Amex Everyday
REVIEW

American Express introduced the Amex Everyday (the card we are reviewing here) and the Amex Everyday Preferred in 2014. Unlike the their other series (the Blue Cash Everyday) which has cash back rewards, the Everyday series allows you to earn Membership Reward points. This has given those who want to earn MR points more choices because prior to this, you can only earn them through Amex's charge cards (which had annual fees). Charge cards also require that you pay in full every month.

The Everyday cards are credit cards, which means you can carry a balance. The card we are reviewing here (the Amex Everyday) also has no annual fee. This means that there is now a no annual fee Amex card to earn MR points.

But first, here are the details of this card.

How To Earn Amex Everday Points - The points that you earn for this card are Membership Reward Points. You can earn 2X for spending at supermarkets for up to $6000 in annual spending. After that, you earn 1X. For other regular purchases, you earn 1X as well.

Earn 20% Bonus Points - When you charge your card 20X during a month, you will earn 20% bonus points. That means that on supermarket spending, you will earn 2.4X and 1.2 times on regular purchases.

0% APR Intro Deal - New card members will get 0% introductory APR for both purchases and balance transfers. Furthermore, if you do a balance transfer within 60 days of your account opening, there will be no balance transfer fees.

Sign-on Bonus - Right now, you can get 25,000 bonus points when you spend $2,000 within the first three months of getting the card.

No Annual Fee - There is also no annual fee for this card.

The first comparison that I am going to make is with the annual fee version of this card, the Amex Everyday Preferred, which comes with a $95 annual fee. For the additional fee, you earn 3X on supermarkets instead of 2X, 2X on gasoline spending and 1X for regular purchases. If you make 30 transactions a month on the card, you will get 50% bonus points (compared to 20% bonus points if you make 20 transactions with the Amex Everyday card). That means you could earn 4.5X on supermarket, 3X on gasoline and 1.5X on regular purchases.

See comparison between Amex Everyday and Amex Everyday Preferred

The other cards that I am going to compare this card with is other American Express cards that earn Membership Reward Points. Other credit card review sites have compared this card with other cash back cards and other reward cards from other issuers and in some cases concluded that there are "better" reward cards than this.

For example, I see sites comparing Everyday card versus the Amex Blue Cash Everyday. Or comparing the Amex Everyday with Citi Double Cash where you can earn 2% cash back for every purchase. But this is a useless comparison because this card earns MR points. One of the decisions you have to make before you get a reward card is what sort of rewards do you want to earn? Is it cash back, airline miles, hotel frequent guest points or in this case, reward points that allow you to transfer to airline miles.

And if you choose to earn reward points that can be transferred to airline miles, you have a choice of Membership Reward points from Amex, Chase Ultimate Reward points and Citi's ThankYou points. I would assume you have done your homework on this card and have decided upon MR points.

Before the introduction of the Everyday series of cards, those who wanted to earn MR points had three cards to choose from. One of the very popular choice is the Platinum Card. It has a $550 annual fee and from a points earning perspective, you can earn 5X on airline tickets and 1X on everything else. It also comes with other perks like access to Amex Lounges, Priority Pass membership, $200 airline and uber credits. There is a catch to earning 5X on airline tickets though. You have to book directly with either the airline or use Amex travel portal. If you use a third party OTA site like Expedia for example, you may not get 5X on your airline ticket purchases (your mileage may vary on this depending on which OTA you use).

The problem with the Platinum card is that there is no bonus category for other "everyday spending". Many folks turn to the Premier Rewards Gold Card (or PRG) because you could earn 3X on airline tickets, 2x on gas and supermarket and restaurant spending. Or they combine the PRG with the Platinum. The PRG has a $195 fee. It comes with some other perks like $100 airline credits and you can earn 2X when you book hotels with their "hotel collections partners".

For those who want to pay the least amount of annual fee for a card to earn MR, the Amex Green Card was once the obvious choice. The annual fee of $95 looks to be a bargain compared to the PRG and Platinum Card. However, you can only earn 1X points.

The Amex Everyday card offers choices for card members of these charge cards, in particular, the Platinum and Green card. For those who have the Platinum card, the Amex Everyday offers a choice of having an additional card to earn more points from supermarket spending without having to pay for any additional annual fee (as if $550 is not enough).

For those who have the Green card and want to stop paying the $95 annual fee, the Amex Everyday is a no brainer. You can earn more points (if you use the card at supermarkets) and you get to pay no annual fee.

Pros

• No Annual Fee
• Earn bonus points>/li>
• 0% Intro APR
• No balance transfer fee during first 60 days.

Cons

• Foreign Transaction fees

The Amex Everyday is a great card for those who want to earn membership reward points but
 

• do not want to pay any annual fee on their credit card
• who does not buy tickets directly from airlines and use a few OTA
• do not travel often but want to earn points for travel

It also makes a great complementary card for those who have the Platinum card because you can earn more points on supermarket spending and non-category spending as well. For those who have the Green Card, this card offers you to chance to earn more points and to totally get rid of the $95 annual fee.

There are a couple of things that some may not like. Firstly, the sign up bonus is not very enticing (compared to 50k or 100k bonuses). Secondly, you have to use the card 20X a month to get the 20% bonus. However, this is intentionally designed like that by Amex. They simply do not want folks apply for the card simply for sign up bonuses. They want heavy and long terms users. So to be honest, I do not see this as a negative.

Perhaps the one negative that you could quibble about is that they do charge a foreign transaction fee. Folks who choose to earn MR points presumably want to transfer points to airline miles and get great vacation tickets. So it would have been really nice if Amex did away with the foreign transaction fee for this card.

But to sum up, I think this is a great card for those who want to earn MR points but do not want a card with annual fee. In fact, Amex is the only card that offers a no annual card that let's you earn points that are transferable to airline miles. With Chase for example, you need to get the Chase Sapphire Preferred (which has a $95 annual fee).

It also offers holders of the Platinum Card the choice of adding this card to their portfolio and enabling them to earn even more MR points (all without having to pay extra annual fees).