American Express Gold (Personal)

In the summer when Chase rolled out their revamped Sapphire Reserve (Personal Card) and their new Sapphire Reserve Business Card, I did a write up for each, which outlined the sign up offer as well as the card benefits to help outweigh the annual fee.

Similarly, this post is going to highlight one of my top 3 cards to always have and why.

American Express Gold

Annual Fee: $325

Current (Elevated) Sign up Offer: Spend $6,000 in 6 months, earn up to 100,000 points*

Note the 6-month minimum spend on the personal cards instead of the usual 3-month duration! I know this really helps out low spenders.

*Amex is weird with sign up bonuses. The same link may produce a 75K offer on your phone and 100K offer on your computer. It's always best to check the link in a few different browser and devices (clear your cookies, incognito mode, on your phone), before you apply and accept - to ensure that you're getting the highest offer)

5/24 Status: This IS a personal card, therefore it will take one of your 5/24 spots. (If you're not familiar with what 5/24 Rule is, visit this post New to Points, Rule 2)

Why I LOVE this card:

1. This card offers 4 points for every dollar spent on Groceries, Food Delivery, and Restaurants, which are my family's two highest routine spend categories, and one points per dollar on everything else. This is often my go-to card when we aren't working on a new card's sign up bonus. 

2. Rakuten: aka an online shopping portal where you earn Amex Membership Rewards points instead of cash back. Those points can really add up. In August I received 65,000 MRs from my quarterly Rakuten earnings and used those to book a 70K point one-way business class flight to Europe (with a cash value of $4,700). If you aren't familiar with shopping portals and/or Rakuten, this post will tell me you and also show you how to select points instead of cash back.

These two items are why I keep this card!

Off-Setting the Annual Fee

The signup offer and the benefits of this card can make it easy to offset the $325 annual, depending which of these you use. Card Benefits:

• $7/mo Dunkin Donuts credit

This is a bit annoying, as I rarely go to Dunkin, but what I did realize, was that instead of going to Dunkin monthly, I can simply buy a $7 Dunkin gift card monthly and then add that to a Dunkin account; which adds up to $84 a year. If you don't have a need for this, then you could still build up the credits and then be a nice person and bring a dozen donuts into work or school a couple of times a year

        Your Dunkin Card can also be used at Basket Robbins (hello ice cream birthday cake!) 

• $100 Resy annual credit: Twice a year (Jan-Jun and Jul-Dec), simply dine at a Resy restaurant and pay with your gold card to receive a $50 statement credit. (I've used this credit not even meaning to! lol)

• $10/mo Uber Cash: This can be used for rides of for Uber eats. Simply pay with this card

• $10/mo Dining: Use your card at Grubhub, Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, Wine.com and Five Guys to be reimbursed $10/mo.

• Earn 3X's points on flights: Booked directly with airlines
• $100 credit towards Hotel Collections stay: Book 2-nights or more with Amex Hotel Selection properties and receive $100 credit. (Note, these hotels tend to be expensive, so I never use this credit)

American Express Family Rule

Another important item to know about Amex is it's "Family Rule" for personal cards. The Family Rule dictates that you need to get Amex personal cards in tiered "order", otherwise, you aren't eligible for future sign up bonuses of lower tier cards.

Basically, Amex has Green, Gold, and Platinum personal cards. If you get a Platinum card as your first Amex Personal card, then you are not eligible to get the sign up bonus for the Green or Gold cards in the future.

I personally don't think the Green card offer is worth a 5/24 spot, so I recommend starting off getting Amex Gold Personal before an Amex Platinum Personal.

Summary

Since we earn a lot of non-sign up bonus points with my Amex Gold card between 4x points on restaurants/groceries and Rakuten; I will make sure that one of us always has an Amex Gold Personal card in our wallet!

As always, I appreciate your support and utilizing my referral links! Be sure if you're viewing this in a Meta app, to open a new external web browser to complete your application, which protects your data and gives me credit!

If you're unsure, fill out my next card recommendation form, and I'll give you my two cents!

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> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!