There is currently a qwww link (American Express often tests things here first before launching) showing an annual fee on the American Express Gold card of $325. Currently the annual fee is $250 and it was increased from $195 in 2018. There doesn’t seem to be any other benefits that have changed, but that doesn’t mean that will be the case if/when the annual fee is increased (in fact I’d be surprised if they don’t make some changes).
$250 AF is already too steep just for 4x points on dining and groceries (plus the coupon book credits). I predict massive cancellations.
Enough is enough with these every few years fee increases / coupon books. Cancelled all my delta prior to 2nd year. AMEX is way to fee hungry and try to show value or stupid perks that you won’t use or have to go out of your way to use.
No added benefit will force me to cancel the card
40% Inflation?
Amex has no more tricks up their sleeve and will just rely on this until it inevitably fails eventually when everyone tires out. Only morons use Amex long term and try to justify their coupons which is just making you spend more. Now the question is if it’s worth my final 4/24 spot to get this and cancel it out on renewal
I guess I am one of those ‘morons’ who still keeps an Amex Platinum, primarily for the 5x points on airlines and the access to the Centurion lounges. That said, I have to set reminders each cycle or I’ll forget to use the $50 for Saks twice a year for the wife, the annual $100 x 2 reloads with United’s TravelBank, and the monthly Uber credits. I’m disappointed that they recently swapped Audible for WSJ with the $20 digital entertainment credit. It’s all a bit tedious, but it isn’t that bad.
Now, with Amex Gold, 4x on dining is not that great when Chase’s CSR gets 3x, especially if Amex raises annual fees again with no new benefits. C’mon, Amex, that don’t add up.
And if Amex adds some silly “Resy” $10/month credit, like they did recently with the Delta Reserve card updates, that’s just not good enough *deep sigh*
there are different reasons people here get credit cards.
1. Try to find the best cards to hold onto long term.
2. Find the best signup bonuses and keep getting new ones after you meet the spending requirement.
That’s why this card is great for some and almost worthless for others.
there are actually at least three types:
Im in the second category. seems like there are more people in category one than i thought.
I get $100 from corp program but at $325 def cancelling it even tho it’s $225 for me
Other than churning, AMEX lost me a long time ago. I’m definitely not in their demo of lovers of overpriced coupon books.
How can you ‘churn’ Amex cards when they only do “once in a lifetime” sign-up bonuses?
I get that sometimes Amex forgets that language in the fine print (or “lifetime” means 7 years or something else), but it’s usually a “pop up” warning with card products I’ve already had.
At least Amex doesn’t care about 5/24…
because of “nll”
For me, it is easy to recoup the $240 in coupons. $10 monthly on Uber is easy as I use Uber at least once a month. It is easy to eat at Shake Shake once a month too, plus GrubHub pick-up is not hard either.
So, I pay 10 bucks per year to get 4x for dining and restaurants. I easily spend a min of $1K per month (48K points) on this card and the reality is I probably spend closer to $15K per year on the card netting me one biz class ticket from the USA to Europe (60K points) or about $3500 to $5000 in value.
If they raise the AF I will still get value from this card.
Cool justification
Consider the opportunity cost of just literally putting that spend on an ink SUB.
I am entering the late stages of the game. I have maxed out all the INK card SUB points. I also wouldn’t pass up 4x points to hit a SUB. I hit that paying for things that don’t fall into travel, dining, grocery, gas.
What business class ticket do you get for 60k to Europe? Just for fun I checked NY TO Germany round trip is 324,000 points on sept 9. Or $3245
I regularly book Air France or KLM for 60K, but also book flights to Europe on Air Canada AeroPlan for the same amount. If you’re not booking way in advance, the summer dates are hard to find. I booked a biz class flight from Amsterdam to Jo’burg in July for 65K on KLM, which would have been $4K or more.
The flights are there if you are flexible and look. Try using this site – https://seats.aero/search
thats a nice search tool. i did find flights for 55k in business. It was a one way flight on condor airlines, which i have never heard of but it was there. i searched nonstop only. thats the only way we do it. you probably know this but its easy to get aeroplan has a ton of credit card signup bonuses. some of them are crap but some are ok. if you put $15k spending on those cards you would end up with about around 170k+ in aeroplan miles with more credit cards left over.
I cancelled my Amex Gold in March. I’d had it since 2003. No longer worth it. I get much better value from Chase points, AA cards miles, and 5% cashback from various cards (gas / grocery quarterly categories).