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We often flag the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card card as a fantastic way of earning large amounts of loyalty points for travel spend, via the free Amex points it dishes out in a number of ways. So much so, it even makes it into our list of the Top 10 Insider Travel Tips.

Now, ignoring the massive Membership Rewards points sign up bonuses you can currently earn (convertible to a variety of both airline and hotel loyalty schemes), it seems that anyone in possession of the Amex Gold should be able to earn a very easy additional 3,000 points, simply by adding a supplementary card member to their account.

How to get the supplementary card (and free Amex points)

If you don’t already have a supplementary card member, simply log in to your Amex account and you should be presented with the following offer:

If you do already have a supplementary card member, it seems you may still earn the 3,000 free Amex points if you add another one, provided you didn’t benefit from the Amex bonus points offer when you added the previous supplementary card holder.

What’s the spend threshold to get the free Amex points?

The great thing about these free Amex points is that there’s no spend requirement. You simply need to successfully apply for the supplementary card (which, given that you’ve already passed the criteria to hold the card, should be straightforward).

What if you don’t hold the Amex Gold card?

If you don’t already hold the Amex Gold card, you will earn 22,000 Membership Rewards points if you sign up via this link and spend £2,000 in the first three months of card membership.  Now obviously I can’t guarantee that the supplementary card bonus will still be around once you’re approved, but they are made periodically available.

Regardless of whether it applies to you, this is another example of the great value you can get from the Amex Gold card. Indeed, unless it’s absolutely essential, my advice to those signing up for the first time is to not add a supplementary card holder until these offers come around.

Given that the Amex Gold is free for the first year, it’s well worth thinking about.