American Express - The Trifecta of Cards
Now that you’ve read and learned a bit about the American Express Platinum and Gold cards, it’s time to head for the next step: the trifecta of American Express cards to maximize your Membership Rewards (MR) points earning potential!
If you have the gold card and the platinum card, you’re getting the below multipliers:
4x Dining (Gold)
4x Grocery (Gold)
5x Hotels (Platinum)
5x Flights (Platinum)
Various Multipliers for “Amex Offers & Benefits”
…but what do you do about all those other spends that do not belong in the above category? Cell phone bills, Netflix, gas station purchases, and so many more? On the Gold and Platinum cards, they are a measly 1x, which gets you 1 point for every $1 spent. In order to get a bonus on these types of spends, you’ll need to get your hands on the American Express Everyday cards.
The Last Piece of the Puzzle: American Express Everyday
The last piece of the puzzle, image courtesy of American Express & americanexpress.com
The American Express Everyday cards come in 2 flavors, the Amex Everyday Card and the Amex Everyday Preferred Card. While the cards are mostly the same, the Preferred flavor has an annual fee of $95, but has some extra perks. Keep in mind though, these are credit cards and not charge cards like the Gold and Platinum cards.
American Express Everyday Card
The non-Preferred card is a great all-around-er, with no annual fees and a slightly easier road to get to your bonus MR points:
2x Multiplier at Grocery stores up to $6,000 per year
Make 20 transactions per month to get a 20% bonus to your MR point earnings
At the time of writing this article, 15,000 bonus MR points for $1,000 spend within the first 3 months
While the 2x multiplier isn’t all that exciting (and you should be using your Gold card with the 4x multiplier at grocery stores anyways!), the 20% bonus is an exciting feature. On spends that would normally get you only 1 point per $1 spent, a 20% bonus generation could mean a great number of extra free points.
American Express Everyday Preferred Card
The Preferred card flavor is also a great all-around-er for your 1x multiplier category spends, but comes with a $95 annual fee. That fee isn’t just there for nothing, it comes with a nice little bonus perk:
3x Multiplier at Grocery Stores up to $6,000 per year
2x Multiplier at Gas Stations (supermarkets and warehouses excluded, sorry Costco shoppers)
Make 30 transactions per month to get a 50% bonus to your MR point earnings
At the time of writing this article, 15,000 bonus MR points for $1,000 spend within the first 3 months
If you can make the 30 transactions per month and don’t mind adding another $95 annual fee to your $550 Plat and $250 Gold fees, then this is a great way to generate tons of points.
Why Consider the 1x Spend?
At this point you might be asking yourself, “Why would I need to concern myself with the 1x spend?” Well, the truth is, while the Gold and Platinum cards cover frequent spending (food and food) and travel spends (large purchases), they do nothing for the regular purchases. Things you need from Target, Best Buy, Michael’s, Ross, Amazon, Macy’s, and countless other stores do not have a promotional rate most of the time, and usually not part of the multiplier category.
Last month - just in recurring bills, had nearly $500 and that’s not even counting my car payments (the car payments could be paid with your credit card using a service like Plastiq, but we’ll get into that another time). That’s also not counting new shoes that I bought, maybe a shirt here and there, my computer part that I needed to replace, home improvement and maintenance items, toys for the nephew, presents for birthdays, and the list goes on.
Final Thoughts
The fact of the matter is, you’re going to have a lot of spend that just isn’t covered by the categories, and the Everyday Card and the Everyday Preferred Card fills that void of extra points. I mean, why not get those extra free points?
For me personally, while the 20 transactions are easy enough and happy with the 20% bonus, I’m not quite spending enough to get 30 transactions for the 50% nor do I want another $95 annual fee. However, if you want to maximize your spend to fullest, getting the American Express Everyday Preferred Card is an excellent choice for that 1.5x MR points generation.
Let us know what you think about the trifecta - have you tried it? Are you on it now? How do you like it?
Next article we’ll be visiting some strategies to maximize referral bonuses with your spouse, and when not to use the referral bonuses, and why we specifically focus on the American Express brands for our uses.
