danshep77 - Luggage Guru

by Daniel | Last Updated March 7th, 2024 We may earn a commission for purchases using our links, at no cost to you. So in my last article I reviewed the American Express Platinum card and talked about whether it is worth the rather hefty $695 annual fee. And the results might surprise you. Now in this article, I’m going to do the same thing for the American Express Gold card. I want to find out if its possible to justify paying $250 a year for a credit card that is pretty much a coupon book of benefits that you actually have to pay for before you can use them. American Express - A Money Making Machine Now as you may already know, American Express is a pretty popular business that has over 56 million cards in use across the US alone, and in 2023 it had revenue of US$57.6b and made a Profit of $8.37b.So it is clearly a very profitable company.And this comes down to all of the fees and charges that they implement on their cards that customers use. Now with an annual fee of $250 each and ever year, the Amex Gold card is not too expensive, but it is still a fee worth considering as there are other credit cards on offer that are cheaper on an annual basis that still offer a decent amount of benefits. One such card is the Amex Green card, which is only $150 a year and comes with $289 in benefits. Are The Benefits Really Worth it? So what benefits do you actually get with the Amex Gold card?And more importantly, are the benefits on offer actually any use for you? Realistically, they are not really benefits at all as you have to technically pay for the benefits by way of the annual fee, and then you can claim back the cost of the annual fee by spending money at locations that are then pre determined by American Express. So let’s take a a look the benefits you can get access to (for a price) and see if the Amex Gold card is actually worth it. $120 Uber Cash So the first notable benefit that is actually quite easy to use is the $120 Uber Cash.And this is provided to you in $10 allotments throughout the year. Now this credit can actually be used for either Uber Rides or Uber Eats. The only annoying thing in my opinion is that you can only receive a maximum of $10 a month.I would much prefer the ability to receive the entire $120 credit in one go, as $10 doesn’t really go very far.Either way, this benefit is really very easy to take advantage of, and assuming you utilize the entire $120 credit over the course of the year, it will bring the annual fee of the Amex Gold card down to just $130. $120 Dining Credit Now the next benefit that comes with the Amex Gold card is a $120 Dining Credit.And similar to the $120 Uber Cash credit, it is relatively easy to make use of this benefit. But somewhat annoyingly, you can only use this credit via a select few business that include: Grubhub (including Seamless) The Cheesecake Factory Goldbelly Wine.com Milk Bar Select Shake Shack location Now I think this would be more usefully if it was possible to use the credit at a wider range of business.And similar to the $120 Uber Cash Credit, I would love to option to use the entire $120 credit in one go. The Hotel Collection So the last notable benefits that is included with the Amex Gold card is access to The Hotel Collection. And with this benefit, it is actually possible to receive a credit of up to $100 when you book a minimum of 2 nights at a hotel that is booked through the Hotel Collection.And there are over 700 hotels listed through the Hotel Collection so there is no shortage of places to book. Now there is a bit of a problem I have with this benefit, which I will show you now. So let’s say I want to book two nights at the JW Marriott Essex House in New York on the dates April 12th - 14th. And if I do this through The Hotel Collection, (which is essentially through AmexTravel.com), you can see that the total cost for these dates is $1,532.04. Now If I make the exact same booking directly through the Marriott Website the total cost for the same exact booking is $1,396.63. Thats $135.41 premium just for booking through Amextravel.com! And whilst you will receive a $100 credit to use at the Hotel when you do book through The Hotel Collection, it is still a $35 premium, which is a bit rude if you ask me.I can’t see what the point of this benefit is if Amex just over charges you. Now Amex does guarantee you the 'Lowest Hotel Rates', but you will need to submit a claim to get any difference in price back.And it’s good that they offer this price guarantee, but it just makes the whole process of booking a hotel room more difficult and confusing. I assume that Amex have figured out that most people wont even realize that there might be a price discrepancy when they book through Amextravel.com. And even if they do realize, they will have to go through a time consuming process just to get their money back.Either way, I don’t like the fact that Amex overcharges its loyal customers like this. Earning Points Now with the Amex Gold card there is the ability to earn a reasonable amount of Membership Rewards Points, specifically if you like to eat out a lot or spend a fair amount each year on groceries. So with 4x points earnings at restaurants world wide and take out delivery services, if you manage to spend say $5,000 over the course of the year you will receive 20,000 Membership reward points. And Membership Reward points are worth 1 cents per point when you redeem them for travel through American Express Travel, so you are looking at a value of $200 which is essentially like getting 4% cash back. Now whilst 1 cent per point is reasonably good value, the key getting a lot more value out of your points is by transferring them to one of the travel partners.And here is a really good example: So Ive been able to find a flight from Boston to London Heathrow flying Business class for just 57,000 Qantas Points (plus $218 and fees). And yes, Qantas is one of the travel partners of American Express, so you can transfer your points at a 1:1 ratio. Now this flight is actually operated by American Airlines - which is a partner of Qantas. Now if we go over to the American Airlines website to see how much this business class flight actually costs, it is $6,503! Thats means you are earning just over 10 cents per point, which is insanely good value. So as you can see by transferring points to one of the travel partners, the Amex Gold card can potentially provide you with a huge amount of value. Now the fact that you can earn 4x points at US supermarkets is a great benefit to have, as everyone need to eat food, so it wont be to hard earn points in this spending category. So this is limited to $25,000 in purchases each year, which is a reasonable amount of money, and if you do meet this limit, you will earn 100,000 Membership Reward points which are worth $1,000 when used to book travel through Amextravel.com, or a whole lot more if you transfer them to one of the many travel partners. Then there is the ability to earn 3x points from flights which is pretty good. So if you spend a large portion of your income in these categories and then transfer your Membership Reward Points appropriately, you will be able to potentially earn a huge amount of value back. Insurance Coverage Now similar to other mid tier credit cards, the American Express Gold card also comes with a few insurance related benefits such as: Trip Delay Insurance A Baggage Insurance Plan Car Rental Loss and Damage Insurance Extended Warranty Coverage And Purchase Protection And it’s great to have these extra benefits, but if you don’t travel much you wont get any benefit from half of them.I would like to see cell phone protection added to this coverage, as just about everyone who has an Amex Gold card probably has a cell phone. And I don’t know about you, but Ive dropped my fair share of cell phones. Final Thoughts So after covering most of the benefits that are on offer with the Amex Gold card it is possible to receive a huge amount of value, but only if you spend quite a lot of money on eating out, buying groceries or booking flights. If you don’t spend much on these categories then this card may not make much sense for you, as it wont provide you with enough value. And If this is the case for you, another card worth looking into would be the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. With an annual fee of just $95 and the ability to earn a similar amount of points on a variety of spending, it is a great alternative to the Amex Gold card. Also, with the Amex Gold card I don’t really see the $120 Dining credit or $120 Uber Credit as value as you have to pay $250 each year just to use the card, so you are technically already paying for these 2 benefits. But like I said before, if you earn a lot of points and then transfer them effectively to one of the travel partners, you can get a lot of value out of this card. I did have the Amex Gold for quite a few years, and really enjoyed using it, but as I got busier with my job and had to do a lot more international travel it made sense for me to upgrade to the American Express Platinum card. This is because the Platinum card comes with a lot more travel related benefits such as access to The Global Lounge Collection, and this is something that I make really good use of as I spend a lot of time traveling through airport. There is also $200 hotel credit the I use each and every year, a $200 Airline fee credit that I actually use for access to the United Club, and a $189 CLEAR Plus credit that helps me get through airport security a little more efficiently. And best of all, there are plenty more benefits included with this card that help to offset the annual fee. Now if your still not sure about whether the American Express Gold card is the right card for you, make sure to read my review of the best credit cards for 2024.