AmEx Gold Card Review (2024.7 Update: New Benefits; 100k+$100 Offer)

physixfan      2024-07-25     2024-07-26

Non-affiliate disclosure: all information about the this card have been collected independently by US Credit Card Guide and has not been reviewed by the issuer.

2024.7 Update: New benefits on this card:

• The annual fee is increased from $250 to $325.
• New Benefit: $84 Dunkin’ credit: $7 Dunkin’ credit per month. Enrollment required.
• New Benefit: $100 Resy credit: $50 Resy credit semi-annually. Enrollment required.
• Some changes on $10 per month dining credit: starting from Sep 25, Shake Shack and Milk Bar will be removed; starting from today, Five Guys is added.
• Previously there’s no cap for 4x MR earning rate at restaurants, now it’s capped to $50k per calendar year.
• There’s a limited time white gold card art you can choose. Existing users can also replace card and choose the new design.
• You may be able to see 100k+$100 welcome offer via incognito mode. It’s difficult to see. 90k+$100 is more common. Offer ends on 11/6/2024.

These changes are very typical by AmEx. It’s super annoying to deal with small credits that expire every month, with increased annual fee.

2023.5 Update2: The previous 90k+$50 offer is expired. Currently the best offer you can see is 90k. You may need incognito mode + VPN to see it.

2023.5 Update: There’s a new 75k+$350 offer: earn 75k MR points after spending $6,000 in the first 6 months, and earn 20% back on restaurants in the first 12 months up to $350 back. Screenshot. You may need to use incognito mode to see it, otherwise you may only see +$250.

Application Link

Benefits

1. 100k+$100 offer: Earn 100,000 Membership Rewards (MR) points after spending $6,000 in first 6 months, plus receive 20% back in statement credits on worldwide restaurants within the first 6 months, up to $100 back.. This is the best offer on this card.
2. We estimate that Membership Rewards (MR) are worth about 1.6 cents/point, see below for a brief introduction. So the 100k+$100 welcome offer is worth about $1,700!
3. Earn 4x MR per $1 spent at restaurants (worldwide); earn 4x MR at supermarkets (in the US); 3x MR per $1 spent directly at airlines; 1x MR per $1 spent on other purchases.
4. The 4x MR earning rate at restaurants is capped at $50,000 supermarket spending per calendar year, the cap is so large that many people can treat it as unlimited. The 4x MR earning rate at supermarkets is capped at $25,000 supermarket spending per calendar year, the cap is so large that many people can treat it as unlimited.
5. $120 Uber credit: $10 Uber credit per month. You simply need to add this card to your Uber or Uber Eats account.
6. $120 dining credit: $10 dining credit per months good at Grubhub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Wine.com, Goldbelly, Five Guys. Must enroll first and pay using your new Gold card. Here‘s the link to enroll.
7. [New] $84 Dunkin’ credit: $7 Dunkin’ credit per month. Enrollment required.
8. [New] $100 Resy credit: $50 Resy credit semi-annually. Enrollment required.
9. No foreign transaction fee.
10. With this card, you have access to Amex Offers, which often offers very good discounts at some stores. In the past we have seen offers like: Spend $15 or more and get $5 back at Walmart; Spend $75 or more and get $25 back on Amazon.com.
11. Refer a friend: You can earn 10,000 bonus MR points for every approved account you refer, up to 55,000 MR points per calendar year.
12. This card is very easy to get approved, because it is a Charge Card, not a Credit Card. Charge card means that you don’t have an option to pay only minimum payment, you have to pay your balance in full on the due dates. Note that Charge Card applications will also result in a Hard Pull, same as Credit Card applications.
13. Charge Cards have no pre-set spending limit.

Disadvantages

1. [New] $325 annual fee, not waived for the first year.
2. There is no annual fee for up to 5 Additional Cards. But the annual fee for 6 or more Additional Cards is $35 for each Card.
3. The 4x at supermarkets are limited within the United States.

Introduction to MR Points

• You can earn MR points with AmEx ED, AmEx EDP, AmEx Green, AmEx Gold, AmEx Platinum, AmEx Platinum for Schwab, AmEx Platinum for Morgan Stanley, AmEx Blue Business Plus, AmEx Business Green, AmEx Business Gold, AmEx Business Platinum, etc.
• The MR points you earn on different MR cards will automatically go to the same MR account.
• MR points never expire. You will not lose the MR points on one card if you close the account, but you will lose all of the MR points if you close all of the MR cards. In order to avoid losing your MR points, we recommend to keep the no annual fee AmEx ED.
• If you have any of the MR cards, MR points can be transferred to some airline miles. One of the most common and best way to use MR points is to 1:1 transfer them to All Nippon Airways (ANA, NH) miles (Star Alliance). Other good options are: Air Canada (AC) (Star Alliance), Delta Air Lines (DL) (SkyTeam), British Airways (BA) (Oneworld), Asia Miles (Oneworld), Singapore Airlines (SQ) (Star Alliance), Flying Blue (SkyTeam), Virgin Atlantic (VS) (Non-alliance), etc. If you use MR in this way, the value is about 1.6 cents/point.
• If you have any of the MR cards, you can redeem your MR points at a fixed rate about 1 cent/point towards air tickets on AmEx travel portal.
• If you have AmEx Platinum for Schwab, you can redeem your MR points at a fixed rate 1.1 cents/point towards cash. If you don’t want to spend time studying airline miles, this is a pretty good way to cash out the points. If you don’t have this card, you can only redeem your MR points at a fixed rate 0.6 cents/point towards cash.
• In summary, we estimate that MR points are worth about 1.6 cents/point.
• For more information about MR points, see Maximize the Credit Card Points Values (overview), and Introduction to MR: How to Earn and Introduction to MR: How to Use (very detailed).

Recommended Application Time

1. [Once per lifetime language] You can only get the welcome bonus once in a lifetime, so be sure to apply when the historical highest offer appears.
2. [New] [Family language] AmEx begins to add family language: higher annual fees cards will affect the welcome offers on lower annual fee ones in the same family series. Specifically, having held Platinum makes you ineligible for the welcome offer of Gold. So if you want both, you should apply for Gold first.
3. AmEx doesn’t care about the number of hard pulls.
4. You can try to apply for it when you have a credit history of 6 months.

Summary

The welcome offer is very nice, therefore it’s definitely worth applying. The 4x earning rate on restaurants and grocery is strong, so if you have a lot of spending on these 2 categories then this card is useful. However, after refreshed in 2024, this card comes with a $325 high annual fee. There are various credits, but many of them are small credits expiring every month which are quite annoying. If you can naturally use up these credits, then you may consider to keep this card; otherwise it is painful to deal with this coupon book every month.

Recommended Downgrade Options

• You can not downgrade this card to any card with no annual fee, so I suggest you close it when you don’t want to keep it any longer.

After Applying

• Click here to check AmEx application status.
• AmEx reconsideration backdoor number: 877-399-3083. The “real” backdoor number of Amex is well protected. Different from Chase, the representatives from this AmEx reconsideration backdoor number only have the right to help you submit requests.

Historical Offers Chart

Application Link

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