American Express announced that they will offer two new credit cards Amex EveryDay and Amex Everyday Preferred, during the Academy Awards with three ad spots that featured Tina Fey. You can view those ads below, skip down further for the highlights of each new card.
AmEx EveryDay Highlights
- No annual fee
- Introductory APR of 0% for the first 15 months (12.99-21.99% based on your credit worthiness after this introductory period)
- Earns American Express Membership Rewards points
- 2x points on all supermarket purchases (up to $6,000 purchases per year)
- 1x points on all other purchases
You can also earn an extra 20% points on a billing period if you make 20 or more purchases within that billing period (supermarket would be 2.4 and all other purchases would be 1.2 points)
AmEx Everyday Preferred
- Annual fee of $95
- Introductory APR of 0% for the first 15 months (12.99-21.99% based on your credit worthiness after this introductory period)
- Earns American Express Membership Rewards points
- 3x points on all supermarket purchases (up to $6,000 purchases per year)
- 2x points at gas stations
- 1 points on all other purchases
- 15,000 Membership Rewards points if you spend $1,000 within the first three months of account opening
You can also earn an extra 50% on all points in a billing period if you make 30 or more purchases within that billing period (supermarkets would be 4.5 points, gas 3 points and all other purchases 1.5).
Our Thoughts
It’s nice to see American Express offering a no fee card that earns Membership Rewards points (Blue Sky from American Express® , Hilton HHonors Card from American Express, Blue from American Express®, TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express, Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express all have no annual fee but don’t earn Membership Rewards points). We always recommend people get a no annual fee AmEx card for one of their first cards, as they will backdate all future cards to the sign up date of your first card.
The nicest thing about there now being a no annual fee card that can earn and house Membership Rewards is that you don’t have to transfer your points to an airline or hotel partner when you cancel another Membership Rewards credit card – you can now keep those points as Membership Rewards and transfer as needed.
The minimum transactions needed to earn the bonus points is an interest concept, but it’s exceptionally easy to game. We think that AmEx will probably introduce a minimum amount that qualifies, as at the moment you could purchase 30 $0.15 gift cards from Amazon ($4.5) to unlock the 50% bonus on the Preferred card.
[Read: Ways to reach minimum credit card transaction requirements]
The preferred card in particular is going to be a must have for a lot of people, it’s hard to beat 1.5 Membership Rewards points on all purchases, especially when you consider how flexible these points are. It’s possible to transfer to: Delta Skymiles, Air Canada Aeroplan, Singapore Airlines Krisflyer, British Airways Executive Club, Air France-KLM Flying Blue, and Alitalia Millemiglia.
At the moment it’s not possible to apply for either of these cards, but you can submit your e-mail and be notified when they are available to the general public. Originally they were hoping to have applications open from the 24th of March, 2014. But this is looking like it will be pushed back to the 2nd of April. Click here to view the official site.
Hat tip to View From The Wing.