested to know how you guys would spend these points?
I was thinking of just reducing my card balance, it’s giving me £660 for 147k points.
Not too sure where else to use them to gain best value?
Happy to hear your thoughts 😁
Many thanks in advance!!!
I went to a restaurant on the list of places in Los Angeles. When I got back from my trip my £100 was not rewarded on my account.
After speaking to Amex chat they have said as the merchant is the hotel (which the restaurant is in), and they cannot award me the offer.
I am so confused, I went to the restaurant stated on the offer list, paid with my Amex and now being told my transaction does not qualify because the merchant is the hotel and not the hotel restaurant!
Has anyone else experienced something similar, do I now have to monitor the exact payment terminal the restaurant uses every time I try to use my platinum dining credit? It seems like more work than its worth considering I pay a hefty annual fee. I am seriously thinking of looking to downgrade or leave Amex after this. This is literally the biggest perk of having the platinum for me.
I have escalated this to a formal complaint, but I have no real hope of this going successfully, given my interactions with the chat.
After they reduced the monthly bonus points scheme which gave you extra 10,000 points for 10,000 spent i have told amex where to go. While they abuse existing customers and reduce the benefits, other competitors are offering far better deals and eating into their market share. I’m going to abandon them! Greedy company
I keep seeing people recommend supplementary cards for partners or family members to help rack up points faster, but I’m wondering how useful they actually are in practice.
Do most people here find they genuinely help with points earning and hitting spend targets, or do they just make tracking spending and managing the account more annoying?
Just wondering if anyone had any experience hiring a car, we don’t own a car so would be looking to hire one for our UK holiday.
What kind of perks did you get and was it worth it going through the partners vs a non partner?
Hi guys
I appreciate there’s countless other posts querying this but I have some quite narrow wishes for my points which I would massively appreciate any help with. I’m pretty new to Amex and flight upgrades more generally. If anyone can help me I’d be more than happy to send flowers as a thank you!
Me and my gf are planning on going to South Africa in the new year and i will be proposing to her on this holiday.
Edit. further context: Looking v quickly a London-Cape Town return flight in Jan is £700-£1k pp in economy. Premium economy c.£1.5k-£2k. Biz £3k-£4k.
In an ideal world, I’d really like to get us 2x business class seats from London to Cape Town including return as cheap as possible, ideally by just using points. 1st class would obviously be amazing but I suspect that’s a non starter!
Any other suggestions I really welcome, if anyone can help me I owe you big time!
Thanks
I have never spent any points and I. Want to go to Japan with my family of six. I believe that you need to book flights a year in advance and big parties like mine are difficult. Do you have any tips for me?
I have more than 800,000 MR points. I have used them on upgrades to business class in the past but wonder what I should spend them on now? Does anyone have any useful suggestions?
I don’t accrue them any more as all my spending goes on the platinum cashback (the one with the £25 fee).
I thought about just using the MR balance for every day spending and then investing the saved cash but I don’t think this is the greatest value to be achieved from them.
I keep reading about people raving about Amex points being so worth it for flights and vacations, but also same people mention points in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions! Don't you get 1 MP per £1 spent? I know some transactions give you more, like forex transactions, but then you pay like a 3% forex fee, so it negates the effect.
In my experience, I've only used Avios to get £20 off of a flight, which I do maybe once a year, since I mostly fly low-cost. After £20 the tiers are ridiculous - like 20,000 points for £100 off or something, if not worse.
You might say I should just book flights with Avios, but that's barely any better. I still need to accumulate something like 100k MP to get a decent flight. Do you think I'd care about a few hundred quid after spending £100k??
For reference, I've barely used my points, and I've been a member for exactly 5 years. I currently have 33k points. I spend about £1,200 on my Amex a month, which is less than £15k a year.
Even if I put everything on my Amex, I only spend about £1,800 a month. Let's say I save points for 5 years - call it 100,000 points. According to this article, I can fly two people to NY return + £200. I've flown to NY for like £350 return with BA. Two people = £700. Call it an even £1000 with checked luggage and whatnot. So I end up saving £800 in 5 years?! How is that better than converting MP to Nectar points?
Make it make sense!
Hi, apologies if this is a dumb question but i’m new to Amex.
I have around 120k points and getting around 25k each month from meta adspend.
I am looking to use these for a flight to Cyprus, its a 5 hr flight which seems long enough for me to try to try out a better flight class as i had always flown economy.
I looked at amex travel and the pricing for business class from London to Larnaca in July is crazy expensive points wise, i cannot remember the exact figure now but it was something like 150k points or like £800. I thought amex points are worth like 1:1 when redeeming them for flights.
I have heard about people using Avios, is that basically amex points but just BA version? Is that better conversion value?
I apologise if these are dumb questions but I am not very educated on this and very new to the system.
Thanks in advance
Hello all,
Apologies for the question. I’m a first time AMEX redeemer and I’m a little confused with all the redeem posts.
I’m looking to fly from MAN - ICN return for the dates of 23-30th of May. I am okay with economy class.
Could anyone be as so kind to help me out. I am unsure how to convert or if I can even afford it.
Thanks
Hi all does anyone have any idea on how I can spend 36,000 Amex points? I know it’s on the less side compared to other users 😅 but I think I will be downgrading my card soon so thought I’d send the points. Is it possible to catch a flight with this amount of points? Even if it’s one way
Hi all
I currently have a gold Amex card, with about 35k points on it.
I spend around £1K a month on average on it - and get extra value using it for business expenses such as travel, food, hotels etc.
I haven’t referred anyone yet.
What’s the best way to make the most of it and the points? I see a lot of people talk about Avios points, is this something I collect passively or change my Amex points into? We don’t fly often, and when I do it’s for work or short European flights, but would obviously love the option to upgrade and have fancy BC flights.
General advice wanted, looking to make the most of it. End goal would be spending points to assist with business class flights abroad for me and my partner.
Hello Reddit!
I am coming to the end of my first year of my Gold card, for the year I've spent £31k and amassed just over 100k MR Points. (Big family holiday with her family upped this ~10k higher than usual expense). I expect to use these towards flights, but do appreciate the flexibility to maybe spend them on hotels.
However my wife is a teacher and we are tied to school holidays currently. But she is expecting to leave her permanent role in a few years so will be able to travel outside of school holidays for better reward flight deals (more on this later).
I am trying to decide what to do next:
- stick with gold, we use the lounges and have used a few of the other benefits over the year such as the hotel group bonus spend. I also think this is the best card for getting points built up due to the double spend on flights (we travel quite a lot).
- upgrade to platinum for the perks, the extra lounge access would be used, but do people think its worth it?
- go to BAPP, for the companion voucher, but tied to just avios (even if you get 1.5x points) and have to use Comp voucher in school holidays.
- keep gold, get BAPP in a few years when travel is less restricted by wife's job.
Any thoughts would be great! TYIA!
I finally pulled the trigger on the 100k referral offer, but staring at that £10,000 spend requirement is giving me a bit of heart palpitations. I've got until October to hit it, but I’m already trying to prepay my council tax and utility bills just to make a dent. Is anyone else currently in the manufacturing spend trenches for this?
I keep seeing people here with 2 or 3 Amex cards at once and I genuinely can’t tell if I’m missing a trick or if people just enjoy collecting them. Does it actually benefit your credit profile or rewards setup or does it just create extra hassle?
Hi Guys,
I have never had a credit card before; however, I love travelling and have been studying more and more about points. I am pretty good when it comes to managing my money and being able to control myself hence why I believe I am ready to start spending on credit for the rewards.
I recently was on the Amex website when I saw that I have a limited time offer for 50,000 free points if I sign up on the Gold Card in the next two weeks, being that the first year (£195) fee is waived.
I quickly found that if I just collected the points and cancelled the cards they would just ban/clawback the points, however I was wondering weather I will still lose my points if:
a) I transfer them to Avios for example before cancelling the card
b) Change the card to a free card (for example free everyday cashback), before the intial 12 months.
Would love to hear some insight on this and honestly any other suggestions for good Credit cards here in the uk!
Hello everyone, I’m 19 and just got my first AMEX which is a Gold Preferred Rewards, I am currently living in France actually and have my residency appointments coming up to get my French residence card and I’m planning to do a Global Link to get a French AMEX too as the FX fees are too high, I want to ask those who have been using AMEX for a while, what are the best things you can do with AMEX? What are the best strategies etc, I appreciate any advice 🙏
Is it okay to ask for a retention bonus every year? I asked for one and was given one. The annual membership fee has just posted (though it's part of my next month statement so won't pay this until June). Is it shameless to ask for a retention bonus every year? The annual fee is quite high...awhat's the best way to ask for it? Shall I just say I just noted the annual membership fee is due and ask if there are any retention/loyalty bonus? Or shall I pretend I want to cancel?
Edit: to report back I live chatted with amex and asked if there was an retention offer. The agent first reiterated to me the amex benefits where I could get the most value (eg dining credits) and when I pressed for more they offered to downgrade me to the basic or gold. So guess no retention offer for me this year 😞
In terms of great customer support, answer the phone swiftly, competent agents, willingness to back the customer, etc?
I’ve heard bad things about monzo and good things about firstdirect. But not sure about others.
Obviously one needs a current account in addition to their credit card, and I’m looking for one that gives a similar level of “don’t worry” that Amex does if anything goes wrong.