Someone please correct me if my calculations/assumptions are off.
OP, its not that difficult to get positive-expected-value out of this card, due to the 4x dining/grocery rewards setup. Going by the website upgradedpoints.com, the current Gold Card SUB of 60,000 points (valued at 2.2 cents per point) is worth $1,320 when redeemed thru a travel-partner. That's more than five-times the value of the $250 AF.
$250 = 11,364 MR points.
For the second year, offsetting the $250 AF can be achieved by spending $2,841 on 4x earning transactions (11,364pts) for the entire year.
Without any travel whatsoever, the card can be very difficult to justify. For those that do and can make use of the Membership Rewards ecosystem, it can be one of the absolute best cards on the market. A common topic that comes up here is "If you could only have 3 cards..." and this one always gets a spot for me.
If one can utilize the $10 monthly dining credit and the new $10 monthly Uber/UberEats credit, the net annual fee is only $10. Add in the $100 travel credit (going away February 2022), and the net annual fee is -$90 for those that can use all of the credits. That does not even factor is the many Amex Offers that can be taken advantage of for further savings.
As a non-traveler, that remaining $10 may still be difficult to justify over another card. Earning 4x on groceries and dining would be 2.4% cash back if redeemed as statement credit, 2.8% cash back if redeemed at checkout at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, etc., and up to 4% if redeemed for a limited selection of gift cards (most will be closer to the previous two values, but some cards such as Home Depot are often 1 cent per point making it 4% back effectively). Factoring in a healthy Welcome Offer, even these non-travel redemptions can still make the card lucrative for a while, but would likely not make sense long term.
As for why many of us love the card, the annual fee is either negligible or less than zero after credits are considered and the ability to rack up lots of points is fantastic. Since I also have the Business Platinum card from Amex (which gives a rebate on points used for all business/first class tickets and all tickets regardless of cabin on your chosen airline when used to purchase airfare in Amex Travel), my worst case scenario is that I am earning 6.16% back on fairly substantial grocery and dining spend when redeemed for airfare through the Amex Travel portal. Moving these points to frequent flyer accounts can make them net 8% or potentially even much more.
I somewhat agree with the OP's perspective on this and have pondered this myself for a while. While I understand that there are poeple out there that do A LOT of travelling and, likewise, a lot of dining that may accompany that.....most people justify the card by math, stating that the AF is "offset" by the amount of spend they put on the card.
But for most people like myself, the entire point of cashback cards is to get as close to a true 4%, 5% etc. return on what we spend, or more if possible. But I'm also considering that people "like myself" would also be those with a modest income (ex. $75k and below) and simply don't have that type of spend. If you spend enough to simply offest the AF and maybe gain a little on top, then realistically maybe you're achieving a gross cashback return of let's say (and I'm pulling a random # here for example) maybe 6-7%. But after "offsetting" the AF your true cashback retun might be about 2-3% after the fact. And again, that is for "more than average" spend, so the average consumer wouldn't really benefit. Seems that these cards with $250+ AF are targetted more for those who travel much, much more than average and for those with much higher incomes.
For the average consumer I don't see how this card could ever beat a mix of 3- 5% cashback cards, the math just isn't there for most of us, and the AF defeats the purpose of the cashback gains.
On Deck: No Plans Currently