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There’s a wealth of “points earning” credit cards out there, and we’re often asked which we consider to be the best for someone new to the world of airline miles and hotel points. It can be quite daunting for a beginner to work out which offers best value. There are good arguments for starting with a different card, but if you just want to keep things simple, your best option is probably still the Amex Gold.

Bonus points aplenty, and free too – why we love the Amex Gold card

The American Express Gold credit card is widely seen as one of the very best value “travel-related” credit cards available in the UK.

The reasons are clear:

• It remains free for the first year, and you can cancel without quibble whenever you like.
• If you spend £3,000 on it in your first 3 months, you will get 32,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points. These convert to 32,000 airline miles in a number of schemes, including Avios.
• You get two free airport lounge visits each year with the card.
• In addition, you can now get £120 of free Deliveroo credit per year too!

If you want to earn 32,000 American Express bonus points (rather than the standard 22,000), sign up to the card via this link.

Note that you will not be eligible for any welcome bonus offer if you hold or have held any personal American Express Cards in the past 24 months.

But you said “38,000 points”, not 32,000 points?

Yep!

To trigger the 32,000 sign up bonus points, you need to spend at least £3,000 within the first three months. You will earn (at least) 1 point per £1, so that’s at least 3,000 more points.

In addition, Amex is also currently offering 3,000 bonus points for adding a free supplementary cardholder to an Amex Gold account.

Add that all together, and you can quickly and easily earn 38,000 points in total.