Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express

American Express Blue Cash Preferred Review Highlights

$250 initial bonus

The Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express currently offers an initial bonus of $250 cash back as a statement credit for spending $1,000 within 3 months of opening an account. That’s a decent deal, especially compared to the average cash rewards card with an initial bonus, which offers $197.33.

One of the best for groceries & streaming services

The American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card offers 6% cash back on the first $6,000 that you spend at U.S. supermarkets each year. No credit card offers a higher earning rate on groceries, according to WalletHub’s database of 1,000+ offers. And the annual spending cap shouldn’t be too much of a concern, considering that the average person only spends about $4,000 on groceries per year.

Blue Cash Preferred also recently added an unlimited 6% cash back on select U.S. streaming services to the mix. The list includes pretty much everything you might think of, from Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Audible to Hulu, Netflix, Spotify, and various YouTube services.

Great for gas and transit purchases

Amex Blue Cash Preferred is very rewarding at the gas pump, offering 3% cash back at U.S. gas stations. Fortunately for cardholders, that 3% rate now extends to a whole range of other transit expenses, too, from trains, taxis, and ridesharing services to parking, tolls, and subway fare.

With that being said, all other purchases, including supermarket spending in excess of $6,000 per year, earn just 1% cash back. That’s roughly the market average for a cash rewards card, according to WalletHub’s latest Credit Card Landscape Report. So Blue Cash Preferred is best as a bonus-rewards specialist.

$95 annual fee

American Express Blue Cash Preferred is nearly five times more expensive than the average credit card. But even with this fixed cost taken into account, Blue Cash Preferred is still one of the most rewarding cards on the market. The average person, who makes about $32,010 in purchases that can be paid for with a credit card each year, would earn roughly $1,496 in net rewards value over the first two years of use, according to WalletHub calculations.

Not the choice for carrying a balance

Amex Blue Cash Preferred offers a 0% introductory rate on purchases for the first 12 months. But other cards offer 0% intro rates on both types of transactions for at least as long, and most of them don’t charge annual fees.

Blue Cash Preferred’s regular APR is nothing special, either. For example, the higher rate reserved for people with good credit is guaranteed to be about the same as the average among cards for people with fair credit. In other words, you can do better than Blue Cash Preferred if you don’t plan to pay your balance in full every month.

Good or excellent credit required

Not everyone can get Amex Blue Cash Preferred given its good-credit approval requirement. So you may want to check your latest credit score for free on WalletHub to make sure you have a good shot at qualifying before you submit an application.