Which is the best American Express credit card in the UK?
This depends on what you want from your credit card. As one of the world’s most popular credit card providers, American Express offers probably the UK’s widest selection of cards offering benefits like cashback, rewards, airmiles and luxury travel perks.
So if you’re looking to earn money back on your spending, an Amex cashback credit card will be your best bet, whereas if you’re a regular traveller, you’d want to look at a frequent flyer deal. Here are our picks from the (extensive) range.
Best American Express card for cashback
Amex offers dedicated cashback-earning cards, where a percentage of your day-to-day spending comes back to you in the form of account credit.
To get the best earn rates you’ll need to make your peace with an annual fee. Whether or not that’s worth shouldering will depend on how much you expect to use the card (if you’ll spend a lot on the card, you’ll earn enough cashback to cover the fee), and whether or not you expect to clear your balance each month (if you don’t clear your balance each month, you’ll likely pay much more in interest than you earn in cashback).
Despite a few T&Cs, this cashback deal is hard to beat – offering a whopping 5% on purchases in your first 3 months. After that you'll earn 1% on the first £10,000 you spend annually and 1.25% thereafter (uncapped). Like most Amex cards, it comes with a raft of benefits to keep you interested, like travel accident insurance (subject to enrolment) and refer-a-friend bonuses.
A cashback deal that's hard to beat
No limit on cashback earnings after the introductory period
Complimentary supplementary cards
Earn rewards for each friend/family member that successfully applies
Minimum spend requirement to access the top earn-rate
Account fee of £25 per annum
Availability
Available to new customers
Residency
UK resident and has a UK bank or building society account.
Foreign usage charge (EU)
2.99%
Cash advance fee
3% (min. £3)
Representative example: When you spend £1,200 at a purchase rate of 31% (variable) p.a. with a fee of £25 per annum, your representative rate is 36.7% APR (variable).
Best American Express card for points
The vast majority of Amex cards earn Membership Rewards points on all your day-to-day spending. And since these points can be redeemed against card purchases, they effectively do everything the cashback cards can. In fact, collecting points is perhaps an even more versatile choice, because Amex has regular opportunities to redeem your points for more than their equivalent cash worth (one Membership Rewards point is typically worth around 0.5p).
Amex cards also tend to come with lump-sum points bonuses when you sign-up for a card, when you recommend a friend (and they apply and get approved) or on your anniversary of card membership (how romantic).
The best points-earning credit cards keep you interested – in other words, when you’ve had the card for a year there are still engaging ways to earn and redeem points. Amex is pretty good at this, and you’ll get the best out of the points deals by engaging with the app to find points-earning and points-redeeming offers that you can take advantage of.
Enjoy a simple but versatile rewards scheme with the American Express Rewards Credit Card. You'll earn one Membership Reward point for virtually every pound you spend, and with no annual fee to worry about, you're free to use the card as little or as much as you wish. If you do manage to spend £2,000 in your first 3 months you'll enjoy an impressive 5,000-point bonus.
Customers report excellent customer service when dealing with American Express
Earn points on day-to-day spending
Up to {{ REWARDS.MAX_INTRO_BONUS_EARNINGS }} points introductory bonus
No annual fee
The card doesn’t come with as many perks as other American Express cards, you'll need to pay an annual fee to get more cashback.
Foreign exchange fees charged on transactions abroad
Applicants with low credit scores are unlikely to be eligible
Availability
Available to new customers
Residency
UK resident and has a UK bank or building society account.
Foreign usage charge (EU)
2.99%
Cash advance fee
3% (min. £3)
Representative example: When you spend £1,200 at a purchase rate of 31% (variable) p.a., your representative rate is 31% APR (variable).
Best premium American Express card
While the near-mythical “Centurion Card” might be invitation-only (and come with a couple-of-thousand-pound joining fee), Amex offers a number of more attainable, but nonetheless premium, cards. If you like to squeeze every last perk out of your card, then these deals have more to offer than most of their Amex peers. They’re likely to best suit big-spending regular travellers who clear their balance each month.
American Express® Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card
This statement premium rewards card offers Membership Rewards points by the bucketload plus a variety of enticing benefits like airport lounge access and travel inconvenience and travel accident insurance (subject to enrolment). Although there's an annual fee, it's waived in year one.
It's a gold Amex... enough said. OK, not enough said – a good credit card has to do more than just look the part – but it's certainly a card that raises a few eyebrows.
The array of benefits the card offers is enormous. This could be Amex trying to keep customers on board after year one, because there's a decent chance cardholders will still be uncovering new benefits at 12 months in!
Amex customer service is refreshingly good. When we put it to the test there was no waiting on hold and no being transferred from pillar to post.
The app is better than many we've seen and gives you a good deal of control.
Despite the network's recent "Shop small" campaign, if you're in the sticks and paying at a small independent merchant, Amex could well be off the table. To its credit, Amex is trying to fix this (you could earn cashback on your spending at participating small businesses), but it's not going to change overnight. Carry a decent back-up option and it's not really a problem.
Some of the card's perks take a bit of research and "activating" on your own part. It's all about getting cardholders engaged.
That annual fee... it's not small. However you can use year one to try the card on for size, and to get an idea of the true value to you personally of all those perks, points and offers.
Availability
Available to new customers
Residency
UK resident and has a UK bank or building society account.
Foreign usage charge (EU)
2.99%
Cash advance fee
3% (min. £3)
Representative example: When you spend £1,200 at a purchase rate of 31% (variable) p.a. with a fee of Year 1 - £0, Year 2 onwards - £195 per annum, your representative rate is 88.8% APR (variable).
Best American Express card for frequent flyers
Amex has partnered with Avios to offer a small but well-formed range of Avios-earning cards. These deals are all about collecting Avios on all your day-to-day spending, to be redeemed against flights. As you might expect, they’re best suited to frequent flyers who clear their balance in full every month.
A great everyday credit card that lets you earn Avios points on almost all purchases. Your points can then be redeemed for flights with a range of airlines, flight upgrades, hotels and more. You'll also pay no annual fee, and can earn up to 5,000 bonus points if you spend £1,000 in the first 3 months.
No annual fee
Earn Avios as you spend
Generous welcome offer
Free supplementary cards
Companion flight voucher each year you spend £12,000
Use Amex’s referral programme to boost your points earnings. For every friend who is approved, you receive 4,000 Avios (up to 9,000 Avios). Check out our guide to Amex's referral programme
Travel accident insurance up to £75,000 (subject to enrolment), plus access to Global Assist® 24/7 emergency assistance
Refund Protection (90 days to return, receive max £200 per item, £750 per year)
No annual fee
Big spenders who clear their balance in full each month may get more from the Premium Plus card
If you carry an outstanding balance month-to-month, the relatively high interest rate will cancel out any benefits
Welcome bonus limited to new Cardmembers or those who have not held a personal American Express card in the past 24 months.
This card carries a {{ RATES_AND_FEES.FOREIGN_USAGE_CHARGE_EU }} foreign usage charge
Availability
Available to new customers
Residency
UK resident and has a UK bank or building society account.
Foreign usage charge (EU)
2.99%
Cash advance fee
3% (min. £3)
Representative example: When you spend £1,200 at a purchase rate of 31% (variable) p.a., your representative rate is 31% APR (variable).
Best American Express card for bad credit
American Express credit cards are generally offered to customers with a good credit score, so unfortunately you’re unlikely to be approved for the best Amex cards if you have poor or bad credit.
Work out which type of credit card you want. Are you looking to earn cashback, rewards, or air miles, or do you just want the best rate?
Research alternatives. While Amex offers a range of competitive cards, you may find a similar card from a different provider that better suits your situation.
Compare cards.Make sure you take into account the APR, as well as any compulsory fees or charges.
Check your eligibility If you’ve found the Amex that best suits you, you should see if you’re likely to be approved by using an American Express eligibility checker.
Apply for the card. Once you’ve found a card and confirmed your eligibility, you can begin the formal application process.
Balance transfers? 0% deals?
Er, no. Sorry. Amex is more about the rewards than the savings.
But in better news, you can expect good old fashioned American customer service – Amex came top in Finder’s 2020 customer satisfaction league table, with 85% of customers willing to recommend Amex to a friend.
Frequently asked questions
This can be done via the website’s online registration service. Alternatively, you may wish to download the Amex App – you can register there too. You’ll then be able to set up your own unique user ID and password for instant secure access.
Eligible credit cardmembers are automatically enrolled for cash access upon card issuance (reviewed after 6 months if ineligible at this time). Charge cardmembers must apply for cash access by completing an enrolment form.
The best way to do this is to check out the available rewards online and once you’ve made a choice, click to redeem or transfer points to frequent flyer or frequent guest programme partners. You can also do this by calling customer services.
Yes. “Amex” is essentially a nickname, used interchangeably with American Express. Some people use Amex to refer to the Network (Amex cards aren’t on the Visa or Mastercard networks – Amex has its own network), and American Express to refer to the card issuer.
Yes. If you link your Uber and British Airways Executive Club accounts you can collect 1 Avios for evry £1 you spend on Ubder rides, as well as trains, coaches and Eurostar journeys when you book through the Uber app.
American Express credit cards are more widely accepted than you may think. More and more card readers are accepting American Express transactions making Amex cards more appealing to customers, and more competitive to the market. If you’re looking to see if a specific business accepts Amex cards, you can use the free ‘Where accepts Amex?’ tool on the American Express website.
Interest rates vary from card to card. Rates start from 31% and go up to 704.6%.
We show offers we can track - that's not every product on the market...yet. Unless we've said otherwise, products are in no particular order. The terms "best", "top", "cheap" (and variations of these) aren't ratings, though we always explain what's great about a product when we highlight it. This is subject to our terms of use. When you make major financial decisions, consider getting independent financial advice. Always consider your own circumstances when you compare products so you get what's right for you. Most of the data in Finder's comparison tables has the source: Moneyfacts Group PLC. In other cases, Finder has sourced data directly from providers.
Tom Stelzer is a writer for Finder specialising in personal finance, including loans and credit, as well as small business and business loans. He has previously worked as a freelance writer covering entertainment, culture and football for publications like FourFourTwo and Man of Many. He has a Master of Media Arts and Production and Bachelor of Communications in Journalism from the University of Technology Sydney. See full bio
Want to earn Avios on your day-to-day spending? This card lets you do just that, with no annual fee attached.
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