New American Express Business Gold Rewards Card Design – Will Other Changes Follow? (Our Sources Say No) [Update: New Card Name]

Reader patrickbarnes receive a letter offering a bonus for enrolling the business gold rewards card for extended payment options. Interestingly it refers to this card as ‘Open Gold Rewards 321’. If the name does change, I’d expect some change of benefits as well. The 321 is obviously reference to the fact the card earns 3x in one category of your choice (5 options), 2x in the other 4 categories and then 1x on all other purchases. We are checking with our sources again to see if there are any updates.

 

Original post: We’ve recently been posting a lot of information regarding rumored changes coming to the Premier Rewards Gold card. Readers have been asking if we will see similar changes on the business gold rewards card. None of our sources within American Express have heard of any changes to the Business Gold Rewards card (although that doesn’t mean none are coming), that being said reddit user puns4life found this card redesign:

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86
86 (@guest_655836)
October 11, 2018 14:55

No points for ANY gift card purchases ever!

Dewayne Simmons
Dewayne Simmons (@guest_655606)
October 11, 2018 06:02

[spam comment removed]

El Loco
El Loco (@guest_655624)
October 11, 2018 09:07

Report spam.

Kieri
Kieri (@guest_655642)
October 11, 2018 10:08

Your programmer should at least set up his/her own email domain. @gmail.com, really? This seems like a side hustle.

Tom
Tom (@guest_655662)
October 11, 2018 10:53

I can sell him some of the G Suite credit I got for signing up for this card. Then he can get his own domain.

M
M (@guest_655548)
October 10, 2018 22:54

I welcome the return of clean classic AmEx design elements, only over a metal now!

LDoc
LDoc (@guest_655541)
October 10, 2018 22:36

I was just thinking of getting this card. Hmm…

Credit-Testa
Credit-Testa (@guest_655536)
October 10, 2018 22:21

Doctor, do you know if Amex is limiting their Amex offers to one card only (if offer shows on two cards)? I just got approved for the PGR and an offer for paying the phone bill (10% cashback) came up automatically but then when trying to to add the offer to this Gold card a message came up “Sorry about that! The offer you selected has already been added to one of your Cards.”… Is this normal? I’ve never seen this. Anyway, just curious.

MoreSun
MoreSun (@guest_655594)
October 11, 2018 02:41

Yes. Changed a while back. One offer per SSN.

CREDIT-TESTA
CREDIT-TESTA (@guest_656421)
October 12, 2018 14:44

Thanks for the reply. Again, this is new to me so now, eyes on the better offers!

Sa
Sa (@guest_655532)
October 10, 2018 22:19

I am starting to appreciate these subtle techniques Amex marketing uses to launch cards. Leak a bit of info and let us rave in anticipation. $0 marketing budget.

P
P (@guest_655527)
October 10, 2018 22:00

I wish they’d improve their plum card as well. That has $250 annual fee but it seems like it’s not worth getting because of the annual fee. Of course the plum card is a charge card but earns cash back, so definitely even more worthless than the BGR.

Jags
Jags (@guest_655549)
October 10, 2018 23:02
  P

The Plum Card could actually be useful to real businesses because it let’s you float expenses for up to 90 days with no interest.

MoreSun
MoreSun (@guest_655499)
October 10, 2018 20:46

Would love to see a total revamp of this card ala the personal one. It’s practically useless considering the fee!

William F
William F (@guest_655517)
October 10, 2018 21:48

The signup bonus would probably drop down if any of the benefits of the personal gold are matched to this business version? Anyone planning to sign up for the business now in anticipation?

Jace
Jace (@guest_655522)
October 10, 2018 21:53

If you make use of the return/purchase protection benefits once per year, it pays for the annual fee. I also saved $150 this year via Amex offers – all on stuff I would have purchased anyway. With enforcement of 1 offer per person rule, that value is lowered a bit, but it still makes sense to hold on to at least 1 amex card.

Jay
Jay (@guest_655492)
October 10, 2018 20:26

Ugh, the 321 card? Amex has really been on a roll with their naming recently. Dunno if that’s worse than “Cash Magnet” though.

MoreSun
MoreSun (@guest_655595)
October 11, 2018 02:42

It’s certainly a mouthful!

red
red (@guest_649299)
September 29, 2018 20:47

This is the worst card I’ve ever had. 195 fee with literally no benefits at all.

guy bucktastik
guy bucktastik (@guest_649326)
September 29, 2018 21:53

75k mr points, 2x$100 airline credit, no af first year, are you talking about the same card we are?

Lrdx
Lrdx (@guest_649329)
September 29, 2018 21:57

The post is about the *Business* Gold Rewards card. Not the personal Gold card.

Drivesabrowntruck
Drivesabrowntruck (@guest_649334)
September 29, 2018 22:00

BRG doesn’t get the airline credit, the PRG does. The PRG outshines this card in every way besides the signup bonus.

JS
JS (@guest_649356)
September 29, 2018 22:46

What you talking about? 2x$100 airline credit??

PRG almost never gets 75k MR.

You are really confused.

Orin
Orin (@guest_649401)
September 30, 2018 05:01
  JS

I got 50k bonus with 1k spend. $100 airline bonus each calendar year for two years before first af is due

MoreSun
MoreSun (@guest_655494)
October 10, 2018 20:30

Not on this card. There is no airline fee credit of any sort on this Business Gold Rewards folks!

Tom
Tom (@guest_655529)
October 10, 2018 22:04

Holy cr@p people are stupid here today!

NinjaX
NinjaX (@guest_655565)
October 11, 2018 00:08

dude. are there seriously that many n00bs on this site now? oh wait. i think this BRG also has 3x UR points on travel/dining and $300 in credit towards a Tesla right?

MoreSun
MoreSun (@guest_655596)
October 11, 2018 02:44

C’mon man, the one time $300 Tesla credit is only available 6-8 weeks AFTER you pay the 2nd year’s annual fee! Details matter!

NinjaX
NinjaX (@guest_656201)
October 12, 2018 02:00

my dude. ur so on point eagle eye.

JT
JT (@guest_649338)
September 29, 2018 22:13

I call it my gas card. Will probably churn it when AF comes due.

sdsearch
sdsearch (@guest_649344)
September 29, 2018 22:23
  JT

Churn how??? Aren’t you aware of Amex’s “once-in-a-lifetime” (actually about 7ish years) limit on signup bonuses for each of their cards?

Ryan Thompson
Ryan Thompson (@guest_649355)
September 29, 2018 22:43

You simply use the same methods to bypass those terms as you do with all banks. I opened 3 this year and received the welcome bonus on all. Will repeat next year as well.

sdsearch
sdsearch (@guest_649409)
September 30, 2018 08:36

First, WHAT methods? No other bank has a “once-per-lifetime” limit that I know of, so you don’t run into this problem at other banks.

Second, things changed a lot a few months ago at Amex when they started giving even “light” Amex churners that popup that effectively says “we have determined that because of the way you opened/closed/used/did not use Amex cards in recent years, you are not eligible for the signup bonus on this card; do you want to continue anyway?”. So something that worked in the past year at Amex may not work in the coming year.

Ryan Thompson
Ryan Thompson (@guest_649423)
September 30, 2018 10:32

Sure, every bank’s rules are different. But many have some degree of anti-churning rules. And there’s methods to bypass them whether it’s citi, amex or chase. For amex, the main issue I run into is if you reapply for the same card within 90 days the app will be auto cancelled. Similar to MAC with citi. These can still be manually pushed through and approved. I experienced it last month getting the 100k personal plat twice in the same month. The second app had to be approved by manual submission to underwriting and I have now received the welcome bonus on both.

sdsearch
sdsearch (@guest_649565)
September 30, 2018 21:26

That doesn’t explain how the person I was replying to, who already has the Gold card, but seemed to be planning to cancel it at 13ish months when the AF came due and THEN “churn” it, will ever get a signup bonus. Amex’s official longer-term anti-churning rule is “no signup bonus for you if you already had this card in the past 7ish years” How in the world do you get around that if you’ve already had the card for over a year by that point?

Meanwhile, Amex’s more recent anti-churning rule is “no signup bonus for you if you’ve opened/closed what we feel are “too many” of our cards cards and/or used our cards only to get the signup bonuses. It doesn’t replace that older rule, it’s “layered” ON TOP OF it. And it eliminates the guessing, because if you’re not going to get the signup bonus for this reason it gives you a popup that lets you cancel the app before a hard pull is done. I wish you luck,but I wouldn’t be surprised if the tricks you’ve been pulling lead to you getting this popup on most future Amex applications. I got it without pulling any such tricks, simply because I cancelled two cards after having them only 13ish months and pretty much stopped using each of them after I got the signup bonus.

JT
JT (@guest_655507)
October 10, 2018 21:05

I don’t know why you were so worked up about it. My original comment still stands. I am aware of Amex lifetime rule. I can self refer for 15k MR points, waive annual fee, and 3x. So yes I do plan to churn it.

sdsearch
sdsearch (@guest_656287)
October 12, 2018 11:07
  JT

Simple. Because even though reading all sorts of stuff about Amex applying over the years, including about each new “rule” as soon it came about, I NEVER heard (before reading the replies to my comment on this page) that you could get around “once in a lifetime” through self-referring.

Why do you assume EVERYBODY who’s posting here must know EVERYTHING that you do???

Vic
Vic (@guest_649647)
October 1, 2018 04:50

@Ryan I am really confused. What are you talking about?

vipul
vipul (@guest_649499)
September 30, 2018 18:15

Clearly you are don’t know much about churning.

JS
JS (@guest_649357)
September 29, 2018 22:48
  JT

Some people get brain rust…

Blue
Blue (@guest_655520)
October 10, 2018 21:52

Laugh. It is quite a nice card if used properly.

the_shek
the_shek (@guest_655580)
October 11, 2018 01:34

3x Gas is legit for sure, but only if your gas stations sell vgc when using credit cards.