AmEx Gold Card Review (2024.3 Update: 90k+$50 Offer)

This card is previously called AmEx Premier Rewards Gold (PRG).

1. 50k offer: Earn 50,000 Membership Rewards (MR) points after spending $2000 in first 3 months.
2. We estimate that Membership Rewards (MR) are worth about 1.6 cents/point, see below for a brief introduction. So the 50k highest sign-up bonus is worth about $800!
3. Earn 3 Membership Rewards Points per $1 spent directly at airlines; 2 Membership Rewards Points per $1 spent at US restaurants, supermarkets and US gas stations; 1 Membership Rewards Point per $1 spent on other purchases.
4. $100 airline fee credit for incidental charges such as checked bags per calendar year. Because this benefit resets according to calendar year instead of when you opened the card, you can actually get airline fee credit TWICE during the first year! Note that this benefit is not automatically enrolled, you need to enroll and specify an airline by clicking here.
5. The airline credit is actually easy to get: although AmEx terms & conditions says airline gift cards are excluded, data points show that they actually can trigger the credit.
6. 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.
7. No Foreign Transaction Fee.
8. 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.
9. Charge Cards have no pre-set spending limit.
10. Refer a friend: You can earn 5,000 bonus MR points for every approved account you refer, up to a maximum of 55,000 MR points per calendar year. But the sign-up bonus generated by the referral link is much less than the highest public link, so it’s better not refer this card to your friend…
11. $195 annual fee, waived for the first year.

If you only keep this card for one year, you will get 50k MR points (is worth about $800) and two airline fee credit ($100*2), and you don’t need to pay for the first year annual fee. So in total, the net income is about $1000!!! However, the reward rate is not impressive except the airline 3x bonus category, which makes it hard to cover the $195 annual fee. If one day you don’t want to keep this card any more, while still have some remaining MR points, you can apply for AmEx EveryDay (ED) (no annual fee) to keep the MR points and use them in the future.