The New Card To Use Everyday!

There has been a movement afoot the last year or so where credit card issuers are trying to have their customers do more with the cards than simply use it for the low spending threshold and move on to other cards. Credit cards have seen minimum spending requirements go up and the credit card retention bonuses now require a little bit of work/spending on the consumer’s part to get.

Now figure in American Express and their new policy of giving a bonus once in a lifetime on each card product. This says that American Express is the latest about getting serious with consumers to retain them for longer than 11 months. Credit card companies are demanding more loyalty from their customers, for sure.

The good thing is that American Express has released a card to reward customer loyalty. Enter the American Express Everyday cards!

Amex EveryDay Credit Cards

Membership Rewards are a very valuable travel currency. They can be used to transfer to a host of airline and hotel partners, many more partners than Ultimate Rewards has! The problem is that the cards that can earn those points and then be transferred to other programs are high fee cards. Those cards are the American Express Platinum card (Consumer, Business, and Mercedes Benz) – $450/$475, American Express Premier Rewards Gold – $175, and the American Express Business Rewards Gold – $175. Those are hefty fees to have on cards! You need to really be able to generate a significant amount of points to eliminate the pain of the annual fee.

With the new American Express cards, consumers now have the opportunity to earn Membership Reward points and transfer them to their travel partners at a much lower fee – in fact, one of the cards has no annual fee! Not only that, but these cards are credit cards which means that you can carry a balance if you need to (as opposed to the other Amex Membership Reward cards that are charge cards). Finally, these cards reward the consumers who will use them everyday. If you make a certain amount of purchases in the month, you will receive a bonus on all transactions made throughout that month.

Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card

Disclosure: I do not receive a commission for any links in this post.

Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card – 15,000 Membership Reward points – Application Link (I do not receive a commission)

The first one is the one that has annual fee ($95) but has bonuses to match. Here are the details about the card:

• 15,000 Membership Reward points – you will receive 15,000 Membership Reward points after you spend $1,000 in 3 months
• 3X Points at US Supermarkets – up to $6,000 per year in purchases(then 1x); 2x points at US gas stations; 1x points on other purchases.
• Earn 50% More Points – Use your card 30 or more times on purchases in a billing period and get 50% more points on those purchases less returns and credits.
• Flexibility to Carry a Balance – With the Amex EveryDay^SM Preferred Credit Card, you can pay over time or pay all at once (the card comes with a promotional interest free period of 0% for 15 months)
• All the other great perks from Amex – this includes purchase protection, extended warranty, return protection, and more

The card presents some great possibilities. For instance, your spending at grocery stores will net you a max of 12,000 bonus Membership Reward points in a year – the first Membership Reward card to award that many bonus points for shopping at supermarkets. In addition, it will also award you an unlimited amount of bonus points (2x) on purchases at gas stations.

Analysis

The really nice twist comes into play when you make 30 or more purchases in a billing month. At that point, you will receive a 50% bonus on all the points already earned that month plus any future transactions you make for the rest of the billing month. So, if you make 30 purchases at grocery stores in a month and you spend a total of $500 at those stores, you will receive a total of 2,250 Membership Reward points (3 points per dollar at grocerys x the 50% bonus for making more 30 transactions). Using this card every month at grocery stores like that will allow you to earn a total of 27,000 Membership Reward points for $6,000 of spending at supermarkets! That is an actual 4.5 points per dollar (for purchases at supermarkets when making 30 purchases in a month)! For all other purchases (like everyday purchases at places that are 1 point per dollar), you will end up with 1.5 points per dollar if you make a minimum of 30 purchases per month.

Tracking Purchases

To help you track the number of purchases you make in a month, Amex has updated their smartphone app to give you real-time access to that information. That is a huge help and a nice sign by Amex that want to help us make this card work for us. This is a great card for everyday use, especially for supermarkets or gas stations. In fact, this is the absolute best card to use for gas station purchases if you can make a total of 30 purchases or more per month.

As for that magic number of 30 purchases (or more) per month, that number does not have to be at one category. It is the total number of purchases, so do not feel like you have to go to the supermarket 30 times in a month. Not only that, but there is no minimum amount to qualify as a purchase. So, you could purchase a pack of gum 30 separate times and be all set!

Amex EveryDay Credit Card

Amex EveryDay Credit Card – 10,000 Membership Reward points – Application Link (I do not receive a commission)

This card is the same as the Preferred card except it comes with no annual fee and some downgraded point perks. Here are the details:

• 10,000 Membership Reward points – you will receive 10,000 Membership Reward points after you spend $1,000 in 3 months
• 2X Points at US Supermarkets – up to $6,000 per year in purchases(then 1x); 1x points on other purchases.
• Earn 20% More Points – Use your card 20 or more times on purchases in a billing period and get 50% more points on those purchases less returns and credits.
• Flexibility to Carry a Balance – With the Amex EveryDay^SM Credit Card, you can pay over time or pay all at once (the card comes with a promotional interest free period of 0% for 15 months)
• All the other great perks from Amex – this includes purchase protection, extended warranty, return protection, and more

This is basically the same card but offers less in bonus awards to balance out the no annual fee.

Which Card?

I would suggest going for the Preferred card for the first year, in spite of the annual fee. You can always downgrade it later if you find that you are not receiving as much benefit from the increased bonuses. To make the Preferred card worthwhile each year, you should be picking up at least 6,000 Membership Reward points in differences. In other words, if you were to max out the supermarket bonuses each year and fulfill the minimum number of transactions for the bonus percentage (30 transactions per month for the Preferred, 20 transactions per month for the regular), you would earn a difference of 12,600 Membership Reward points. That would more than pay for the annual fee and that is just when spending $6,000 per year at supermarkets.

Summary

I like these cards and their strategy for consumers. It encourages more everyday use and awards the consumer for it. I love that these cards are full-featured Membership Reward cards so all these points can be transferred to partners like British Airways, Delta, Air France, Emirates, and many, many more. I think this helps to increase the value of the Membership Rewards program to be sure.