For the first year the Preferred Reward Gold card carries no fee and gives double MR points on travel, foreign currency transactions, supermarket and fuel purchases.

My favourite use at the moment is to buy the 3v cards with it in batches so I get a 5p off a litre of petrol till spit for each transaction (my best so far is 5 spits). That way I get 2 MR points per pound spent and therefore the same number of Avios if I choose to transfer them that way.

I use the petrol vouchers paying with the Amex but using my Tesco MC as a Clubcard. Because that's both a fuel AND a supermarket purchase I always get 4 times the Pound spend in MR points on top of the enhanced rate of CC points with the MC.

Incidentally, my wife and I have been "First Year' Gold card holders for the past 4 years by simply flipping the account holder. The other great benefit of that is referring each other towards the end of the year and then cancelling. To my amazement, we've never failed to get the bonus points.