I've had my American Express gold card for just shy of one year now and it is by far
the card that I use the most in my day-to-day spending.
But with my card anniversary date coming up and the large annual fee that comes with that,
they got me thinking, is this product still worth keeping.
So today I want to give you an updated review on the American Express gold card from someone
who has had it for one year talk about whether you should get this card, whether you should
keep it, and even discuss some potential alternatives that have recently hit the market.
Alright, let's jump right into it.
What is going on everyone I hope you are all having a fantastic day.
So we've got a lot of great information to cover today so first of all, let's brush up
on what this card has to offer and then we'll get into some of those finite details that
will hopefully make your decision much easier.
Alright so let's just rip the band aid from the start, the American Express gold card
currently has an annual fee of $250 which puts it in this very strange middle section
between the many $95 annual fee cards and of course those higher end products like the
chase sapphire reserve and American Express platinum which can easily cost $500 or more
each year.
But $250 a year is still a lot so what are you getting for that price.
Well right now you're going to earn four points per dollar on all dining which I absolutely
love and that includes restaurants, takeout, and delivery services.
You also get four points on all the supermarkets on up to $25,000 in purchases each year three
points on flights booked directly through the American Express travel portal which I'll
talk more about in a second and 1 point per dollar on all other purchases.
In terms of credits they keep it fairly simple and are currently offering a $120 Uber cash
credit which can be used for Uber eats as well as the Uber ridesharing platform and
that comes to you in the form of $10 per month that goes directly into your Uber app in the
form of Uber cash and I will clarify that unfortunately, you're not able to stockpile
that Uber cash so you do have to use it each month which I definitely wish I had known
before I got this card so just remember that at the end of each month you either use it
or lose it.
You also get a $120 dining credit which sounds great at first glance but again this comes
to you in the form of a $10 statement credit each month and it really only applies add
Grubhub, seamless, boxed, and a few other participating partners like Shake Shack and
you do also have to enroll in this credit so yes it is there but in my experience, practically
using it in a way that would give you a net benefit can be a little bit challenging.
One thing I have found though to help me keep track of those different offers and points
not just with my American Express card but all of my credit cards is an app called Max
rewards.
Now I am part of the MaxRewards affiliate program so if you do want to try it out and
get a month of MaxRewards gold for free then I will leave a link in the description and
be sure to use code “MAGNIFIED” when you sign up but without getting into too much
detail in this video, basically MaxRewards allows you to track all of your credit cards
under one platform, monitor your credit utilization, card balances, the rewards available to you
and perhaps most importantly, which cards are the best to use for certain spending categories.
Plus, they can also suggest a card based on your geographic location and I know especially
when it comes to products like the American Express gold or just having multiple credit
cards in general, it can get really confusing keeping track of which card you should use
in certain situations, so MaxRewards really helps take all of the guesswork out of that.
Plus, with MaxRawards gold which is their paid option they will even activate all of
those countless American Express offers automatically for you which is pretty great.
So if you'd like to see a full review on the MaxRawards app then definitely let me know
down in the comment section below but again I'll be sure to leave a link in the description
if you did want to check it out and be sure to use code “MAGNIFIED” when you sign
up to get one month of gold for free and you’ll support my channel which I really appreciate!
Now you do also get a $100 credit through the hotel collection but again it's actually
not that simple and if you read the fine print, you actually only get that credit after you
spend two days at a hotel collection through American Express and oftentimes these hotels
end up costing more depending on where you book so if you really look at it, this $100
credit is kind of worthless because you do have to jump through all of those hoops in
order to get it plus it can only be used towards dining, spa, and resort activities according
to the American Express website so again as far as a net benefit, it's not really existent
there.
So those are the core features but just like any other American Express product you also
get a ton of what I would call I didn't know “I had that benefits” which are things
like the hotel collection that I just mentioned, personalized travel services, the global assist
hotline, baggage insurance, car rental loss and damage insurance and of course no foreign
transaction fees.
On that last point I will address a comment that I frequently get and that is do a lot
of international merchants accept American Express and I will say that while I personally
have very little experience with this, I have never had any issues and if you actually look
at the raw data, American Express is more widely accepted internationally then even
companies like MasterCard so it's probably a good idea to keep an extra card with you
just in case but in general it seems like American Express is just as widely accepted
as many other merchants.
I do also want to circle back and say that the car rental damage insurance is secondary
coverage and for whatever reason is excluded in Australia, Italy, and New Zealand, and
that's a really important thing to note because what that means is you actually have to go
through your insurance company first before going to this secondary insurance plan so
unlike some of those higher-end credit cards that I mentioned earlier which offer primary
coverage, it's important to remember that the gold card is only offering a secondary
coverage on the car rental insurance.
Okay but enough about all of those boring finite details let's talk about perhaps the
biggest reason that many people get this cand which is it looks awesome.
As I've shown in previous videos, I actually have four American Express gold cards and
I don't mean that I pay for four of them each year I only have one account but for reasons
that are not worth explaining, American Express has sent me four different products two of
which are the standard gold color and two of which are the rose gold color and while
personally, I am a bigger fan of the normal color, both of them look incredible, they
feel really nice in the hand, and I know that it's absolutely ridiculous that I'm even talking
about this but as I've said many times before, I know that what a card looks like is important
to some consumers so if that's you then I promise this card will not disappoint.
And that actually brings me to another really big pro of this card and an important point
about how I personally use it and that is that you can actually add authorized users
to the American Express gold card for completely free which is great considering some of those
higher-end products charge well over $100 per authorized user each year in some cases.
So I know in my case I have a personal card in the standard gold color that I carry with
me and then I actually added magnified money as an authorized user and I have that in the
Rose gold color just so I don't get them mixed up in my wallet and this has been a great
way to separate personal and business expenses without me having to pay an additional $300
per year for the business gold card.
Now I know that some of you might disagree with that strategy but for my spending habits
both on the personal and business side of things, this is worked out wonderfully plus
the American Express app makes it super easy and flags every single purchase that is made
with my magnified money card which then syncs seamlessly into QuickBooks and can be paid
from my business bank account and just makes the whole process of bookkeeping much easier.
Now one other important thing to talk about with the points that I mentioned earlier is
what are those points actually worth because typically that's where things can get a little
bit confusing with credit cards that give you points instead of direct cash back.
So right now if you redeem your points directly for a statement credit which is basically
like taking the cash back you're actually only going to get 0.6 cents per point which
if you do the math on that, that would be less than 1% back on your regular purchases
and even on the bonus categories where you're earning 4 points per dollar like dining for
example, you're only getting 2.4% cash back equivalent.
Now 2.4% might sound really good but considering there are products like the Capital One savor
card that has a much lower annual fee but gives you a 3% cash back on all dining without
having to jump through any of those hoops does kinda leave you scratching your head.
So if you're going to use the American Express gold card you obviously want to redeem those
points for maximum value and by far the best way to do that is redeeming your Amex points
through the different travel partners that American Express has period now you can use
these points right from within the American Express travel portal which I have personally
done and it is super easy to use and I was actually able to book two international tickets
for myself in my fiance for completely free using my American Express points.
But what I will say is the particular partners where you get the maximum value are almost
all International Airlines so if you don't frequently travel internationally then getting
the maximum value out of these points is going to be a little difficult and if you don't
travel at all then I'd go as far as to say that the American Express gold card is probably
not a great fit for you.
Now I want to clarify that the gold card in my opinion at least is not necessarily a travel
credit card considering it doesn't give you any credits for airlines and it doesn't give
you airport lounge access but what I am saying is in order to maximize the points that you're
getting you really have to redeem those points for travel so if you don't travel then I would
probably look for alternative options.
And the last thing I’ll mention that I have been thinking about a lot recently is there's
really not a great way to downgrade from the American Express gold card.
For example, if you have the chase sapphire reserve then you could downgrade to something
like the sapphire preferred which has a much lower annual fee but really the only thing
below the American Express gold card would be something like the green card but if you
were to downgrade directly to that then you would be missing out on the fantastic signup
bonus and really the same thing applies if you were to upgrade to the platinum card because
again you would be missing out on that potential signup bonus.
So it kind of puts you in this strange predicament where the only exit strategy is to just completely
close the account which obviously has some negative benefits on your credit score.
Now personally I have been looking a lot at the new Capital One venture X card which offers
some of those premium travel benefits without the insanely high annual fee but that does
mean I would be missing out on some of the bonus categories like dining where the American
Express gold card really shines.
So I haven't made a decision on that yet and I'd love to know your thoughts on that particular
comparison in the comment section below but all things considered, I still absolutely
love my American Express gold card and while it was really nice to get a 60,000 point signup
bonus in my first year, even without receiving that sign of bonus this year, I do still think
this is a product worth keeping for the right type of consumer.
If a lot of your spending is in dining and grocery stores and you are a casual traveler
who will be able to redeem those points for higher value, then this is a fantastic product
at a lower annual fee than some of those premium travel products.
so for now I will definitely be keeping my American Express gold card and if you want
to sign up for this product and get that 60,000 point signup bonus then I will leave a link
down in the description below where you can sign up and will help support my goal of paying
for my entire honeymoon with American Express points which I and my fiance both really appreciate.
As always if you did get value out of this content and you want to help support me the
easiest way to do that is actually by checking out some of my favorite financial tools down
in the description below including one offer from the point cash back debit card that will
currently give you $100 when you sign up and make your first purchase so be sure to check
that out using the link down below.
Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe to the channel for more content like this
in the future and of course, thank you so much for your time I really do appreciate
it so much take it easy and I'll see you in the next one!