Amex has been on a roll over the last year with welcome bonuses. Along with massive welcome bonus offers for The Platinum Card® from American Express and no lifetime language offers for existing cardholders, Amex has also come out with some very high bonuses for the American Express® Gold Card.
Let’s take a look.
Targeted offers are discussed in the article below. Please note that these offers are not available to all applicants. Any information related to targeted offers has been collected independently and has not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
Amex Gold Card Welcome Bonus Offer
You’ll find a variety of welcome offer bonuses for the Amex Gold card, depending on how and when you apply.
The current public offer is: Earn 60,000 points when you spend $6,000 on purchases in the first 6 months.
We value Membership Rewards points at about 2.2 cents per point, which means that the 90,000-point bonus offer is worth ~$1,980 and a 60,000-point bonus offer is worth ~$1,320.
There are a few different methods you can try to find these offers:
Option 1: Check on Amex Directly (Try This First)
If you’re looking to pick up the Amex Gold card,we recommend you check first directly on the American Express website.
As mentioned above, the current public offer is: Earn 60,000 points when you spend $6,000 on purchases in the first 6 months.
However, our writers have seen that American Express will offer an elevated offer directly to targeted applicants. As with all targeted offers, these offers aren’t available to all applicants, but here’s an example of a targeted offer we’ve found through our research directly through American Express.
Option 2: Check on CardMatch
If you strike out on the American Express website, then the second option we recommend is checking through the CardMatch tool. This tool completes a “soft credit check” to see if you’re eligible for any elevated offers. Like the Amex check, it’s not a hard pull, so it won’t count against your credit.
To receive matches, you’ll need to fill out some personal information, such as your name, address, and email address.
You can also look for targeted email offers so long as you are opted-in to receive New Card and Credit Offers in your Amex account’s General Marketing Email Preferences.
Option 3: Snag a Referral
The highest welcome offers we’re currently seeing are coming from targeted referral offers. This means that you’ll want to find a friend (or 2) with an Amex Gold card. Have them send you their link and check out if it’s for the 90,000-point bonus. If not — try again.
Benefits of the Amex Gold Card
The Amex Gold card doesn’t come with a ton of different benefits, but it does feature strong earning categories and a couple of monthly credits:
- Up to $120 in Uber Cash: Received as a monthly $10 statement credit. Valid for both Uber rides and Uber Eats orders in the U.S.
- Up to $120 Dining Credit: Received as a monthly $10 credit and valid at a variety of locations, including Grubhub, The Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly,Wine.com, Milk Bar, and select Shake Shack locations. Enrollment required.
This is in addition to the 4x Amex points you’ll earn on dining (worldwide) and groceries (up to $25,000 per year, 1x thereafter). As you can see, this makes the Amex Gold card an excellent option for everyday spending.
Maximizing Your Membership Rewards Points
If you manage to grab those 90,000 Amex Membership Rewards points, you may want to consider how to spend them. 90k points offer you a range of options given the number of Amex transfer partners that are available.
Fly United Polaris to Europe and Back
ANA, a transfer partner of Amex, charges just 88,000 miles roundtrip for a Polaris business class flight to Europe. As a Star Alliance member, you can enjoy sundaes in the sky by redeeming miles on other Star Alliance partners, including United, Air Canada, Lufthansa, and Swiss.
Fly 3 Times to French Polynesia
Qantas points transfer over from Amex at a 1:1 ratio — and Qantas charges just 27,500 miles one-way for an economy class flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Papeete (PPT). With 90,000 miles, you’ll be able to make this flight 3 times and still have a few points left over.
Spend 11 Nights in Tokyo
Choice Hotels isn’t well-known in the award travel world, but it should be. Thanks to its sprawling portfolio of hotels and cheap redemption rates, you can find hotels for as few as 8,000 points per night, even in uber-expensive cities such as Tokyo.
Stay in a Hilton for a month
Amex points transfer over to Hilton Honors at a 1:2 ratio, which means your points are doubled as soon as you convert them (they’ll also often have transfer bonuses adding 20% to 30% to your points).
While we don’t always recommend making use of your Amex points like this, there are situations where it can be a good idea. Case in point: You can spend as little as 5,000 points per night to stay at a Hilton. Transfer over all 90,000 of your Amex points and you’ll end up with enough for 36 nights at one of these hotels.
Hot Tip: For more inspiration, check out the best ways to redeem your Amex Membership Rewards points (we also have guides for redeeming just 60,000 points) and how to upgrade your flight using Membership Rewards points.
Final Thoughts
If you don’t already have the Amex Gold card, now could be a great time to add it to your wallet. With a 90,000-point welcome offer on the books, there is a whole smorgasbord of redemptions from which to choose.
For rates and fees of the American Express® Gold Card, clickhere.
For rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, click here.
