How to use this whopping American Express offer to quickly bag a reward flight

If you are on a desperate hunt for airmiles and feel overwhelmed at the amount of money you need to spend to have a chance of bagging yourself a reward flight, fear not. American Express currently has an incredible offer on the American Express Gold card which could have you boarding a flight far sooner than you thought possible. Simply apply for the card before the 16^th July 2024 and then spend £3,000 in your first free months of card membership and you can earn a whopping 25,000 Membership Rewards. You can also supercharge this American Express offer. If you use our referral link, the sign up bonus increases to 30,000 Membership Rewards. In short, you will earn 33,000 Membership Rewards in your first 3 months assuming you spend exactly £3,000.

Sign up now using our referral link.

Other perks of the American Express offer

Once you sign up for the card, you may wish to wax lyrical about the benefits of the card to your friends. For every successful referral you make to a friend, you can earn;

• an additional 14,000 Membership Rewards for referrals made before 16^th July (usually 9,000)
• 2 extra Membership Rewards for every £1 you personally spend on your card up until 16^th July, up to a maximum of £6,000
• Note, the maximum you can earn for successful referrals in a year is 90,000 points

But imagine if you could persuade just two friends to sign up before the 16^th July (not that hard, surely?), you would earn:

• 30,000 points for your successful application using this referral link
• Assuming you get 2 friends to sign up immediately, a further 28,000 points
• Plus 9,000 points for your £3,000 spend that you need to spend to earn your sign up bonus

Note, if you have held an American Express in the last 24 months, you are not eligible for the sign-up bonus.

American Express Gold card benefits

Spending rewards

As you may have gathered, for every £1 you spend on the American Express Gold card you earn 1 Membership Reward. This increases to 2 points for every £1 spent on airlines or in a foreign currency and 3 points for every £1 spent with American Express Travel.

In addition, every time you spend £5,000 you earn an extra 2,500 bonus Membership Rewards points, up to a maximum of 12,500 bonus points per year.

Finally, you will earn a further 5,000 Membership Rewards in month 15 if you spend anything. Yes, just £1 bags you 5,000 Rewards but more on that shortly. See the fees section below though to decide whether retaining the card beyond a year is worthwhile for you.

Airline rewards

You can use the rewards in a variety of ways but if you want to use them to bag reward flights you then need to transfer those points to an airline programme.

The super thing about this card is that it offers fantastic flexibility. You can convert membership rewards to airmiles with 12 airlines. These include Virgin, British Airways, Emirates, Etihad and many more. Once you transfer your rewards to the relevant airline you can book flights with any airline in that airline’s Alliance (if applicable).

For instance, we want to travel to Peru. We have transferred our points to Virgin Atlantic who are part of the Skyteam Alliance. This alliance includes KLM, Air France, Air New Zealand and more. We now plan to use our points to fly from our local airport to Peru on KLM. Result!!

Other perks

An additional travel benefit of the American Express Gold offer is that card holders also receive 4 complimentary Priority Pass airport lounge visits every year. These give you access to lounges in over 1,300 airports globally which means you can travel in style on American Express.

For all other perks of the card, visit American Express.

Fees

Finally, let us just touch on fees as this is not a credit card for those who lack discipline.

There is no annual membership cost in year one however this card costs £195 from year two. On that basis, it might be better to cancel the card before the anniversary. You will lose out on the 5,000 Membership Rewards in month 15, but you could potentially refer a partner and benefit from another free year plus another sign up bonus. You will also earn a referral bonus which is usually 9,000 Membership Rewards.

Note, also that the APR is a whopping representative APR of 88.8% and the purchase rate is 31%. In short, you should always ensure you can pay off the balance in full each month or this card will cripple you.

Final thoughts

However if you are someone who can spend £1,000 a month on your card and comfortably pay it off, then this American Express Gold offer is a pretty sweet deal (providing you have not held any American Express Card in the last 24 months).

So what you waiting for? Use the referral link here to sign up

Disclaimer: Miles For Smiles is a journalistic website and nothing here should be construed as financial advice. It is your own responsibility to ensure that any credit card you apply for is right for you. All recommendations in this blog relate to your ability to earn Membership Rewards which you can use for reward flights and do not take into account your personal circumstances.