Updated April 2, 2026.

The Facts

• Annual Fee: $325 for the primary cardholder; up to 5 free additional cards, and $35 per card for additional cards thereafter.

• Signup Bonus: "as high as" 100,000 points ($1,000 in airfare, gift cards, etc., or 100K miles of Avianca, Air Canada, ANA, Singapore, British, Cathay Pacific, Delta, Flying Blue, etc.) after your spend $6,000 within 6 months of new account opening and. The signup bonus is not available to applicants who have or have had this card or Amex Premier Rewards Gold Card. Historical best bonus of this card: (1) 90,000 points + $250 for dining in 2022 via referrals; (2) 100,000 points in 2025 and 2026; (3) 75,000 points + $250 for dining in late 2021 via Resy; (4) 75,000 points + $200 for home furnishing in 2021; (5) 75,000 points in 2021; (6) 60,000 points + $250 for dining in late 2020 via Resy; (7) 60,000 points in 2020; (8) 50,000 points + $100 dining credits in 2018 & 2019; (9) 50,000 points several times in the last years.

• Application landing page

• Rewards: 4x grocery stores in the U.S. (up to $25,000 spent per year) and dining (up to $50,000 spent per year), 3x airfare, 2x prepaid hotels and other eligible purchases via Amex Travel, and 1x everywhere else.

• Best Use of Membership Rewards (MR) Points: Normally, Amex Membership Rewards points can be redeemed at up to 1 cent per point (cpp) for the following categories: statement credit (0.6 cpp), gift cards (0.7~1 cpp), flights (1 cpp), other travel (0.7 cpp), shopping with partners at checkout (0.7 cpp), merchandise through Amex shopping portal (0.5 cpp), etc. However, Amex Gold, along with certain other Amex products, is eligible for the transfer feature that allows points to be transferred to frequent flyer miles or frequent guest points. Please see our featured review on the major programs that have the transfer feature - Marriott vs. MR. vs. UR vs. TY vs. C1 vs. CR.

• Semi-annual/monthly credits: (1) Up to $120 Uber Cash each calendar year ($10 Uber Cash for each month which expires by the first day of next month). You must add the Amex Gold as one of the payment methods in your Uber app or Uber Eats app and select the Uber Cash before the ride or order you want to apply the credit for. (2) Up to $120 dining credit each year (up to $10 per month at participating partners). The current participating partners are GrubHub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Ruth's Chris Steak House, Boxed, and Five Guys. (3) Up to $100 Resy dining credit (up to $50 semi-annually). (4) Up to $84 Dunkin’ credit (up to $7 per month).

• Hotel Privileges: The Hotel Collection, a collection of over 1,000 upscale hotels and resorts worldwide, offering $100 credit and room upgrade upon availability when booking a two-night-minimum stay.

• Other Benefits: (1) Amex Offers - you receive savings in form of statement credit or earn bonus MR points on select merchants when using your Amex card; you need to manually add an offer to your Amex card to be eligible for savings or bonus, and unlike other savings/bonus programs, you don't need to shop through a certain portal. (2) ShopRunner membership for free 2-day shipping with select merchants. (3) Waived foreign transaction fees. It also comes with an embedded EMV chip. (4) Gold Card Destinations (vacation package savings). (5) Entertainment Access (a.k.a. Membership Experiences) including American Express Presale, American Express Preferred Seating, and Premium Access (Dining Access).

• Other Facts: this card has a metal design and weighs around 15 grams, three times as heavy as regular plastics. Starting 2021, you may choose between the regular Gold or the Rose Gold design.

• History: Amex changed the Gold Card several times throughout the past years. Before 2010, Amex Gold was considered weak in rewards and high in annual fees ($175), and was only recommended for its image of superior social status. In 2010, Amex changed the name to Premier Rewards Gold Card and finally made it attractive to regular consumers by introducing the 3-2-1 rewards structure and the 15K point booster when annual spending exceeds $30K. In January 2015, Amex took away the 15K point booster, which obviously made the card much less attractive. However, in June 2015, Amex increased the annual fee to $195 while introducing the $100 airline credit, a new 2x category (dining) and waived forex fees. This card became competitive again. In October 2018, Amex changed the name back to Amex Gold Card, increasing the annual fee to $250 (not waived any more), introducing the $120 dining credits, eliminating gas stations as bonus category, and increasing the bonus for groceries and dining from 2x to 4x points. This revamp made the Gold Card crazily lucrative for bonus category spending. In 2019, Amex finally introduced the metal design for the card and a limited time edition of Rose Gold color. In early 2021, Amex replaced the annual $100 airline incidental credit with the annual $120 Uber Cash and made Rose Gold design available as an option. In mid 2024, Amex increased the annual fee from $250 to $325 and introduced $84 Dunkin's and $100 Resy credits.

The Math
The card offers four types of monthly/semi-annual credits totaling up to $420 per year. We think it is difficult to treat them at face value so that we won't consider them directly as annual fee reducers. You need to decide their value yourself. For example, if you value them at $210, the effective annual fee becomes $115.

To unlock the excellent rewards power of the card, you need to use the miles/points transfer feature and know how to leverage Amex transfer partners' programs, which can be very rewarding and challenging at the same time. For example, if you happen to value MR points at 1.5 cents a piece with the miles/points transfer feature as we do, Amex Gold returns impressive 6% for groceries and dining and 4.5% for airfare. However, for general spending, we recommend looking somewhere else. For example, Amex EveryDay Preferred ($95 annual fee) which returns 1.5x (=2.25% travel rewards) MR points for general spending when you have at least 30 transactions per month and also 4.5x for groceries and 3x for gas can be a great card to pair with Amex Gold.

The Conclusion
The 2018 revamp finally put Amex Gold back to our prestigious Top 10 Best Credit Cards list; its lucrative 4-3-1 rewards make it one of the Best Credit Card for Rewards.