Yonder Vs Amex - Goodbye Amex Hello Yonder
American Express

Yonder vs. Amex: Can Yonder Compete with Amex?

Goodbye Amex, Hello Yonder. You may have heard that phrase uttered in various (annoying) Yonder adverts promoting their self proclaimed ‘modern lifestyle credit card packed with rewards.’ We haven’t covered it up until now as it wasn’t particularly travel related but as a new Facebook ad has just told me, Yonder is now allowing its customers to use their rewards points to pay for flights with any airline, anywhere, at any time. So with this new option available is Yonder a ‘decent’ Amex alternative?

Who Are Yonder?

Yonder launched in 2022 with a focus on Londoners (although it has recently expanded to other cities), they describe themselves as a modern lifestyle credit card packed with rewards which are based around the best things to eat, drink and so in their city. Initially they launched with only a paid membership plan of £15 a month which offers 5 points per £1 on all purchases, up to 25 points at their ‘favourite spots’, no FX fees and worldwide travel insurance but have more recently added a free plan which offers 1 point per £1 on all purchases, up to 5 points at their ‘favourite spots’ & no FX fees. You can compare the plans here – https://www.yonder.com/memberships/free

What are their ‘Favourite Spots’ and what can I use the points on?

Yonder’s ‘Favourite Spots’ are curated experience partners based around London, and these change each month. These include entertainment venues, restaurants and bars and wellness and fitness hotspots.  

Some partners include restaurant Bao, Speedboat Bar, fitness brand F45 and meal prep firms Lions Prep and Dishpatch. 

For dining and drinking experiences, just make a booking and show up like you would normally. When you’ve finished your meal, just pay with your Yonder card. There are no set menus, limited days or times, and absolutely no coupon codes to show at the door.

For ticketed events, like sporting events or festivals, you’ll either be able to book your tickets through the Yonder app or through the event’s website.

When you pay for your meal, drinks or tickets you’ll get a notification from Yonder asking you to open the app and choose Earn or Redeem.

Choosing to Redeem points

If you choose to Redeem, we’ll use your points to pay for the experience up to the fair use limit. If you don’t have enough points, we’ll just charge your card normally.

Choosing to Earn extra points

If you choose Earn, you’ll be charged normally and we’ll give you your bonus points right away.

For more details on the process see here – https://www.yonder.com/blog/how-to-use-a-local-experience

Let’s talk numbers…

After all, whatever reward credit card we choose we do so for the benefits or return we get from using the card. So lets crunch the numbers and see. The option to redeem for flights is only available on their paid £15 a month plan.

Yonder card holders will need 31,250 points to cover £50 off a flight, 62,500 points to cover £100 and 125,000 points to cover £200

Now to be completely fair Yonder promote the major benefit of their offering is that it works for every airline, to any destination, at any time of the year with no complex steps or blackout periods but there is a couple of reasons why this isn’t as great as you think it might be.

  1. You can only get up to £200 off and you require a rather huge 125,000 points to get it. That’s a spend of £25,000 at the general earn rate of 5 points per £1 (no wonder it’s not an option on the free card that earns 1 point per £1, it would require £125,000 worth of spend!) Unfortunately nowadays £200 won’t get you far, even with Ryanair, particularly if you are a couple or need hold luggage. In fact a quick search on flights London – Ibiza next summer, trying to keep the price as low as possible ends up being £178.96 per person. So £25,000 spend will get a return flight to Ibiza on Ryanair. Ohh and that’s not including your £15 per month fee…

    A quick search on BA shows tons of availability on the same dates, even choosing the lowest cash option (which is the worst value) it is 23500 Avios + £ 1.00. On the completely free BA card (and ignoring any sign-up bonuses like we have for Yonder) that’s a spend of £23,500 and no monthly fee.
  2. This sort of leads onto our second point, whilst it’s advertised as working with no complex steps or blackouts, it isn’t that simple. Chances are on a popular route/peak times where perhaps there is very little availability using Amex/Avios points chances are the cash rates will be high. That means £200 won’t get you far at all. At least Avios redemptions are ‘fixed’ based on peak/off-peak pricing so you know the price you will pay and give you something to aim and work toward rather than a measly £200 off.
  3. Whilst we’ve directly compared with the free BA Amex card you could also compare with a ‘membership reward’ earning card (cards with no annual fee available.) This would enable you to use your points for any flight on any airline at anytime as you redeem your points for statement credit, it’s a poor value option but lets still crunch the number. You’d need approximately 40,000 points to redeem the earlier mentioned £178.96, this would require a spend of £40,000 so worse value but at least the card is free.

To be fair flights aren’t Yonder’s main focus but the value is extremely poor and I can’t see it ever making sense as a redemption. Even if you consider the sign-up bonus of 10,000 yonder points it won’t get you far. At least with Amex you can do something with the sign-up bonus, for example the Amex Gold card (free for the first year, just cancel before) has a 22,000 points sign-up bonus when referred. This will get you flights to quite a few places in Europe just for meeting the sign-up bonus spend of £3,000 spend in 3 months. You actually will get you 3,000 points for the spend so you will have 25,000 Avios (when converting your points into Avios) which will get you that flight to Ibiza…

Here is where the Yonder card does excel…

I have no idea why they are promoting the flight redemption options as it’s awful value BUT where Yonder does have some value is the Travel Insurance, No fees abroad (they use the MasterCard exchange rate with no markup) and for dining.

The travel insurance is quite comprehensive including trip cancellation, car hire excess, winter sports, medical expenses and more. You can read about it here – https://www.yonder.com/travel

If you like dining out in London and trying different restaurants Yonder points can represent an excellent return on your spend, with select Yonder partners you can earn up to a massive 25 points per £1 which, for example, would earn you 1250 points for a £50 bill. If you redeem at partners you can get deals like £60 off Abba Voyage for 13,600 points which equates to a £2,720 spent on the card. That’s around a 2.5% return on your spend, if you earnt a bunch of points at the 25x rate it would be an even higher return on your spend.

For more information on Yonder/to apply please visit their website here – https://www.yonder.com/

Conclusion

To be honest it’s not even a fair fight to start with. In our opinion there is absolutely no reasonable or rational reason to say Hello Yonder, Goodbye Amex. At least from a travel perspective, if you like dining out and exploring different restaurants (they vary month to month) you might do OK but other than that… no competition!

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