Amex Everyday Cards Discontinued
I am a bit surprised to be writing this right now, but the Amex Everyday cards were discontinued yesterday. In less surprising news, the Cash Magnet card was also discontinued. The Cash Magnet never made sense from day one of its launch, but the Everyday cards where pretty revolutionary when they came out. Maybe they were more niche, and a bit annoying, but they offered a nice punch for a small out of pocket cost. They were also the precursor to much of the rewarding American Express lineup we see today.
Amex Everyday Preferred Never Got The Love It Deserved
The Amex Everyday Preferred card was one of my favorite cards when it first launched. It offered you a chance to earn up to 4.5x Membership Rewards on grocery purchases and 3x Membership Rewards on gas purchases. The catch was that you needed to have 30 transactions each month to get the 50% points bump to reach those levels. Otherwise you would only earn 3x and 2x respectively on those charges.
There was also a yearly cap on the grocery earning of $6000 per year. That sounds quaint now, but when it launched it was pretty eye catching. This was 4 years before the Amex Gold card started earning 4x on grocery purchases after all. The card also came with a reasonable $95 annual fee. It really was the perfect card for a lot of families that wanted a one card household. Being able to earn 1.5x on non bonused spend, when triggering the 50% bump each month, was pretty good at the time too.
The Everyday card was a little brother / sister to the Preferred, but still had some pretty good earning for a no fee card. The really cool thing is they were fully transferrable Membership Rewards points even though it had no annual fee. That was another thing that just didn't happen anywhere else.
Amex Everyday Cards Discontinued: ToP Thoughts
It is a sad day with the Amex Everyday cards being discontinued. I imagine that anyone that currently has the cards will be grandfathered in, for now at least. This likely means the end of the upgrade offers shortly after downgrading from the Everyday Preferred to the Everyday card though. That was always a nice round robin of points each year.
The Everyday Preferred will always have a place in my heart though. It was ahead of its time in terms of earning capability and bonus earning based on transactions. We had never seen anything like it before that, and the rates are still some of the best you can get in gas and grocery. It just never really took off, and that could be because of the card's low grocery earning cap and somewhat complicated earning structure. This card was one of the major reasons that the Amazon reload change was so big.
The closest thing we have from Amex now is probably the Blue Cash Preferred, although that is cash back instead of Membership Rewards.
Let me know your thoughts on the Amex Everyday cards being discontinued over in the ToP Facebook Group.
