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Just got the American Express EveryDay Preferred Card

by Harlan 9 Comments

Yes, another one (following the recent Kohl’s card).

The Amex EveryDay cards weren’t supposed to be live until April 2nd, but for whatever reason, they went ahead and released them early. I’ve been considering dumping one (or two) of my Amex cards after getting screwed out of Membership Rewards bonuses multiple times which caused me to wish Amex to DIAF.

I’ve decided to give them another chance due to this long overdue and solid entry into the premium card market, which pits them directly against my beloved Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Barclaycard Arrival Plus, which I just decided to keep for another year.

About the Amex EveryDay Preferred card

This card is truly set up to be an “everyday” card for daily spend. Their marketing people are geniuses. The card earns full Membership Rewards point which are fully transferable to 17 air and hotel partners. The signup bonus is a modest 15,000 Amex Membership points at the time of writing, which, who knows, maybe I’ll actually get this time.

I’m not using the Premier Rewards Gold card as much as I thought I would. Yes, it earns 3 points/dollar for airfare, but the other categories really aren’t much to write home about. The card is truly only worth keeping if you spend $30K in a year, which earns you a bonus 15,000 points.

So I’m glad they’ve put out a new card with a new new points earning structure:

  • 3x at grocery stores
  • 2x at gas stations
  • 1x everywhere else

That’s all fine and good. The kicker is that you get 50% more points if you use the card 30 times or more in a month. And you can track your progress on the mobile app and website. This forces you to constantly interact with the product to make sure you get the bonus each month. How smart is that?! I know I will be checking to make sure I get that bonus. It brings the spend categories to:

  • 4.5x at grocery stores
  • 3x at gas stations
  • 1.5 everywhere else

That is a wonderful earning structure.

By following our axiom of getting 2 cents of value out of every point or mile, we will effectively get this rate of return:

  • 9% back at grocery stores
  • 6% back at gas stations
  • 3% back everywhere else

That gives this card the best rate of return for travel in the industry. And yet, I don’t see it, personally, as a competitor to the Chase Sapphire Preferred. The CSP’s big categories are 2x points (4% cash back) at restaurants and on travel purchases, which makes these two cards unlikely complements of each other. Between the new Amex EveryDay Preferred and the Chase Sapphire Preferred, I’ve got a solid earning strategy for daily spend. But, the Barclay Arrival card is STILL valid thanks to its ease of earning, great shopping portal, free TripIt Pro, and really cool online community.

Bottom line

Overall, this is a very, very good thing and a welcome addition to the credit card market. The more, the merrier in this case.

I will be sure to post more thoughts as I begin to use and interact with the card and the app. But for now, very glad I got this one. It holds a lot of potential.

Unpublished/Secret Benefit of the Amex Premier Rewards Gold Card?

by Harlan Leave A Comment

You got a hidden benny, buddy?

You got a hidden benny, buddy?

I’ve consistently noticed, month after month, that I receive 3x Membership Rewards from online purchases when I pay with my American Express Premier Rewards Gold card. 

NOWHERE is this written out, but in practice, it has worked for me for nearly a year. The most obvious example is when, one month, I sent $1000 via Amazon Payments and got 3,000 MR points put my account. There have been other, smaller purchases that have triggered this, too. $50 from fab.com. An order at shoes.com. A few other things from drugstore.com and Kohls.com. The thing they all have in common is that they are purchases made online.

I’ve tried this with the Platinum Card – nothing. This little trick seems to be isolated to the PRG card. If so, it might be worth using this for online purchases in conjunction with clicking through portal links.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is this an unpublished/secret benefit of having the PRG card?

One More New Credit Card: Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express

by Harlan 3 Comments

Fidelity_investment_card

This signals a shift in my spending patterns and way of thinking, for sure. I thought about this a lot and decided this would be a good decision, for now and for the future.

The Fidelity® Investment Rewards American Express® offers 2% cash back into an investment account on every purchase: no categories, no minimum spend, no signup bonus, but no annual fee. I thought about it. My average spend is about $5K a month. That’s 10,000 points or $100 in cash each month. But then that $100 will be invested and will turn around a further 6-20+% return, depending on where I invest it. In 20 years, that $100 could be worth a few thousand, which is pretty cool to think about and to behold the power of compound interest.

The reason I got this card now is because I have my travel (and all my vacation days) planned out for the next six months:

And that’s in addition to my courier work. I also have a healthy amount of Avios, AAdvantage miles, Skymiles, and Ultimate Rewards points in case I need/want to go anywhere in the months beyond January. So, I’m set with points and miles for now. But thinking further, much further, I’d like my spend to be working for me even more.

This card is quite a hybrid. It’s an Amex issued by a Bank of America subsidy and partners with Fidelity investments. Pretty cool. It gives me the benefits of Amex and the investment power at Fidelity, a company I really like. It didn’t count for or against my relationship with Chase or Barclays or Citi, which is a positve. And, I  have investments at USAA, Betterment, and MetLife, and would like to diversify even more. So I took the plunge, opened a mutual fund account, and got approved for this card. With my travel set, I can set aside some free money for my future just for using this card. That kind of blows my mind. Literally – FREE money.

With some creative manufactured spend, it truly is free, and though I’m giving up points in favor of invested cash for a while, I feel good that I took some time to make a thoughtful decision.

Anyone else have or heard of this card? Do you like it?