American Express Gold card review: How the best card for buying food nearly pays for itself

Our quick take: The American Express® Gold Card is a foodie’s dream, allowing you to rack up plenty of Amex Membership Rewards points with its bonus categories on dining worldwide and at US supermarkets. And thanks to the card’s monthly credits, the Amex Gold nearly pays for itself every year.

Pros:

Cons:

Current welcome bonus: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $6,000 on eligible purchases within the first six months after opening the account.

Best for: Points-minded travelers who spend significant money each month on dining, groceries and travel.

Learn more and apply for the American Express Gold card.

American Express Gold card benefits

The American Express Gold is a standout card, largely due to its clear efforts to be top-of-wallet in a few categories that are significant to many US households. Take a look at your budget — do you spend a fair amount of your cash on food? Chances are, the answer is yes.

Amex designed the Gold Card to cater to those who spend nontrivial amounts at restaurants and on groceries, offering 4 points for every dollar you spend at restaurants worldwide and at supermarkets in the United States (up to $25,000 in purchases each year and 1 point per dollar after that). You’ll also net 3 points per dollar on flights booked directly with airlines, which isn’t too shabby.

The current 60,000-point welcome bonus — earned after you spend $6,000 on purchases in your first six months of card membership — is more than enough for multiple domestic flights. Those American Express Membership Rewards points are worth at least $600 when you redeem them via Amex Travel for airfare, and potentially a lot more than that with Amex’s airline and hotel transfer partners.

In 2018, American Express introduced a limited-time Rose Gold design for the Amex Gold, which was so popular that it was brought back for a limited-time in 2019. Rose Gold is now a permanent option for new card holders and you can choose between the original Gold or Rose Gold card when approved.

But here’s the best part: When you combine the bonus with up to $120 in annual dining credits on the card and up to $120 in Uber Cash each year, American Express is almost paying you to keep the Amex Gold in your wallet.

Click here for the bonus offer on the American Express Gold card.

Advantages of the American Express Gold

The biggest long-term advantage of the American Express Gold is its superior earning rate at U.S. supermarkets and restaurants worldwide. With no foreign transaction fees (see rates and fees), this should be your go-to card for dining at restaurants everywhere you go. In fact, those bonus categories are so strong that it may be worth holding this card even if you only ever use it for dining and groceries.

Given that this is very much a food lover’s card, it comes as no surprise to see up to $120 in annual statement credits are available for select dining spots as well. You can earn up to $10 in statement credits each month (so, $120 annually) when you pay with the Gold Card at Grubhub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, Wine.com, Milk Bar and select Shake Shack locations.

But that’s only the half of it. The Amex Gold also comes with several enticing benefits, including $10 in Uber Cash each month. Uber Cash can be used either for Uber rides in the US or food delivery orders made with Uber Eats. Add it all together, and you’re getting up to $240 in credits every 12 months. Since the Amex Gold has an annual fee of $250, if you can use all the credits, you’re effectively paying only $10 for the card each year.

And then there are the points. How much potential value can you get with the Membership Rewards points you earn with the Amex Gold? One option is to exchange points for cash in order to pay down the balance due on your statement. When you redeem that way, each point nets you 0.6 cents.

You can also shop at Amazon with Amex points at a rate of 0.7 cents apiece, or redeem for an array of gift cards or for airfare at Amex Travel at 1 cent per point. Plus, Amazon sometimes offers additional discounts on purchases when using Amex points to pay for even a part of your order.

But while the above options are easy — and yes, it’s important to have easy options — savvy travelers will want to utilize Amex’s 20 transfer partners for remarkable redemptions. Amex has partnerships with myriad hotels and airlines, enabling Membership Rewards points to be used for travel that would be prohibitively expensive if paid for in cash. For example, you can redeem points to book some of the best first and business class seats in the sky for under 100,000 points when you leverage transfer partners.

Amex also includes some travel benefits with the Gold Card, including a baggage insurance plan covering eligible lost, damaged or stolen baggage when you purchase the entire fare for a plane, train, ship or bus ticket with the card. In addition, you’ll receive secondary rental car loss and damage insurance for most vehicle types and in most countries.

Another benefit of the Amex Gold is trip delay insurance, meaning if your trip is delayed more than 12 hours due to a covered reason, you can earn up to $300 in unexpected expenses reimbursed.

A couple of overlooked-but-useful perks: American Express cardholders are often eligible for early access to tickets through Ticketmaster. Getting a head start on ticket sales might be the difference between an enviable seat and a chair in the nosebleeds. You’ll also receive a $100 experience credit with a two-night stay when you book The Hotel Collection through American Express Travel (experience credit varies by property).

Amex Offers are also quite useful. This is a rotating selection of discounts, covering everything from clothing to tax preparation software to travel. Those who make a habit of watching new ones pop up can save hundreds per year on purchases they were planning to make anyway.

Earn almost as much in statement credits as you pay for the American Express Gold card.

Disadvantages of the American Express Gold

The Amex Gold is a specialized card. Beyond dining, supermarkets and airfare, you’ll earn only 1 point for every dollar you spend on everything else. This means the card works best when paired with a card like our benchmark credit card, the Citi Double Cash Card®, for purchases that don’t fall into the Gold Card’s bonus categories.

While the included credits are worth almost as much as the annual fee each year, they take a bit of strategy to use. The credits are capped at $10 per month, so you can’t just use them in one fell swoop. Plus, the list of eligible restaurants is small. If you live in an urban area where Grubhub and Seamless are available, using this credit is easier since you can order delivery or takeout from any participating restaurant. But if you don’t have this option, maximizing the dining credit might be a challenge.

While this won’t impact many families, the 4x return at U.S. supermarkets is capped at $25,000 per calendar year with the Gold Card. If you spend more than that on groceries in a year, you’ll earn just 1 point per dollar after that.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that Membership Rewards points take some studying and effort to really maximize. Managing transfer partners and dealing with dynamic award charts may feel like too much work for many, and you can’t easily transfer Amex points to friends who may view this as a hobby. If you’re looking for travel rewards that are easier to redeem, consider the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card or Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card as an alternative.

Stacking up the American Express Gold against our benchmark

CNN Underscored has chosen the Citi Double Cash card as our “benchmark” credit card. That doesn’t mean it’s the best credit card on the market — rather, it means we use it as a basic standard to compare other credit cards and see where they score better, and where they’re worse.

Here’s how the Amex Gold scores against our benchmark. The benefits of each card in the below chart are colored in green, red or white. Green indicates a card feature that is better than our benchmark. Red indicates the feature is worse than our benchmark, and white indicates the feature is either equivalent or cannot be directly compared to our benchmark.

View this interactive content on CNN.com

When reviewing other credit cards, we use this format and these criteria to compare them with our benchmark. You can read our credit card methodology for more details on what we take into account when it comes to perks, protections and redemption value.

Start earning bonus points at restaurants and U.S. supermarkets with the Amex Gold card.

Other credit cards similar to the Amex Gold

For foodies, there’s one other notable credit card to consider: the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card. This cash back credit card has a $95 annual fee and offers unlimited 4% cash back on dining, entertainment and eligible music and video streaming services, 3% cash back at grocery stores and 1% cash back on all other purchases. You’ll also earn 10% cash back on Uber and Uber Eats purchases and enjoy a free Uber One membership through Nov. 11, 2024.

If you prefer cash back over travel points or miles, the Savor card may be the way to go — particularly if you can’t easily leverage the annual credits on the Amex Gold. However, while cash back is infinitely more flexible than travel rewards — you can spend cash anywhere — you also can’t increase the value of cash back the way you potentially can with points or miles.

Membership Rewards points can be used with Amex’s transfer partners to score premium trips for much less than you’d normally pay in cash, effectively increasing the value of your points when you redeem them.

Also, although it may not be immediately apparent, folks who are fond of the bonus categories on the Amex Gold should also look at the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card. With a $150 annual fee (see rates and fees), this card earns 6 Hilton Honors points for every dollar you spend at U.S. restaurants, U.S. supermarkets and U.S. gas stations.

But keep in mind that points aren’t all created equal. According to the point valuations of frequent flyer website The Points Guy, American Express points are worth 2 cents apiece, while Hilton points are only worth 0.6 cents each. That makes 4 points on the Amex Gold worth 8 cents, while 6 Hilton points are worth just 3.6 cents.

Should you get the American Express Gold?

The American Express Gold is a must-have for those who know they’ll spend heavily at restaurants and U.S. supermarkets, and who also have the patience to maximize their Membership Rewards points through Amex’s transfer partners.

While cards like the Capital One Savor have a lower annual fee and no hoops to jump through to redeem your cash back, the 60,000-point bonus on the Amex Gold and benefits that can be worth almost as much as the annual fee make it the winner right now.

So if you’re looking to redeem credit card rewards for exotic travel, and you spend a lot of your time eating in or dining out, the Amex Gold could be a great fit for you. And if you decide it’s a card that should be in your wallet, make sure to grab it now and get it with the highest welcome bonus offer we’ve ever seen for it, and credits that make the card almost pay for itself.

Learn more about the American Express Gold Card.

Find out which cards CNN Underscored chose as our best credit cards currently available.

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