I received an interesting letter in the mail today about my new Preferred card. Apparently since I also have the Plat card, they enrolled my EDP in the Membership Rewards First program. It said if I cancel the Plat card my EDP card will be downgraded to regular Membership Rewards.

Has anyone else gotten this letter? From what I can tell, MR First isn't that amazing, and I'm planning on canceling the Plat card this summer, so I'm not sure if this will actually affect my EDP points redemption in any way.

What you quoted doesn't have anything to do with what they were discussing. What you quoted was about returns. They are talking about if the bonus is on the base earnings or the already bonused categories as well.

So i signed up for the new EveryDay Preferred card when it launched the other week. During the process it asked if i wanted to do a balance transfer from another card, lately id been extremely agitated at how USBank was treating me so i put in the $2200 i had on there. I was approved for the card, and called in to find out my limits and what not while the card was still in the mail. I was told my limit, and that i WAS eligible for the 15k MR bonus point offer, but that the balance transfer was limited to just $700.

No big deal, transfer that over, pay off the rest of the USBank Visa, be done with them. For several days nothing happened, didnt see anything showing up on the card online. Until tonight. I just logged in and saw that the FULL $2,200 was paid to my Visa and transferred onto the new Amex.

Not really complaining, but just confused as to why they would tell me they would only do $700 and instead end up doing just over 3x that amount.....has this happened to anyone else?

I'm planning on doing a balance transfer on my new Everyday Preferred. Will report back. Just curious, does this require a phone call to initiate? Can't seem to find any info online.

Entirely routine. At present there are no meaningful differences between Membership Rewards First and standard Membership Rewards, but there were previously and American Express might improve Membership Rewards First to offset the loss of lounge access.

I did not have a phone call or anything. I think I got a letter in the mail right after being approved for the card that simply said my request for balence transfer had been approved as well. Though the letter made no mention of the amount I was approved for which was why I called it. Everything seemed to happen automatically.

Card arrives today. Just activated thru telephone. I was surprised that after the usual "your home phone number is detected, no further action is needed, your card is activated." message, I was transferred to a live rep who cheerfully proclaimed how lucky I was to get this new product...

Went online to "activate" the card so it would allow me to link to existing log in. The site said card is activated and prompted me to link to existing accounts.

Once going thru all steps, it redirected me to Account Home where the Everyday is there. AND, the existing MR balance shows on the Everyday card's home page. So it is automatically linked to the MR account. Verified that in the Membership Reward side under "Your Cards".

However, there is also a little tab called "Eligible Cards" - when I click that, it said "You do not have eligible card" even though the BRG is still active.

I do not understand what this means. Will call tomorrow to figure that out.

The site let me link one of the existing active payment accounts (banks) to the Everyday card but stubbornly refused to let me link another one that is only attached to the HHonors card, while let 2 payment accounts attached to ALL AMEX cards I currently have. Odd.

BTW, with the annual cap of only $6K on grocery store shopping, I am not sure the $95 fee of the Preferred is worth it, unless you consider the $95 also pay for the Enhanced Roadside Assistance, basically replace a good part of the AAA services if you have an AAA membership. So you could then cancel your AAA membership (which when we had it, we largely used it to get maps especially maps in reciprocal countries such as Canada and New Zealand, hardly the roadside assistance such as towing / battery / lost key etc)

Happy, since you mention the $6K Groceries cap on the Preferred card and question whether it's worth it... I'd suggest that, at least mathematically, it is

If you value MR points at a minimum of 2 cents each* AND you believe you can spend $6K/year at grocery stores... off that spend alone, you'd glean a value of:
- $360 on the Preferred card (6000*3*0.02)
- $240 on the regular card (6000*2*0.02)
...and that's without hitting the 20 or 30 purchase tiers.

If you DID hit those purchase tiers (and personally, this seems like a royal pain in the posterior, particularly for the 30-purchase-tier of the preferred), you'd earn respectively off just the $6K grocery purchases:
- $540 on the Preferred card
- $288 on the regular card

So in either case, it looks like it's well worth getting the preferred card if you plan on hitting the $6K grocery spend.

*If you value MR points at less than 2 cents a piece... then you may be better off with the Fidelity Amex card, which pays a straight 2% cash reward on spend with no mileage-redeeming hassles. But personally I think MR points are worth well over 2 cents a piece, at least when redeeming for miles used to procure international business-class travel; my last MR redemption weighed in at ~10 cents per point (Singapore Airlines premium travel .

Can someone from that forum ask if PRG will be eligible for PC? The rep over the phone told me that since PRG is not a "credit" (but "charge") card, it will be not PC. It's confirmed in that tread that there will be no bonus points for PC so I'm stuck on waiting or not waiting

Agreed, but only on general spending. We need to consider not only the value of a point, but also the number of points earned per dollar. The Fidelity card awards 2 points per dollar everywhere, no category or threshold bonuses.


This is correct. American Express does not permit conversions between credit and charge products. No doubt someone sometime has negotiated an exception, but I think that if you want an Everyday card you should simply apply.

Since we won't get bonus point for PC but does anyone know if Amex will still waive the first year annual fee for the preferred or any card that has annual fee?

$6K is too low a cap in today's environment. The 20/30 transactions can be achieved easily via online payment or what not but it is definitely a nuisance to say the least.

The absolute amount is too small to be bothered - yes, it is a positive number after subtracting the $95 fee based on your model - but we are talking about a $150ish NET incremental for a whole year. Not a big difference.

As for the redemption value, I do not fool myself of getting 10 cents per point by redeeming premium cabins because I would not pay out of pocket for such tickets. Only things I would pay out of pocket, would be the value to use in evaluating the point / mile worth. As much as the rave on SQ, CX F is just about as nice. We flew CX F at least once or twice a year since 2009. So I guess we are doing OK there.

Besides, we have enough miles in various programs that can provide CX F trip to Asia for the next 5 years. Or EK F trip for next 3 years except we dont care for transit thru Middle East. lol. There are also QR and EY. So missing SQ is no big deal when the other top airlines are available thru other means. The mile redemption is not as attractive to us than it is to others. I gather it all depends on what one already has.

Yes, I also have the Fido 2x card. That it earns straightly 2x without any effort to only use in bonus category and additional threshold to increase earning, is a nice feature. Plus it has only 1% forex fee versus the 2.7% on the Everyday. Is Everyday Preferred forex fee free?

What we need the most at this stage of life, is the hotel points - a month long trip 2 to 3 times a year burnt up a lot of hotel points! We spent 35 days in SE Asia and HKG between past Dec and Jan. Will spend the whole May in Asia and Europe. And another 35 days in Asia and Europe again in Sept/Oct. The 5x earning of HHonors actually helps us more than the 3x MR with the Everyday Preferred because HHonors has no cap. HHonors points save a lot of money for airport hotels which we always seem to need. I wish AMEX would make SPG earning more attractive.

Yeah, I see your points about the lightweightness of the 6K cap, but some of us lack the time / opportunity / drive for thicker MS'ing (and as a single guy who gets free meals at the office except on weekends, I'm not spending anywhere close to $6K/yr on groceries ).

re: hotels... sorry, I realize it's a bit off topic here, but have you checked out the Club Carlson card? I've been very impressed with it so far, with an excellent recent 2-nights-for-the-cost-one-1-award-night redemption in a nice hotel in Shanghai. You get 5 club points per $1 on un-bonus'd spend, and the annual fee is far offset by the annual 40K bonus point allotment.

Before AMEX changed the HHonors earning structure we were able to achieve HHonors Gold in the month of March via spend. We could have made Diamond, but our cards are the no fee version hence no such option. Despite the program bloodbath devaluation, there are still some spots the HHonors points could be very helpful. All depends on one's need naturally.

Yes, we each have Club Carlson cards which already earned the anniversary bonus one or two months ago. I plan to get the biz version as an easy way to get 85K+40K for the $60 AF.

We used a few of the 2-4-1 stays in last Jul/Aug trip in Baltic countries and Amsterdam. The hotel in Riga was a 28K property when we redeemed. Then it went up and now it is a 44K after going up 2 years in a row. We will use Radisson Blu in Milan in the upcoming May trip, plus in Paris in the Sept/Oct trip. I am grateful they do not take away the 2-4-1 in this year's program change.