Help me understand the reward points - Amex Gold

[drave199]

Hi,

So I currently have 3 credit cards (in my sig) and Im either going to upgrade my amex BCE to the preferred or I was looking at the new Gold card. Initially I was like no way on the AF because I dont even want to pay the $95 on the BCP but in reality I dont even really know what the points are equal to in dollars. Can someone give me a quick breakdown on how that works?

Also maybe you guys can give me some advice. Quick story - One of the reasons im looking at this card is because I did get an offer in the mail for it (also got one for the Platinum which is odd and way out of my range) but I also have decided to do all of my monthly purchases and even bills when I can on credit. I think in the long run it will be benifical to getting some extra money at the end of the year in rewards and it will also help to track spending. Instead of having a bunch of debit transactions to track I will know what I spent and have one or two credit card payments that come out of my checking account. Of course these tranactions should me normal spending ie. groceries, gas, bills etc. As far as spluges go Im still not sure how to track those and to not get to crazy. But I think doing it this way and paying off the credit card bill every month to avoid interest will maximize my cash back I get. 

Anyways, the advice im looking for is how to know whether the Amex Gold and its AF is worth it? How much should someone generally spend monthly to have a card with that high of an AF? I mean I dont plan on spending more than $1000-$1200 per month on it which sounds like a lot to me. Would be more but where i live charges a 3% fee to use a credit card for rent. I dont Spend a lot monthly, heck i make less than 50K per year (for now). I see some of you guys have multiple cards with high AF but I imagine they also make a pretty good living. Based on that info, should i just go with the BCP? 

Thanks for the help and advice! Also FYI, fico scores on the credit card accounts all seem to be 770 and above

[Anonymous]

If you fly delta or American at least once per year, you can buy their gift card to use 100 dollar credit the card offers.

You can also try to use grubhub to utilize 10dollar/month dining credit.

If you can do both, AF will be effectively 30.

Amex MR points have poor value for cash redemption, only way to make it worthwhile is to transfer to a partner and use them for award travel.

If you plan to travel for leisure once every one or two years with flexibility schedule and destination, waiting for point transfer bonus and flight sales can get you a lot of miles per MR points. I have seem numbers from 2ccp to 10+cpp.

If you can only do fixed travel to certain locations at certain schedules, MR points can be transfered to fly on most airlines for a value around 1.2 to 1.7cpp.

Amex gold is probably the only every day spending card with excellent reward. Even if you can't max MR value, you still get average of 5-6 cpd on grocery dining, which is quite good.

[Shadowfactor]

As mentioned above point values change depending on the redemption.

Cash value is .6 cpp ( cents per point)

Minimum airline Value - 1 cpp

Minimum Hotel value - .8 cpp ( not sure about this valuation)

Transfering your miles to airline and Hotel programs will be the best use of your points as the value can really increase over using Amex's portal which I listed above.  If you dont intend on learning a little bit about transfering miles and redemption values or prefer OTA bookings you may be better served with a cashback card.

High annual fees dont always correlate to high spend or high income. I have ~1700 in annual fees a year and make less than 100K . It comes down to if you can take advantage of the different credits and benefits those high AF cards offer to reduce the AF.

 Amex Gold has a $250 AF with $100 Airline and $120 Dining which makes the card $30 if the credits are used. Most high annual fee cards work like this and they offer better rewards then other cards with lower upfront AF's.

How do you know if a card is worth it.

Will you use the credits to help offset the annual fee ? Do you have a plan to redeem the points to get a decent value out of them ? You need to make a spreadsheet of your spend and see if you would spend enough with the previous two points to justify a AF card vs no AF

[quarius]

They just sent me this mailer also for the gold card. Not sure I want or even need the card other than the 50k signup points but it doesn't even look like the waive that $250 annual fee for first year.

[Priory_Man]

No waiver on the fee, but for a $2000 spend over 3 months the 50k reward is good.

[Anonymous]

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@drave199 wrote:

because I did get an offer in the mail for it (also got one for the Platinum which is odd and way out of my range)

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Did you get the Platinum offer with 100,000 MR points by chance? Might be worthwhile at least for the first year if you plan to do even a limited amount of travelling. It's also not that odd to get offers for Amex charge cards, platinum or not - they cast a pretty wide net, and Amex charge cards are far easier to get than credit cards. You'll find plenty of people here with mid 600 range credit scores with Amex gold, plat, and if I recall, there was even an 18 year old with no credit history here who applied for an Amex Platinum and approved...

[Creditdreamer]

As far as the budget portion of your post (tracking transactions etc.), there are a few apps and programs out there to assist with keeping track of everything. It takes a bit of learning and playing with the programs, but they can be very beneficial if you use them regularly. I wish I had started using one at the beginning of my credit journey instead of waiting. Anyway, the one I use is called YNAB (You Need A Budget). It's awesome. You have to pay for it but it's totally worth it. Also, there are other free ones like Every Dollar and Mint. Though Mint is a bit different because it auto loads all your transactions so it's not geared toward looking at your purchases ahead of time to see if they fit into your budget.

As far as the Gold goes, I spend about $1000-1200 per month in qualifying purchases (and some others) and it's worth it for me. With the effective $30 annual fee, it pays for itself quickly. I have moved from my BCE/BCP to the Gold and all MR points recently in an effort to keep all my points with one system. I've also been able to get some good redemptions on airfare etc with transfer partners at about 5/6 cent per point meaning I'm getting an effective "cash back" amount of 5%-24% (depending on which card I used to get the points).

[drave199]

Thanks for the help everyone. It seems this might not be the right card for me, its more for someone who travels a lot, which I dont unfortunately (maybe once per year and a lot of times its by car). Also I dont dine out a lot and even so, they have a limited amount of restaurant to choose from. The 4x back on the supermarkets I would definately benefit from but not enough to make it worth while. Theres no doubt Id be able to spend the 2k in 3 months and get the 50k points but I think im going to just use my upgrade and get the BCP and utilize the 6% on supermarkets and 3% on gas. Then use my Chase and its 5% when possible. 

I think I was more looking at the metal card and thinking, hmmm id like that in my wallet haha. and of course the appeal of a charge card.

I actaully had thoughts of applying for the Gold card AND upgrading to the BCP. I would probably pay for the $95 AF by buying gas alone for the year.

[Creditdreamer]

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@drave199 wrote:

Thanks for the help everyone. It seems this might not be the right card for me, its more for someone who travels a lot, which I dont unfortunately (maybe once per year and a lot of times its by car). Also I dont dine out a lot and even so, they have a limited amount of resturants to choose from. The 4x back on the supermarkets I would definately benefit from but not enough to make it worth while. Theres no doubt Id be able to spend the 2k in 3 months and get the 50k points but I think im going to just use my upgrade and get the BCP and utilize the 6% on supermarkets and 3% on gas. Then use my Chase and its 5% when possible. 

I think I was more looking at the metal card and thinking, hmmm id like that in my wallet haha. 

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The metal card part is nice.

The 4x MR points for restaurants applies to almost all restaurants (though not DoorDash as I've learned). The dining credit of $10 is useable in a lot of ways. I didn't want to pay for delivery etc on GrubHub so I actually used the credit for pick up of the food at a restaurant I go to anyway. So that worked out. Just another option to consider. In the end you have to look at your spending and see if it's worth it.

[drave199]

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@Creditdreamer wrote:

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@drave199 wrote:

Thanks for the help everyone. It seems this might not be the right card for me, its more for someone who travels a lot, which I dont unfortunately (maybe once per year and a lot of times its by car). Also I dont dine out a lot and even so, they have a limited amount of resturants to choose from. The 4x back on the supermarkets I would definately benefit from but not enough to make it worth while. Theres no doubt Id be able to spend the 2k in 3 months and get the 50k points but I think im going to just use my upgrade and get the BCP and utilize the 6% on supermarkets and 3% on gas. Then use my Chase and its 5% when possible. 

I think I was more looking at the metal card and thinking, hmmm id like that in my wallet haha. 

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The metal card part is nice.

The 4x MR points for restaurants applies to almost all restaurants (though not DoorDash as I've learned). The dining credit of $10 is useable in a lot of ways. I didn't want to pay for delivery etc on GrubHub so I actually used the credit for pick up of the food at a restaurant I go to anyway. So that worked out. Just another option to consider. In the end you have to look at your spending and see if it's worth it.

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I thought I read the resturants were limited to like grub hub, cheesecake factory and Ruths Chris among a couple others?