> 1) The $10 monthly credit on American Express Gold cards
But the annual fee is $250, how is it worth it? At best if you use the $100 airline credit, which is now hard to "hack", and max out $10/mo on Grubhub, you're still paying $30 for the privilege...
Amex has customer service at least an order of magnitude better than any Visa/MC licensee I’ve dealt with; that’s really what you’re paying for. If something goes wrong with a purchase, they’ll tend to make it right without asking many questions/filling any forms. Lost cards can be next-day’s without charge. They have actual physical offices in non-US nations that can advance you local currency and provide you a new card (among other things) should your wallet be stolen while traveling.
Having utilized card services and customer support heavily for almost two decades with a number of card co’s made me very much an Amex partisan.
The only payment service I’ve had fraud trouble with is PayPal. Their customer service is the worst. I recently bought something through PayPal, and it was amazing to see how hard a fraudulent seller could take their system.
> Earn 4X Points at U.S. supermarkets on up to $25,000 per calendar year in purchases.
> Earn 4X Points on restaurants including takeout and delivery
> Book a room through American Express Travel that's part of the Hotel Collection, stay two consecutive nights and get a $100 hotel credit to spend on qualifying dining, spa, and resort activities.
I wasn't able to utilize these benefits efficiently since the The Blue Cash Everyday® Card has 3X points @ Supermarkets has no annual fee and I have another card for restaurants.
I suppose if you max out all the categories it's not a bad card if it's all you have.
Aside from what the peer comments say here, the point multipliers end up offsetting the costs of the annual fee. You’re right that the airline credit is harder to redeem now, but in my case I was luckily able to redeem it all by February.
Also, Chase Sapphire Reserve has the $60/year credit to DoorDash. Seems like we’re just redeeming a bunch of VC money.
Wow, I had no idea Chase added that perk, and I just started using DashPash this month! I switched from my Amex to the Chase card just now, you just saved me a bunch of money, thank you!
But the annual fee is $250, how is it worth it? At best if you use the $100 airline credit, which is now hard to "hack", and max out $10/mo on Grubhub, you're still paying $30 for the privilege...