Amex Gold Card 4X Dining Category Will Expand Worldwide

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There’s some exciting news for Amex Gold cardholders or those looking to jump on the card. Beginning in only a couple of days, the Gold Card is going to become much more valuable to a lot of people who do a lot of travel. I’ll go over all of the details below and also explain to you why you might want to avoid applying for it.

The Amex Gold Card news

The Amex Gold Card will begin to earn 4X on dining worldwide beginning June 6th. This is a pretty huge development, considering that the limitation on US dining was one of the card’s biggest weaknesses.

In my opinion, this solidifies the Gold Card as the best card for dining when trying to earn meaningful travel rewards. 4X Membership Rewards is pretty difficult to beat. The only downside is that in some places, Amex isn’t accepted as widely, so it would still be good idea to have at least a Visa on hand (I always carry at least one Amex, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover when traveling). 

In case you need a refresher, here’s a look at the bonus categories.

• 3X on airfare 
• 4X points at Restaurants
• 4X points at U.S. supermarkets (up to $25,000 in spend per calendar year) The 4X bonus rate on the first $25,000 spent at supermarkets each year is still limited to supermarkets in the US.

The Gold Card also comes with some other useful perks like a $10 monthly dining credit that can be used at Grubhub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, and Shake Shack and a $100 airline incidental credit. Those credits help to offset the annual fee of $250.

Tip: Use WalletFlo for all your credit card needs. It’s free and will help you optimize your rewards and savings!

Be careful out there (get the best offer)

Many people (blogs) will try to sell you this card right now with the standard public welcome bonus of 35,000 Membership Rewards after you use make $2,000 in purchases in your first 3 months. This is not a horrible offer but it’s not the best offer that you can get and many blogs will not inform you about that.

I could also sell you that offer to earn a commission but I won’t do that because you can easily apply for a referral link to the 40,000 point offer!

That is my personal referral link but as I’ve mentioned before, it’s already been maxed out so I don’t gain anything if you use it. I just don’t want to send out readers a subpar offer when they can easily snag an additional 5,000 points for the same amount of spend.

Be smart and consider your credit card strategy

Another thing to consider is your 5/24 status. As great of a card as the Gold Card is, if you are under 5/24 (you have NOT opened up five accounts in the past 24 months) then the smartest credit card strategy will likely be to first jump on some of the best Chase cards.

For many people, it would make much more sense to jump the new 60,000 point offer for the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Or you might even go for a card like the Chase Ink Preferred with its ultra-high 80,000 point offer. The Sapphire Reserve and Chase Ink Cash could be great options as well. Aside from having great bonuses and bonus earning potential these cards are worth looking at because you can’t get approved for these cards if you’ve opened up five or more accounts in the past 24 months. 

The Gold Card will always be around on honestly, a higher welcome bonus of 50,000 Membership Rewards might pop up in the future, so there are multiple reasons why you might want to put off applying for the Gold Card right now.

Final word

Getting 4X on dining worldwide is an exciting development for the Gold Card. It definitely puts the card on another level and makes it an exciting option for people who do a lot of traveling. I personally use it for all of my dining and grocery expenses and have been racking up a lot of Membership Rewards each month!

H/T: Churning