Credit Building > What credit cards does American Express offer in the UK?

What credit cards does American Express offer in the UK?

Wollit Team6 minute read · Updated 1st July 2024

American Express offers many kinds of credit cards, each for different needs. Some of the credit cards available from American Express in the UK include:

Amex Cashback Credit Card;
Amex Cashback Everyday Credit Card;
American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card;
British Airways American Express Credit Card;
British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card;
Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card;
American Express Rewards Credit Card;
Nectar Credit Card;
And the Vitality American Express Card.

Let’s have a look at them one by one and see how they work.

The Amex Cashback Credit Card

The Amex Cashback Credit Card offered gives cashback rewards based on how much you spend:

You can earn 5% cashback on purchases for the first 3 months, up to £2,500 of spend (£125 max).
After this introductory period, you can earn 0.75% cashback on the first £10,000 spent per year and 1.25% cashback once you spend more than £10,000.
You’ll also need a minimum annual spend of £3,000 to qualify for cashback rewards.
Cashback rewards are paid out as a lump sum once a year.

These are pretty good rewards. As a result, this credit card comes with a £25 annual fee and a representative APR of 36.7% (which includes the annual fee).

The Amex Cashback card is best for people who spend quite a bit on their credit cards, especially if their spending goes over £10,000 a year. It’s also meant for people who can comfortably pay the balance in full each month without letting the interest rate accrue – it’s quite high.

The Amex Cashback Everyday Credit Card

The Amex Cashback Everyday Credit Card is another cashback credit card offered by American Express in the UK.

Here are the main differences from the previous one:

Both cards offer a sign-up bonus of 5% cashback on purchases for the first 3 months. This card, however, caps the rewards at £100.
After the first 3 months, you can earn a smaller amount of 0.5% cashback on spending up to £10,000 per year and 1% cashback once your spending goes over £10,000.
You’ll also need the same minimum spend of £3,000 per year to qualify for cashback.
And the cashback is paid precisely in the same way, as a lump sum once a year.

Because the rewards are smaller, the card charges a slightly lower APR of only 31% per year.

Overall, the Amex Cashback Everyday Credit Card is another card meant for people who can afford to comfortably pay back their monthly purchases in full and who do not want to let the interest accrue, as it’s still relatively high compared to regular cards.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card

The American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card offers a generous rewards program with Membership Rewards points that never expire. Here is how it works:

You can earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on purchases;
You can get up to 12,500 bonus points each year based on your total spending (2,500 bonus points for every £5,000 spent, up to £25,000).
If you spend on flights or abroad, the points double.
Membership Rewards points can be transferred at a 1:1 ratio into Avios, Virgin Points, and other airline and hotel loyalty schemes.
You can also receive a welcome bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points when you spend at least £3,000 in the first three months after you get your card.
You can also get four complimentary airport lounge visits annually, each additional visit costing only a small fee.
For a final bonus, it also comes with £120 in Deliveroo credit annually (24 x £5 credits).

This is quite an impressive set of rewards. However, the card also has an 88.8% APR and an annual fee of £195 after the first year.

It’s pretty clear that the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card is an excellent card for racking miles and rewards, but only for those who can afford to travel often, spend quite a bit on their credit card, and can pay it back in full each month.

British Airways American Express Credit Card

The British Airways American Express Credit Card offers cardholders Avios points and Companion Vouchers. Here is what you need to know:

Earn Avios points on your spending, with a welcome bonus of 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £20,000 annual spend required to receive the bonus.
Receive Companion Vouchers that allow you to bring someone with you on a British Airways flight (as long as you meet specific spending thresholds).
It also comes with additional benefits, such as travel protections, lounge access, and more.

The card has an APR of 31.0%, similar to the Preferred Rewards one. In fact, both cards are quite similar, except that the British Airways credit card is probably meant more for people with families or who want to bring loved ones with them on their flights—and who can also afford to comfortably pay back a rather significant card bill on time each month.

Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card

As you can imagine from its name, the Marriott Bonvoy credit card is meant for people who often travel to and stay at the Marriott Bonvoy chain of hotels.

Here are some of the benefits it offers:

Automatic Silver Status and 15 Elite Night Credits if accepted for the card.
An automatic upgrade to Gold Elite Status when you spend £15,000 on your card each year.
A Free Night Award for each year you spend £25,000 on the card.
You can also earn additional Marriott Bonvoy points with every purchase.

However, the card also comes with a hefty APR of 54.8%.

American Express Rewards Credit Card

The American Express Rewards Credit Card offers a rewards program centred around Membership Rewards points, which can be redeemed with various partners, such as Amazon, Boots, and Currys PC World.

Here is how these rewards work:

You can earn Membership Rewards points for every full £1 spent on the card. It doesn’t matter where you shop.
You can redeem these points with popular retailers like Amazon, Boots, and Currys PC World.

The card’s representative APR is 31%, which is quite mid-range for a good rewards card. It’s also one of the few credit cards available in the UK that offer Amazon rewards since Amazon cancelled its previous credit card.

Nectar Credit Card

The Nectar Credit Card offered by American Express allows you to earn Nectar points on your spending.

Here is what you need to know:

You can earn 2 Nectar points for every full £1 spent on the card for general purchases and up to 4 points for every full £1 spent at Nectar partners like Sainsbury’s, Argos, and eBay.
This translates to about 1% cashback per £1 spent.
The card offers a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Nectar points, equivalent to £100 when spent with any Nectar partner. These points can also be converted into 12,500 Avios, which you can redeem for flight upgrades. You must spend £2,000 within the first three months to qualify for this bonus.

The Nectar Credit Card has a slightly higher APR of 37.8% and an annual fee of £30 (waived in the first year).

Overall, the Nectar Credit Card seems like a decent choice for everyday spending, allowing you to get a lot of cashback if you can pay the card balance in full each month.

Vitality American Express Card

Vitality is one of the UK’s largest insurance companies. It is well known for its points, which you can earn for activity tracking and living a healthy lifestyle.

The Vitality American Express Card offers a combination of American Express cashback rewards and a Vitality cashback booster.

Here is how this works:

Earn 0.5% cashback on the first £5,000 spent yearly and 1% on your spending above £5,000.
If you are a Vitality customer and track your healthy living activities (running, etc.), you can get an additional cashback booster from Vitality, ranging from 0% to 2%.
To reach the 2% cashback level, you must earn at least 160 Vitality activity points per month.
This Vitality cashback booster is applied to the first £1,000 of monthly spending and is paid out as a lump sum once a year.

The Vitality American Express Card has a relatively high APR of 42.4% for a rewards card. However, if you’re an existing Vitality member, want to live a healthy lifestyle, and spend over £5,000 a year on your card, this can be a pretty good option.

Is American Express a good credit card provider?

American Express is an established international credit card provider and undoubtedly one of the most well-known.

However, while American Express credit cards offer some of the best features and rewards, we’ve also noticed mixed customer reviews.

Over 4,000 customers, for example, have given American Express a dismal 1.5 out of 5 review score on Trustpilot, one of the largest customer review websites.

Looking only at UK reviews, the majority of the reviews which mention the American Express credit cards seem to complain about:

Challenges when making Section 75 claims.
High interest rates and fees, even for long-term loyal customers.
And generally poor support.

Even the positive reviews mentioned how important it was to pay your bill on time, as the interest charges and fees are quite higher than those of other card providers.

In short, it’s hard to say whether American Express is a good credit card provider. We would have expected better reviews for such a well-known brand. Perhaps your experience will be different. We can only say that if the main reason to get a credit card is to get cashback or improve your credit score, there are better options and tools.

Does American Express offer a credit builder card in the UK?

While American Express offers a range of credit cards in the UK, it has no dedicated credit builder option.

The company seems to focus on rewards cards rather than credit builder tools. It also targets customers who are better off financially and not necessarily looking to improve their credit.

For a safer solution, consider downloading a credit-building app like Wollit.

Building your credit history with a credit card requires you to buy things on debt first and then repay them as soon as possible. With Wollit, you only need to pay a fixed monthly subscription. Wollit then reports this subscription as a loan repayment to the credit reference agencies.

This directly builds your credit history and improves your credit score – while keeping you safe from high-interest charges and fees, maxed-out credit limits, or the risk of unaffordable card bills.

More importantly, as your credit score increases, you’ll eventually become eligible for credit cards with lower APRs and even better rewards than what American Express seems to provide.