Amex EveryDay vs. Preferred: What's the Difference?

Amex Everyday vs. Preferred comes down to rewards vs. fees. The Amex EveryDay Credit Card doesn’t have an annual fee, while the Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card charges $95 per year. But EveryDay Preferred offers better rewards: 5,000 more initial bonus points, an extra point per dollar spent on gas and travel, and a bigger bonus for frequent use. So it really depends on how much you plan to use your card and what you plan to buy.

Here’s the breakdown for Amex EveryDay vs. Preferred:

• Annual fee: $95 for Amex EveryDay Preferred, $0 for Amex EveryDay.
• Initial bonus: Amex Everyday Preferred offers 15,000 points for spending $1,000 in your first three months. Amex EveryDay offers 10,000.
• Supermarket rewards: Amex EveryDay offers 2% rewards on the first $6,000 a year you spend at supermarkets, while Amex Preferred offers 3%.
• Gas & travel rewards: With Amex Preferred, you get 2x points at gas stations travel booked through the Amex site. Amex everyday does not offer this rewards category.
• Rewards on other purchases: Both Amex EveryDay and Amex Preferred give you 1 point per cent across all purchases.
• Frequent buyer bonus: Amex Preferred gives you 50% extra points for making 30 purchases in a billing period. Amex EveryDay gives you 20% extra points for using your card 20 times.
• Benefits: The one notable benefit offered by Amex Preferred and not Amex EveryDay is baggage insurance. Amex Preferred covers you up to $12,500 for carry-on baggage and up to $500 for checked baggage.

Both  Amex EveryDay and EveryDay Preferred allow you to redeem points for Amex travel, gift cards and Uber rides. You get one cent per point those ways. Or you can transfer your points to a partner airline’s miles. Transfers are done at a 1:1 ratio, but airline miles values can vary widely.

Assuming you’re redeeming for one of the standard options, you’d only need to spend $3,166 in groceries to make the Amex EveryDay Preferred card worth it. But if groceries, gas, and travel aren’t big spending categories for you, Amex EveryDay is a better way to go.

I think Everyday is better. With no annual fee, and pretty decent stats as far as rewards go, I'd say Preferred is for people who use the card a lot.

The two cards are very similar – they both offer a high rate of cash back on gas and grocery purchases, but the Preferred version of the card offers even more cash back on gas purchases and the cash back rate on grocery purchases, for a $95 fee. Bottom line, it really depends how much you spend to make the annual fee worth it.

It's just how those airline cards work. If you use the card a lot, you can go with Preferred despite the annual fee (more rewards). If not, go with Everyday.