These two cards come up together a lot, and I think that's slightly the wrong framing. They're not really competing for the same job. The Amex Gold and the Nectar Amex are built for different kinds of spender, and once you see that clearly, the "which one should I get" question often turns into "should I get one, the other, or both."
I score the Amex Gold a 10/10 and the Nectar Amex an 8/10 on my credit card rankings, and both scores are earned. Here's how they actually compare.
What the Amex Gold gets you
The Amex Gold (full name: American Express Preferred Rewards Gold) is free in year one, then £195/year from year two onwards. That fee needs justifying, and for the right person it justifies itself easily.
The core perks are four airport lounge passes per year and £120 in annual Deliveroo credit. If you travel even a handful of times a year and use those lounge passes, plus make regular use of the Deliveroo credit, you can clear the £195 fee comfortably through the perks alone, before even counting the Membership Rewards points you're earning on everyday spending.
The welcome bonus adds to the appeal: typically tens of thousands of Membership Rewards points, around 20,000, on top of the free first year. That's a strong incentive to get started, since you're earning meaningfully from day one without paying anything.
The catch, and it's the same catch I'd flag with any premium rewards card, is that the value only shows up if you use the benefits. If you don't fly and don't order Deliveroo, the lounge passes and food credit are worth nothing to you, and you're left paying £195/year for a points-earning rate you could likely get elsewhere for free.
What the Nectar Amex gets you
The Nectar Amex is a much simpler proposition. £30/year, no complicated perks to manage, and you earn Nectar points on everyday spending that you can redeem at Sainsbury's, Argos, Esso, and the wider Nectar partner network.
It also carries a welcome bonus, typically around 20,000 Nectar points, which on its own can be worth more than a year or two of the £30 fee. For most people who shop at Sainsbury's regularly, that bonus alone makes signing up a fairly easy decision.
What I like about this card is that it doesn't ask you to change your behaviour to get value from it. You don't need to travel, you don't need to use a specific food delivery app, you just need to do the grocery shopping you were already doing. That's a much lower bar to clear than the Gold's lounge-and-Deliveroo combination.
Nectar points also transfer to Avios at a 1:1 rate, which is worth knowing if you ever want to redirect everyday spending towards flight rewards rather than shopping discounts, without giving up the simplicity of the Nectar Amex day to day.
Who each card is actually for
If you travel a few times a year, would use airport lounges, and order Deliveroo with any regularity, the Gold's perks alone are likely to exceed its fee, and the points on top are a bonus. This is the card I'd point frequent travellers and higher earners towards.
If you don't travel often, or you'd rather not pay £195/year to access perks you're unsure you'll use, the Nectar Amex gives you a low-cost way into the Amex ecosystem with rewards tied to spending you're doing anyway. This is the card I'd point most everyday shoppers towards, especially anyone who already shops at Sainsbury's.
You can have both — and it often makes sense
This is the bit people miss: these cards aren't mutually exclusive, and Amex doesn't expect you to choose just one. Because they reward different categories well, holding both lets you put travel and dining-adjacent spending on the Gold to capture the lounge and Deliveroo value, while routing everyday shopping through the Nectar Amex to build up points you can either spend directly or convert to Avios.
The only real cost to holding both is the combined £225/year once the Gold's first free year ends (assuming you keep both past year one). For a lot of higher-spending households, the combined rewards comfortably clear that.
Earn rates and where the points actually go
It's worth being clear-eyed about what you're earning, not just the welcome bonuses. The Gold earns Membership Rewards points on general spending, and those points are flexible — you can transfer them to airline partners including Avios, redeem against travel, or use them in other ways within the Amex rewards ecosystem. The value per point varies a lot depending on how you redeem, generally landing somewhere between modest and very good, with the best value typically coming from transferring to airline miles for flight redemptions rather than cashing out for statement credit or shopping.
The Nectar Amex earns Nectar points, which are more straightforward but also more capped in their upside: spend at Sainsbury's or Argos and the points come straight off your bill, with no need to think about transfer ratios or redemption strategy. The one bit of flexibility worth knowing is that Nectar points convert to Avios at a 1:1 rate, so if a travel redemption tempts you down the line, your day-to-day shopping points aren't locked into the supermarket exclusively.
Neither earn rate is going to make you rich. The realistic way to think about both cards is as a discount on spending you're doing anyway, with the Gold's discount skewed towards travel and food delivery, and the Nectar Amex's skewed towards groceries and fuel.
Acceptance and the practical reality of using Amex
One thing that applies to both cards equally: American Express isn't accepted everywhere in the UK the way Visa and Mastercard are. Some merchants, including the likes of Subway, Home Bargains and KFC, simply don't take it. If either of these is going to be your primary card, it's worth carrying a fee-free Visa or Mastercard as backup, such as Monzo Flex, for the odd merchant that won't take an Amex.
This isn't a reason to avoid either card — the rewards on offer comfortably justify having an Amex in your wallet — but it does mean "primary card" and "only card" aren't quite the same thing here, and you should plan around that rather than be caught out at a till that won't take it.
My take
Don't think of this as a head-to-head. The Amex Gold is the better card for travellers who'll actually use lounge access and Deliveroo credit. The Nectar Amex is the better card for low-fuss everyday spending, particularly at Sainsbury's. If your spending naturally splits across both categories, getting both and using each for what it's good at is the most efficient setup, not a compromise.