Business gold rewards card

  American Express Credit Cards

Amex Webpage

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Business Card Only

Annual Fee

$175, waived first year

Current Offer

You often can get a 75,000 point offer ($10,000 initial spend) by calling and asking.

Typical Signup Offer

50,000 Membership Reward points

$5,000 initial spend

($700 net value, .14/$)

Signup Bonus Chart

Bonus Categories

3x Choice of One Business Category (≈4.5%)

2x The Other Business Categories (≈3%)

1x Everywhere Else (≈1.5%)

No Foreign Transaction Fee

Membership Rewards Guide

The Business Gold Rewards card is one of the best credit cards for earning bonus rewards for online advertising expenses.

Jump to

• Intro to Membership Rewards
• Signup Bonus
• Other Notable Benefits
• Bonus Categories

Introduction to Membership Reward Points

Membership Rewards is the name of Amex's own rewards program. Membership Rewards Guide

• Membership Rewards points can be transferred to many different frequent flyer programs. This gives you the flexibility to take advantage of award space on over a hundred different airlines. In many cases, you can choose to book a flight through one of several different partner programs, allowing you to take advantage of whichever program requires the fewest miles and fees for your trip.
• Membership Rewards has many more airline partners than the other big credit card reward programs, such as Chase's Ultimate Rewards and Citi's ThankYou Rewards. They also have many more credit cards with Membership Rewards bonuses. If you are willing and able to use your points to book frequent flyer tickets, especially premium cabin award tickets, Membership Rewards is the most valuable reward program.
• Amex frequently offers promotional transfer bonuses. When the promotion is active, you'll get extra airline miles when you transfer your Membership Rewards points to a specific airline. For example, if American Express is offering a 40% bonus for British Airways, you'll receive 14,000 British Airways points for every 10,000 Membership Rewards points you transfer. See Take Advantage of Transfer Bonuses to Get More Value from Your Reward Points for more information or visit Frequent Miler’s Current Transfer Bonuses page for a list of current (and past) promotions.
• Unlike Ultimate Rewards points, frequent flyer tickets are usually the only good option for redeeming your Membership Reward points. Membership Rewards' transfer rates for hotel programs aren't very attractive, it doesn't partner with any fixed-value airline programs (like Southwest), and you'll only get 1 cent per point when you use them to purchase travel through Amex.
• The only exceptions are for certain Amex Platinum cardholders:
• Amex BUSINESS Platinum Cardholders get a 35% rebate on some airfare purchases made through Amex. This works out to a value of 1.54 cents per point. While this isn't as much as we hope to get by using our Membership Reward points for frequent flyer tickets, you'll always get decent value from your points and don't have to worry about finding available award space. It is a lot better than purchasing travel at only 1 cent per point.
• Amex SCHWAB Platinum Cardholders get an option to cash out their points at 1.1 cents per point (1.25 cents through September).
• We value Membership Reward points at 1.5 cents each. Because you can take advantage of award space and "sweet spots" from many different frequent flyer programs and the occasional transfer bonus, Membership Reward points are worth more than any single type of airline miles. If you highly valuable premium-cabin award tickets, Membership Reward points are worth even more. But if you want to avoid the hassles associated with frequent flyer tickets, they are worth significantly less. How Much are Points Worth?

Collecting the Signup Bonus

• It is worth signing up for this card, just to collect the signup bonus. After subtracting the annual fee and the opportunity cost of using the card for $point of spending, the calculated net value for the initial year is $50000 ( cents per dollar spent). Even better targeted offers are sometimes available.

After subtracting the opportunity cost of using the card for $5,000 of spending, the calculated net value of the sign-up is $700 (14 cents per dollar spent). Your value may be higher or lower, depending on how much you value the points. Introduction to 'Transferable' Reward Points

• You can only earn the signup bonus once per lifetime. With Amex cards, you are normally not entitled to earn the signup bonus, if you've ever had the card before. However, you may eventually receive a targeted offer that bypasses this limitation, allowing you to earn the bonus an additional time.
• You may want to wait until you receive a better than normal offer. Since Amex will normally only let you receive the signup bonus once per lifetime, and frequently offers promotional signup offers, it can be worthwhile to postpone signing up, so you don't waste your bonus on a less valuable offer.
• You can earn Membership Reward points from many different credit cards. While you can normally only earn each signup bonus once, there are more than a dozen cards with Membership Reward signup bonuses. You can combine multiple sign-ups to earn hundreds of thousands of Membership Reward points.

Other Notable Benefits

• Free roadside assistance. The roadside assistance benefit that comes with most credit cards simply connects you a to nearby service provider. But this card actual pays for your roadside assistance services, including towing, lockout assistance, spare tire installation, jump starts, or emergency fuel. Free towing only includes the first 10 miles. Get Free or Discounted Roadside Assistance with these Credit Cards.
• Amex Hotel Collection. When you use this luxury hotel program program to book a two night stay at one of the participating hotels, you'll get a room upgrade (upon availability) and a $100 credit to spend on dining, spa, and resort activities. Hotel Collection Website.
• Access to Amex Offers. Amex continuously provides discount offers to their cardholders. Most of the offers are in the form of "Spend $x, get $y back", but other offers are in the form of "x% off your entire order" or "Earn an extra Membership Reward point on your purchases". To take advantage of the offers, you need to go to the Amex website, find the ones you are interested in, and "add them" to your card. Each offer will then be automatically applied when you use your card to make the corresponding purchase. Amex Offers Website.
• Free ShopRunner membership. As with all Amex cards, you are entitled to a complimentary ShopRunner membership, which provides free two-day and return shipping from around 150 of the largest online retailers. ShopRunner Website
• Exclusive access to entertainment events. Amex sponsors cardmember-only events around the country and also provides early ticket access for some other shows.

Bonus Categories

• The Business Gold Rewards card earns bonus rewards on five different "business-related" categories: Advertising (in selected media), shipping, airfare, gas, and computer-related purchases.
• You can choose one category to earn 3x rewards, the other categories will earn 2x rewards. If your business advertises online, you'll probably want to choose the advertising category, especially because you can earn bonus rewards on airfare from other cards. Only the Chase Ink Preferred card offers a comparable reward rate on advertising (or shipping expenses).
• 2x rewards on the non-selected categories is good, but not as good as you can earn from other cards. The no-annual-fee Blue Business Plus card earns 2x Membership Reward points on all purchases. There are several options for earning even higher rewards on each of the individual categories.
• You don't want to use this card for your everyday spending. You'll earn higher rewards from a good general-purpose reward card. Get a Great General Purpose Reward Card and Use It for All of Your Spending.

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