Is the Amex Green Card Worth It?
With the ability to convert points earned from an American Express credit card to 12 airlines and various hotel schemes, it’s no surprise that Amex cards regularly make an appearance on Thrifty Points.
However one card that rarely gets featured is the American Express Green card UK and there’s a good reason for this… The Amex Green card offers terrible value for money when compared to many others offered by American Express as we’ll cover in full within this article!
As always let’s start with some of the boring but important bits. The American Express Green card is issued by American Express as a charge card – this means that it needs to be paid back in full at the end of each month. Late payments are subject to a fee of £12 per month.
The card comes with an annual fee of £60 which is difficult to justify based on the very limited benefits of the card…
Let's break this post down...
American Express Green Card – Sign-Up Bonus
Ordinarily the Amex Green card UK does not offer new customers a sign-up bonus. However if you’re referred by an existing cardholder you’ll earn a very measly 2,000 Membership Rewards points when you spend £1,000 in the first 3 months. This is shown highlighted red in the screenshot below.
If you’d like to be referred (we wouldn’t recommend it!) we’d be delighted if you’d use our link found here which will allow you to earn a further 2,000 Membership Rewards points when you sign up to the American Express Green card.
So how does this sign-up bonus compare to other credit cards? The big brother of the Amex Green card is the American Express Gold card – reviewed here (SPOILER ALERT: this card is better in nearly every way!). The Gold version is free for the first year and offers a very generous sign-up bonus to all new customer of 10,000 points – yes 50 times the amount if you’re referred to the Amex Green card! What makes this even better is that the sign-up bonus can be increased to 12,000 points if you use this link.
As regular readers will know, American Express have recently changed their sign-up bonus policy. With a couple of exceptions you’ll no longer be able to benefit from the sign-up bonus offered by either the American Express Green credit card or Gold card if you’ve held a personal American Express card in the last 24 months. There are some exceptions to this. We’ve discussed this in full as well as outlining a strategy to earning up to 84,000 points through sign-up bonuses – full article found here…
Other Benefits of the Amex Green Card UK?
Unfortunately there aren’t many additional perks with the American Express Green card as we show below:
Earn 1 Membership Rewards Point for Every £1 Spent – This is a similar earning rate to both the Gold and Platinum cards, however the mathematicians out there will have worked out that you’d need to spend £20,000 on the American Express Green card to just equal the sign-up bonus offered by the Gold card! For those able to spend this much on a credit card you may well find our BA First Class review interesting, where we spent less than £20,000 across 3 credit cards and received enough points for two free First Class flights which would have cost £16,000!
Travel Accident Cover up to £75k on Public Transport – Note that this is not travel insurance! It essentially covers you for loss of life, limb, sight, speech or hearing when travelling by public transport. You have to purchase the ticket on the Amex Green credit card and there are various restrictions so make sure you read the terms and conditions…
So how does this sign-up bonus compare to other credit cards? The Gold version offers two free airport lounge passes and free bedroom upgrade and $75 hotel credit for hotels booked through the American Express Hotel Collection.
If you’re after additional perks, then the American Express Platinum card is the king of all UK credit cards! In addition to the 30,000 Membership Rewards (increased to 35,000 using this link), cardholders will benefit from:
- Unlimited airport lounge access
- Family international travel insurance
- Car hire excess insurance
- Elite status with various hotel schemes
- Eurostar lounge access
- Delta lounge access
- Complimentary membership to Hertz Gold Plus Rewards
Anything Else I Should Know About the American Express Green Card UK?
There is no longer a minimum income requirement for any American Express credit cards.
Remember that the Amex Green card UK is a charge card and NOT a credit card. This means that it will need to be repaid in full at the end of each month…
Finally, and as we mentioned earlier, American Express have recently changed the rules surrounding the sign-up bonuses with their credit cards. If you’ve held a personal credit card in the last 24 months you’re unable to benefit from the (poor!) sign-up bonus with the American Express Green card.
Ways to Use Green Card American Express Reward Points?
As we discussed in our recent article here, American Express Membership Rewards points vary in value anywhere from 0.45p per point (if used against your card statement) to as much as 3.2p which I recently achieved on a British Airways flight.
So how would we recommend using your points? This is dependent on various factors. As such there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach that can be adopted. However your worst-case scenario should be redeeming against your card statement at 0.45p or vouchers at 0.5p. The American Express shopping page offers a poorer rate than this and as such should be ignored.
Redeeming for hotel stays can provide reasonable value ranging between 0.6p (Hilton) to 1.2p (Radisson). For those who fly with British Airways, we would usually recommend converting Membership Rewards points to Avios. This tends to provide a value somewhere in the region of 1p per point and as much as 3.2p, as I achieved in a recent flight to Edinburgh.
FAQs
So is the Amex Green Card worth it?
No. With the (free for the first year) Gold version offering a sign-up bonus of 20,000 more points than the American Express Green charge card and various other benefits we’d strongly recommend avoiding the Amex Green card…
What is the American Express Green card limit?
American Express claim that the Amex Green card has no limit, however in practice most people will find that a limit is imposed on the card…
Summary – American Express Green Card UK
With an annual fee of £60, no sign-up bonus and limited additional benefits, unsurprisingly the American Express Green card hasn’t had much exposure on Thrifty Points. As we’ve seen you’d be better off signing up to the ‘premium’ version of the card which is free for the first year, offers an enhanced sign-up bonus and additional benefits. You can increase the sign-up bonus from 10,000 points to 12,000 using this link. We would recommend cancelling the card at the end of the first year to avoid the £140 annual fee.
If you’d still like to sign up to the Amex Green card don’t forget you can benefit from a sign-up bonus of 2,000 points using this referral link.
As always, we hope you’ve enjoyed this American Express Green card review and we’d love to hear any thoughts you may have in the comments section below….
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