[Last Chance To Lock In Lower Annual Fee And Use Ending Card Benefits!] Refreshed AMEX Business Gold Card: Several Major Upgrades With A Side Of Big Downgrades

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Update: Today is your last chance to apply for the  AMEX Business Gold Card card to lock in the $295 annual fee for your first year. Effective 2/1, that climbs to $375.

Don’t forget to finish using ending benefits by 1/31, like the 25% flight rebate and 4x points on airfare and shipping.

And of course, be sure you’re taking advantage of the new $20 monthly flexible credit and the monthly Walmart+ credit!

Originally posted on 10/3:

AMEX has refreshed the AMEX Business Gold Card with several positive benefits, but also with several downgrades.

The new benefits start today for new and existing cardholders, while the downgrades start 2/1/24.

Welcome Bonus:

You can earn 70,000 American Express Membership Rewards welcome bonus points for opening an AMEX Business Gold Card and spending $10,000 within your first 3 months of card membership.

New: You can also now choose from Gold or a Rose Gold card color.

Annual fee: 

$295.

New: Will go up to $375 effective 2/1/24.

For rates and fees of the AMEX Business Gold Card, please visit here.

Welcome bonus terms: 

You officially won’t get the welcome bonus on this card if you have or have had this card, though readers have reported success after several years.

You can tell if you are eligible for an AMEX welcome bonus by applying. If you are not eligible for the bonus you will get a popup notification after clicking to apply for the card. At that point you can decide whether to proceed or cancel the application before it is processed.

You must keep the card active without closing or downgrading it for at least 12 months.

New: $240 annual flexible business credit:

Earn up to $20 in statement credits each month for eligible purchases at FedEx, Grubhub, and Office Supply Stores.

Office supply stores sell gift cards online and in store, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get the full value from this benefit.

Enrollment required here.

You can find a full list of gift cards sold by office supply stores online and in-store here.

If you don’t want to go to a store and don’t want to spend more than $20 per gift card, here are some of the $10 and $20 options available to purchase and maximize the $20 monthly credit:

• AT&T Prepaid $10 eGift card
• Boost Mobile Prepaid $20 eGift card
• Doordash $20 eGift card
• Grubhub $20 eGift card
• Home Depot $20 eGift card
• Kohl’s $20 eGift card
• Lowe’s $20 eGift card
• Old Navy $20 eGift card
• Regal $10 eGift card
• Spotify $10 eGift card
• Staples $20 eGift card
• Target $20 eGift card

Post which other $20 gift cards you find!

New: $12.95+ monthly Walmart+ credit:

Cardmembers get a $12.95+ tax monthly credit to cover Walmart+ membership in full.

Walmart+ members receive unlimited free shipping with no order minimum on items shipped by Walmart.com, free delivery from stores, as well as mobile and contactless check-out to make shopping faster.

We get Walmart store deliveries all the time, it’s a great membership to have!

New: Card earnings:

Earn 4X Membership Rewards points on the 2 categories where your business spent the most each billing cycle from the list below, plus earn 1X on other purchases. 4X points applies to the first $150,000 in combined purchases from these 2 categories each calendar year, then earn 1 point per dollar:

• New: Transit purchases including trains, taxicabs, rideshare services, ferries, tolls, parking, buses, and subways.
• New: Monthly wireless telephone service charges made directly from a wireless telephone service provider in the U.S.
• New: U.S. purchases made from electronic goods retailers and software & cloud system providers.
• U.S. purchases made directly from a select list technology providers of computer hardware, software, and cloud solutions (This category ends 1/31/24, but is being replaced with the superior category above)
• Airfare purchased directly from airlines (This category ends 1/31/24)
• U.S. purchases for shipping (This category ends 1/31/24)
• U.S. purchases for advertising in select media (online, TV, radio)
• U.S. purchases at gas stations
• U.S. purchases at restaurants

New: You’ll also earn 3 points per dollar on purchases from AMEXTravel.com and 1 point per dollar elsewhere.

If you want to continue earning bonus points for shipping, consider the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card Card which earns 3 points per dollar on up to $150K in annual spending on shipping and other categories. You can read more about that card here.

There are no foreign transaction fees.

Spend Threshold:

You can pay your federal taxes for a 1.82% fee. If you overpay your taxes you can request a refund or apply it to your next year’s taxes.

See this post for more ideas on meeting a credit card spend threshold, including property taxes, local income taxes, and other bills via Paypal with no fees.

New: Cell Phone Protection:

Cell Phone Protection will reimburse $800 of expenses for a damaged or stolen phone if you paid the previous month’s cell phone bill on your card. Screen cracks are covered under this policy. Small cracks are something typically excluded from other cell phone protections offered by credit cards. A $50 deductible applies and you can make up to 2 claims per 12 month period, per eligible card.

Ending: Hybrid Points And Points Rebate:

Currently, the Business Gold card allows you to choose whether to redeem points for paid travel or to transfer points into airline miles when tickets are expensive.

Unfortunately, the 25% rebate on this card is ending on 1/31/24. Tickets purchased as of 2/1/24 will no longer be eligible for the rebate.

AMEX transfer partners include:

• Air Canada Aeroplan (Star Alliance) 1:1 instant transfer.
• ANA (Star Alliance) 1:1 transfer.
• Avianca Lifemiles (Star Alliance) 1:1 instant transfer.
• Singapore (Star Alliance) 1:1 transfer.
• AeroMexico (Skyteam) 1:1.6 transfer.
• Air France/KLM Flying Blue (Skyteam) 1:1 instant transfer.
• Delta (Skyteam) 1:1 instant transfer.
• Aer Lingus (OneWorld) 1:1 instant transfer.
• British Airways (OneWorld) 1:1 instant transfer
• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (OneWorld) 1:1 instant transfer.
• Iberia (OneWorld) 1:1 instant transfer
• Qantas (OneWorld) 1:1 instant transfer
• Emirates 1:1 instant transfer
• Etihad 1:1 instant transfer
• Hawaiian 1:1 instant transfer
• JetBlue 1:0.8 instant transfer
• Qatar (OneWorld) 1:1 instant transfer
• Virgin Atlantic 1:1 instant transfer
• Choice Hotels 1:1 instant transfer
• Hilton 1:2 instant transfer
• Marriott 1:1 instant transfer

Mileage transfers can often make sense for one-way, last-minute, or premium class travel. The value with airline miles can be under a cent each if used poorly, but properly used the points can be worth 5 cents, 10 cents, 15 cents, or even more per point, the sky is the limit.

For example I love using 6.5K miles transferred to Avianca to book a last minute $459 ticket on United, thanks to Avianca’s amazing short-haul redemption award chart.

There are also often bonus offers for transfers from AMEX to airlines.

Otherwise you can choose to use them for paid tickets when tickets are less expensive at 1.33 cents (or higher) value per point.

That’s because Business Gold cardholders get a 25% points rebate for award redemptions on paid tickets for the airline that you choose. You can chat with AMEX online to change your airline selection. You’ll also get a 25% points rebate on all airlines in business and first class. You can book these tickets on AMEXTravel.com. If you want to redeem for travel on Southwest then you’ll need to call AMEX to book.

In other words, if you want to book a $250 flight you’ll use 25,000 points, but AMEX will give you a 25% rebate, so you’ll get back 6,250 points in coach on the airline of your choice or in business/first class on all airlines, making the net cost just 18,750, points and earning you a value of 1.33 cents per point. When you use points for paid tickets you don’t pay any taxes and you still earn miles for the flight!

Plus the rebate is stackable with discounted AMEX Insider fares that can be excellent deals. For example, a $350 flight can be discounted to just 25K points, meaning you’ll still pay just 18,750 points, a value of 1.87 cents per point!

You can get up to 250K rebated points per account and if you’re a big spender on the card you can get offers for additional rebates.

This hybrid redemption ability makes your points very valuable as they can be used for mileage transfers or paid flights, whichever provides more value for the flights you want to book.

AMEX Offers and Premium AMEX Protections: 

• Trip delay insurance will reimburse expenses due to a flight delay, up to $300 of coverage for 12+ hour delays.
• Earn statement credits at stores that you register for in your AMEX account with AMEX Offers.
• Baggage Insurance covers lost, stolen, or damaged luggage on plain, train, ship, or bus tickets paid for on the card.
• If your item, up to $1,000, is stolen or broken within 90 days you’ll be covered!
• You get up to 1 additional year of warranty coverage, double the original manufacturers warranty, and if you have any issue in the extended warranty year they’ll pay to have it fixed or refund your entire purchase price without a hassle. This benefit is far more valuable than warranty benefits offered by other banks.
• If you need to dispute a charge there’s nobody who makes it easier or as pain-free as American Express does. It’s the easiest dispute resolution process in the industry by leaps and bounds and you can do it all online.
• See this post to see just how amazing AMEX benefits can be.

Business vs Consumer card:

AMEX business cards don’t appear on your credit report. That’s good for several reasons.

First of all they won’t count against your 5/24 count for opening new Chase cards. Only cards on your report that have been opened within the past 24 months count for that.

Second, when you spend money on personal cards your credit score will be hurt even if you pay your bill on time. A whopping 30% of your credit score is based on credit utilization. You can pay off your card bill before your statement is generated to avoid that, but that takes effort and laying out money well before you have to. Additionally it’s good to have the statement close with a couple dollars to show the card is active and being paid every month. On an AMEX business card it’s just not reported, so you can wait until the money is due without it having a negative effect on your score.

Third, if you close a business card it won’t ever have an effect on your score.

You may already have a business that needs a card to keep track of expenses. For example if your name is Joe Smith and you sell items online, or if you have any other side business and want a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures you can open a business credit card for “Joe Smith” as the business. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that. Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field

Dan’s Quick Thoughts:

AMEX cardholders can’t seem to get enough of their coupon books, as AMEX loads another card up with monthly credits and increases the annual fee. These credits can be worth more than the card’s annual fee, so it’s no surprise why they’re so popular among many cardholders, though that popularity isn’t universal.

Unfortunately, this card’s 25% points rebate is being eliminated with the refresh, as are bonus points on airfare and shipping. Those are big losses coupled with the card’s higher annual fee.

Big spenders in the new categories will still get value from this card, but the card’s appeal won’t be universal.

But for the next 4 months, cardholders can enjoy the best of both worlds with this card.

If you want to increase the value of your AMEX points for flights, your only option is now the $695/year AMEX Business Platinum card which offers a 35% points rebate, which makes points worth 1.54 cents each towards airfare. The gap between the Business Gold and Platinum cards is now huge due to eliminating the rebate on the Gold card. With a $200 airline fee credit, $400 Dell credit, $120 wireless credit, $189 CLEAR credit, lounge access, and much more, the Business Platinum card may make more sense for most people than the Business Gold card. You can read more about the Business Platinum card here.

If you want to continue earning bonus points for shipping, consider the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card Card which earns 3 points per dollar on up to $150K in annual spending on shipping and other categories. You can read more about that card here.

What do you think of this card’s refresh?

For rates and fees of the AMEX Business Gold Card, please visit here.