Amex Updates the Gold Card

Tl;dr: The Gold Card gets even better… and more expensive. But it’s probably a no-net fee for more people now.

As someone who eats out way too much, the Amex Gold has long been one of my favorite cards. The 4x miles on restaurants and grocery stores made it a huge points-generator, and its $240 in dining and Uber credits were relatively easy to use, especially when I lived in the city, and almost entirely offset the $250 annual fee. Amex recently made some changes to the Gold card, including raising the fee by $75 to $325. Is this card still worthwhile at that price?

The changes

First, what’s new beyond the annual fee?

The credits are changing, mostly in a good way. The $10 monthly Uber cash remains. So does the $10 dining credit, which includes Grubhub, the Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, Wine.com, and now Five Guys (which replaces Shake Shack). There is also now a $7 monthly credit toward Dunkin, as well as $50 in statement credits to be used at Resy restaurants every six months.

There is also now a cap on the bonus miles you can earn on dining, but you’ll have to spend $50k to hit it.

There are also some temporary changes. For a limited time, the card is available in “white gold” (seen above), and there is re-launch bonus, such as it is, of the usual 60k miles, plus 20% back on restaurant spending, up to $100.

Is this good news?

Yes. I loved the old Gold card. The fantastic earning rate on food remains unchanged, but the credits are now easier to take advantage of.

Because I ordered takeout more than twice a month anyway, it was not difficult for me to order once from Uber Eats and once from Grubhub to ensure I got the full $240 in credits, all but offsetting the annual fee. However, that did require some careful attention, and the card could get a little expensive if you missed any of those credits.

Now, however, the $325 fee is offset by $424 in credits. This allows for a lot more margin of error—you could miss a few months of the dining credit and several months of the Dunkin credit and still have a net-zero or even net-negative fee Gold Card. Although I think the Resy credit is a little hard to use on a monthly basis (as it is set up with Amex’s Delta co-branded cards), you’ll have six whole months to use it with the Gold Card, a much more realistic proposition.

Conclusion

The changes to the Gold Card are quite positive in my opinion, and I will admit that the new “white gold” card looks awesome. That said, the welcome offer is underwhelming, and falls far short of the best I’ve seen (a 90k + $200 referral offer). Because the 60k public offer is fairly standard, now would be a decent time to go get a Gold Card if you really want the fancy new design and want a little extra punch in your welcome offer. And if you don’t have a card that earns big points on dining, this is one card that might be worth accepting a slightly low welcome offer for. That said, if possible I would generally recommend waiting for a better offer on the Gold.