My Amex Business Gold Card Application Approval Experience

Link: Apply now for the American Express® Business Gold Card

The American Express® Business Gold Card (review) is one of the most lucrative business cards for earning Amex Membership Rewards points. While the card has a substantial $375 annual fee (Rates & Fees), it’s potentially easy to justify, thanks to the rewards structure, the credits and benefits, and more.

Another huge incentive to apply for the card is that it consistently features a large welcome offer, which makes the card especially compelling for the first year.

In this post, I want to talk about the process of getting approved for the Amex Business Gold Card, and why it might be easier to get approved than you might think. For example, I just applied for the card, and was instantly approved.

Basic Amex Business Gold application restrictions

On the surface, there are just a few consistent restrictions when it comes to getting approved for the Amex Business Gold Card:

• The welcome offer is “once in a lifetime,” so you’re not eligible for the offer if you currently have the card, or have had the card in the past; however, as I’ll discuss below, there are some exceptions
• You are eligible for the welcome offer on this card if you’ve had any other Amex card, so you can apply for this card even if you have cards like The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (review)
  or American Express® Gold Card (review)
• While Amex typically has a limit of letting someone have at most five Amex credit cards (including personal and business cards), that doesn’t include this product, since it’s not a traditional credit card
• Amex will sometimes decide that people aren’t eligible for welcome offers on cards despite otherwise following the rules, and in those cases, you should get a pop-up during the application process
• If you’re worried about the Chase 5/24 limit, getting approved for the Amex Business Gold Card shouldn’t count as a further card toward that limit

Why the Amex Business Gold is easy to get approved for

Anecdotally speaking, I find the Amex Business Gold Card to be one of the easiest business cards to get approved for. As long as you have a decent credit score and income, you’ll find that a lot of people report instant approvals on this card. Keep in mind that even a sole proprietorship makes you eligible for this card (you can use your social security number as your tax ID, your name as your business name, etc.).

The fact that Amex business cards like this are generally easy to be approved for is no coincidence. For one, a lot of card issuers are focusing heavily on business cards, since they have higher interchange fees, so they’re more lucrative. Furthermore, this is a hybrid card rather than a traditional credit card, meaning that in theory, the balance has to be paid off in full each billing cycle. That makes the product lower risk for the card issuer.

Applying for the Amex Business Gold is low risk

Sometimes people are hesitant to apply for a card, because they’re worried they might be rejected. Now, getting denied for a card isn’t a big deal, but it’s even less big of a deal with Amex. When you go to the application page for the Amex Business Gold Card, you’ll see a note stating “Know if you’re approved with no personal credit score impact.”

As you’ll see explained there, you’ll get a decision about your approval without any impact on your personal credit score. So in the event you’re not approved for the card, it has absolutely no impact on your personal credit score. This is as risk-free as card applications come.

Also keep in mind that if you’re not sure if you’re eligible for the welcome offer, Amex will let you know before you submit your application that you’re not eligible. So as long as there’s not a message like that during your application, you’d be eligible for the offer.

Earning the Amex Business Gold welcome offer again

People often wonder if they can earn the welcome offer on the Amex Business Gold Card more than once. When you go to the standard application page, you’ll see the following verbiage:

You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card or previous versions of this Card.

Indeed, that’s pretty standard language for Amex cards, in line with the issuer’s “once in a lifetime” rule. The catch is that Amex also often targets people for cards with “no lifetime language,” as it’s called. If you’re eligible for these offers, you’ll often find them when logging into your Amex account, even with pop-ups (or you may receive them via email, snail mail, etc.).

To see if the offer you’re applying for has no lifetime language, just click on “Offer & Benefit Terms,” and see if the above language about not being eligible for the welcome offer shows up. If it doesn’t, you should be good to go.

Let me give an example. I had the Amex Business Gold Card several years back, but canceled it. Recently I logged into my Amex account and went to the Amex Offers section, and saw an offer to apply for the card again, despite having had the card more recently.

There was no language in the terms about the offer being limited to those who had never had the card before, so I applied and was approved, despite having had the card years ago.

So it’s just worth keeping this in mind. I know some people might be hesitant to apply for the card because they know they’ll only be able to earn the offer once. However, that’s not consistently the case in practice.

Bottom line

The Amex Business Gold Card consistently has a large welcome offer, making it a pretty lucrative card to pick up. Best of all, I find the card to be extremely easy to be approved for, assuming you have decent income and credit. While the offer on the card is “once in a lifetime,” keep an eye out for targeted offers with “no lifetime language,” as I’ve now been targeted for these a couple of times.

If you’ve applied for the Amex Business Gold Card, what was your experience like?

The following links will direct you to the rates and fees for mentioned American Express Cards. These include: American Express® Business Gold Card (Rates & Fees).