So you’re thinking about canceling your Amex Platinum card. Maybe you can’t justify paying the £650 fee after the first year. But you still have Membership Rewards (MR) points in your account, which you must use before closing it. What are the options?

Use the Points

This is the obvious one. You can transfer the points to your favourite airline or hotel chain before canceling the card. Or you can even use them to cover your card spend, albeit getting less value from them. The downside is that the decision is final, once you’ve made the transfer you can’t go back. The upside is that you’ll no longer have a MR account, which makes you eligible for sign-up bonuses in two years.

Get the Free Amex Rewards Card

Amex offers a free Rewards card, which essentially keeps the rewards account open at no financial cost. There’s not much to say here, just make sure you register it using the same account that you use for the Platinum card.

Get the Amex Gold Card

Amex Gold is also a rewards card, so like the free card, it lets you keep the Amex Rewards account after canceling the Plat. While the Gold Card costs £195/year, there are some factors that make it an appealing option:

• The first year is free. You can decide whether to keep it further when the time comes.
• You get up to £70 in cashback (exact sum varies) at TopCashback just for getting the card. This also applies to the free card but the cashback is lower.
• You get some other perks, notably 4 lounge passes and £10/month Deliveroo credits.

A note about TopCashback: it’s a site that passes referral bonuses back to the person they refer (you!). We’ve featured it before when discussing UK cashback sites. If you don’t already have an account, use this link to get an extra £10 for joining.