[Sticky] Is The Amex Gold Card Worth $325? 4x Points & $424 In Credits Says Yes

The restaurant category is far too limiting, especially overseas. A pricey eatery in Berlin where you make a reservation a month in advance, are greeted and seated by a host, order from a menu with a server, and have a lovely dinner? Obviously 4x points, right? Nein! Codes to Amex as a cafe. 1x points.

Want to impress your travel companion at 3-star Le Cinq in Paris? T'es bête! Amex will code it as hotel and 1x points. Oh, and don't forget the additional processing fee on Amex. -_-

You have to go through so much trial and error that relying on Amex coding becomes foolish. Just use a Chase card and get the reliable 3x points.

No it's not worth it unless you're trying to hawk this useless card.

1. Prices on uber eats are often inflated, and it being doled out in $10 increments is pointless. So no, you're not getting $10 same-as-cash value, you're getting $6 same-as-cash value.

2. Dunkin? Hell no.

3. The Resy credit is also not worth it, unless you eat alone. No restaurant wants to split the bill more than 2 ways, and nobody's going to want to eat with you because you made your restaurant selection on getting a $50 discount on a $80 meal.

I'm only consistently using the Uber and Dunkin credits. I could probably make the Resy work if I remembered. The bigger issue for me is understanding how to leverage the MR points after accumulating them. I don't travel internationally and feel like after I cancel my Business Gold, the point redemption will get harder to justify.

I cancelled mine due the following:
1. $120 Uber Cash - I would only value this at $80 Maximum, as even with pickup via uber eats, the charges are grossly inflated due to fees.
2. $100 Resy credit - I value this at the full $100, since it's easily used in nyc.
3. $120 dining credit - Again, I would only value this at a maximum of $80, since the charges are usually grossly inflated due to fees.
4. $84 Dunkin’ credit - even if I valued this at the full amount, the annual fee would still be more than the benefits this card provides.

Obviously depends on if you already order via grubhub/uber eats on a monthly basis, but I just don't see a use case for this card unless you're spending a ludicrous amount of money on restaurants/groceries

I stopped putting my restaurant spend on the Amex Gold when Citi Prestige went to 5x on restaurants. So now, only time I use it is for grocery stores. Not sure it's still worth it.

As others have mentioned, I don't value the Uber and Grubhub credits as face value because everything is marked up on those platforms.

By your own math (let's assume you value the Dunkin credit at half = $42) you just earned $302. You're only $23 short of the annual fee! So you don't need to spend a 'ludicrous' amount on restaurant/groceries. Heck my family and I spend about $800 a month on this card and we're easily profiting.

Also while I agree the Uber credit should be de-valued if using for Uber Eats, it can of course also be used for Uber itself where it is worth face value assuming you take one Uber a month

1. You can also use the credits on Uber rideshare, if you take at least one uber a month
3. What? Restaurants split bills all the time. Or pay for the whole thing and have people venmo you. Or buy a gift card at the restaurant. Or get take-out.

Have to disagree on the Uber thing. The algorithm increases your price if you have a credit. So, not at face value.

And for these stupid coupon book cards.... There has to beore than just "earning" back the AF or feeling like you came out ahead. Some true added value like a great points multiplier, lounge access, or something like that.

Seriously, who wants to bother with all that nonsense just to come out a few measly bucks ahead? Better be a big points earn or tangible benefit

Used to be sexy. Now it's not.

Common sense says "No" .

Absolutely not.

4x on restaurants and groceries is either best in class or close to it. So yeah, pretty darn good points multiplier

The Dunkin’ Credit isn’t hard, I have a calendar reminder to charge top off my gift card with $7 at the end of the month. If I were a more ambitious developer, it could probably be automated. For me the RESY and dinning credits are more difficult.

To be honest, this has been a card I struggle with keeping, as I don't spend much on it, as I'm currently focusing on earnings on other transferable currencies or working on my Atmos status. But I did the math and (for now) I am close to break even on the credits.

Helps that I will reload my Dunkin card when the month rolls over (I only value it at $40), and now the $10 dining credit is easier to use for Grubhub when I use the credit in concert with the Bilt $10 monthly Grubhub credit (redeemed with Bilt Cash). At first Bilt would give you a gift card, but now it's a promo code, with the key being you can use the promo code and pay with any card. As long as I can combine the Bilt credit with the Gold dining credit, that combination actually improves the value for both cards.

Spending to earn SUBs aside, I think the simple math is what always wins the day.

If you are spending $25k a year on restaurants/supermarkets, you're getting an extra 25k points versus a 3x restaurant/supermarkets card like the $95 citi strata premier, for instance. If you generally value points at 1.5cpp (and I hear you conservatively value points), that's $375 of value.

So, in your case, you are paying $325, less credits, for $375.

I discount the value of any 'credit' by some discount factor because of prepayment and because it does take some effort to use. Seems like there's $220 of credits you actually use and value - let's discount that to $200 for these purposes. So you're really paying $125 net for $375 in value, and you are $250 to the good. Plus you are earning a currency that *could* get you more than 1.5cpp if you have any idea what you are doing (and I hear you might be an expert in these things).

If you're not spending at least $10,000 a year on the 4x categories though, it's probably not worth your time. Just get a 3x citi strata premier for $95 (or $0 if you use it's one and only $100 hotel credit).

I had the same issue, found out that Chase is much better at coding restaurants properly than Amex… but now just use Atmos Summit for foreign restaurant spend - guaranteed 3x is better than sometimes 4x but often 1x Amex disappointment…

"effectively cash toward something almost everyone uses — a ride or food delivery."

A little bit out of touch on this one lucky. I think my last Uber was in October and I don't think I've ordered delivery since covid. I dint understand the concept of paying essentially double the menu price to get cold food. And no one I know does either

sure, if you look at it from the perspective of a person with only a gold card available to them, it's not bad...maybe even good for some.

but to say you're easily profiting is such an awful take when you consider the alternative cards for groceries and restaurants that have no annual fees.

Agree,
while I use Uber/Lyft occasionally, if public transport is inconvenient, I have not ordered from Uber Eats for more than 3 years.

This is a card for the SUB only.

Most of our (and many families) grocery spend goes to Coscto, and Costco doesn't take AMEX. We rarely eat at restauarants (unhealthly with too much sodium and sugar), and when we do, 3x from CSR is good enough. According to my budget, we spend about $1,000 per month on food -- likely 60% Costco/25%Kroger/15%Restaurant. We earn 1x at Costco and would shop there even it that was 0x. We earn 2x at Kroger and 3x on restauart, so, we are gvining up 2x on $250 per month at Kroger and 1x on $150 per month at restaurants. That comes to 7,800 points per year, worth $133 at 1.7 cpp.

Don't do prepaid hotels

Use AMEX Plat for 5x on flights.

Don't do prepaid car rentals.

$120 Dining credit and $84 Dunkin credit are useless. Why would anyone want to regularly eat at Dunkin? Might as well eat lard from a can with some sugar sprinkled on top.

Uber and Resy worth about $80 and $50 respectively, for $130.

So, grand total beneifts $263 vs $325 AF, makes this NOT A KEEPER!

The ONLY time high annual fee cards are worthwhile is when getting the sign-up bonus. The coupon clipping is a nuisance and generally not worth the bother. As on that lives in a semi rural area Uber anything isn't even available. Resy ain't here either. Get the card with a bonus then dump it. And good luck using points! Planning ahead yields 800K RT J tickets. Perhaps bargains exist for close in days like Ben uses, but most of us have to plan.

I think it's harder to justify the Gold at $325 than it was at $250. Even if you do value some of the credits at close to face because they work well for you, that's still a lot of spending on dining and/or groceries as well as redeeming MR to justify one extra point over Capital One Savor (no fee), or Citi Premier ($95).

If you shop at Whole Foods, Chase can even work decently with (usually) one or two quarters of 5X on Freedom Flex (between groceries and Amazon), 3X dining on most UR cards, and then cash back on the Prime Card for the rest of the year.

I struggle with personal Gold being worth it for me personally. We don't really use Uber with any consistent frequency and don't do UberEats at all. We don't really eat at the $10/month dining partners or order GrubHub. We don't frequent Dunkin but could use this to buy Dunkin credit that we would use when we travel, particularly when in the Northeast. We would use the Resy credit but even if we value the Resy credit and Dunkin credit at face value, that only gets us to $320/year. Personal Gold only makes sense for me for year 1.

We have a Business Gold so already get the 4X on dining there plus access to the Hotel Collection/$100 Property credit. Business Gold is easy to justify for us to justify as Walmart+ (and accompanying free Peacock) and $20/month at Staples pays for the card easily and without any extra work.

So then its just groceries. And, for us, grocery spend goes on Hilton Surpass until we get to the $15k spend per year between groceries, gas, and Hilton purchases.

I just looked over my Gold Card's 2025 year end summary PDF to decide if I was going to cancel before my AF. It's a quick way to see exactly how much you earned in the bonus categories. In my case, I earn about 50k a year versus charging dining and groceries on my other cards.

Agree with @Adam L below, the bonus categories are nearly useless outside the US.

Possible to find plenty of restaurants that dont markup fees on Uber vs direct order. In fact I have a few in my area where its actually cheaper to use Uber eats pickup as on direct order they add a 3.5% surcharge for using credit card not charged on uber platform.

Only wish Costco brings back the gift cards for Uber at 20% off which makes the deal even sweeter

I use my Uber Eats credits for takeout

What no annual fee cards offer 4x transferrable points on grocery/restaurant?

I have two with my wife and we use all the credits. I buy 2 Dunkin' GCs and easily sell them for a profit on Raise. Grocery and restaurants are the only other use. I book airfare on my Ritz card for the excellent trip insurance.

Going to ditch the card w/o the corporate discount on it... Coupon book is just too annoying to deal with.

Had the Amex Gold card and was planning to cancel with the AF increase to $325. Fortunately, I was able to take advantage of the opportunity to upgrade to Amex Platinum.

I find Amex Uber credits to be almost worthless, as it's typically cheaper to ride Lyft for less than Uber, even with/including the monthly Amex credit. Seems that Uber gouges you on basic ride share charges but tries to earn some goodwill by giving back some of their excess profits in the form of Amex promotional credits. I'm wise to their game.