Financial Freedom 101

The American Express Gold Card, In my opinion is the top credit card for young adults. I run this card for my small business and my personal expenses, The American Express Gold Card offers an insane amount value, as it earns 4x points at restaurants and U.S. supermarkets ($25,000 annual spending cap), plus bonus points for qualifying travel purchases. This premium rewards card isn’t cheap, either it has a $250 annual fee and if you use the card right you could easily surpass that fee with bonus offers and Amex reward points. This card benefits include, a dining credit of up to $120 each year and a $120 Uber credit each year. That alone is a $240 value which leaves you with $10 left on the annual fee.

How Do I Maximize My Gold Card?

Welcome Bonus

The biggest gain of points or miles you can get from a credit card usually comes from the sign-up bonus also known as a welcome bonus. The Amex Gold offers 60,000 points when you spend $4,000 in the first six months with the card. When you apply through my link, you might be able to get a special offer of 75,000 points with the same spend requirement.

I was lucky to get the special 75,000 points offer, and after moving all of my spending to the card, I met the spend requirement in half the time and I received value of $750 after hitting the requirements.

Another simple hack you can do to achieve the welcome bonus TWICE is after having the Card for one year you are able to ask American Express for a retention offer. This Offer allows you to get the same exact welcome bonus twice. This is a $1500 amex points value in just one year!

Use The American Express Gold In Grocery Stores

The American Express gold card is the absolute best card for grocery expenses. It is the perfect card for foodies. It earns you a ton of American Express Membership Rewards whether you prefer eating out, ordering in or cooking yourself. This makes it pretty easy to earn American Express reward points. It’s the highest rate you’ll find on grocery expenses.

For example, at U.S. supermarkets, you can earn 4 points per dollar (on up to $25,000 per calendar year, 1 point per dollar thereafter). For that reason, the Gold is my go-to grocery card.

A simple rewards point hack if you ever have to gift someone a gift card is to stock up on gift cards from grocery stores. Buying gift cards from grocery stores is a simple hack that will help you get the most out of the gold card.

My sister runs a travel blog and whenever she’s going to travel abroad for a long time she stocks up on airbnb gift cards from the local grocery store. She’s not only gaining those American Express points but then she’s using those points for her flights which makes it more affordable for her to travel.

Is Amex Gold Good For dining?

The Amex Gold also earns 4 points per dollar at restaurants, including takeout and delivery in the U.S. I use it on all of my dinner purchases. If I’m out to dinner with a lot of people I always use my card to pay the whole bill and then have the people I’m with pay me back. Theirs been dinners where I’ve earned over 4000 points because I flashed my card at the end to get the most out of my rewards points.

The card also has the $120 Dining Credit. Earn up to $10 in statement credits monthly when you pay with the American Express Gold Card at Grubhub, The Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, Wine.com, Milk Bar and select Shake Shack locations.

Does The amex Gold Have Special offers

YES, At the beginning of each week I scroll through my amex app and look for offers, some offers can be just a little something, others can offer some serious value, but it always pays off to keep an eye on them.

Right now Amex had an offer where if I spend $100 on LuluLemon I get 2,000 points back. a $20 value practically 20% off Lululemon a company that rarely has discounts. Christmas is upon us so once I saw that offer I used it right away for a Christmas present this season.

These offers are another way to combat the annual fee. My total savings this year is $75 just from offers alone. So with using my dining credit and Uber credit once a month and using as many offers as possible at the moment I’ve profited $65 from my $250 annual fee this year!

Bottom Line

The Amex gold card is the absolute best card on the market for foodies and spending in general. One thing this card lacks in my opinion is gas rewards points for the personal cardholders. On my Amex Gold Business card we get 4x back on all gas but on the personal cards this is not an offer. You can rack up rewards quickly with this card, especially if you know how to maximize this card’s potential. I love this card and I love recommending it. You may also snag a nice offer on my link – it pulls offers based on your credit profile for free and without impact to your credit.