What this Card Offers

As of July 24, 2024, the Gold Card has a $250 annual fee and offers the following benefits:

• 4x on worldwide restaurants with no maximum
• 4x on US supermarkets, up to $25,000 in purchases
• 3x on flights booked directly with an airline or through Amex Travel
• $120 ($10 per month) in Uber Cash that can be used for Uber rides or Uber food delivery.
• $120 ($10 per month) as a statement credit at Grubhub, Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, Wine.com, Milk Bar, and select Shake Shack locations.

On July 25, 2024, the following changes were made to the Gold Card:

• The annual fee increased to $325
• 4x on restaurant spend will have a limit of $50,000 per year
• $100 Resy statement credit ($50 for January-June and $50 for July to December)
• $84 Dunkin Donuts statement credit ($7 per month)
• Both of the current statement credits will remain, but Milk Bar and Shake Shack will be replaced with Five Guys on the dining credit.
• The option of a white gold card, in addition to the current options of classic gold and rose gold.

I think that the addition of the Resy and Dunkin Donuts credits is a nice change, and if someone can take advantage of those credits, they can easily make up for the annual fee increase. This is due in part to the fact that they can both be stored and ultimately combined by purchasing gift cards.

Resy Credit

If you have a Delta card with Resy credits, then you likely go to Resy restaurants at least twice per year and can easily get the full value from this credit, which already fully covers the annual fee increase.

Fun fact: every single Saks Fifth Avenue store (not counting Club locations) has at least 1 Resy restaurant within 10 miles, with many of them having one within 5 miles.

If you have a Platinum Card and typically go into a Saks Fifth Avenue store to buy gift cards to use the $50 credit, you can make a detour to buy a gift card at one of the nearby Resy restaurants (credit to Calby Ng for finding out that in-person gift cards will trigger Resy credits). This works especially well due to the Saks credit and the Gold Card Resy credit both being semi-annual.

Dunkin Credit

The $7 per month credit is an unusual (and low) amount, but if you have one nearby, it may be worth stopping by once per month. Personally, I’d rather go to Baskin-Robbins and since the gift cards are interchangeable, I will likely go to Dunkin to load $7 onto a gift card each month. I often see Chase Offers for 10% off purchases at Dunkin, which can also be added to gift cards at the same time in order to save yourself a trip and maximize your overall savings.

Based on my experience using Chase Offers, Baskin Robbins/ Dunkin combination locations haven’t triggered Chase Offers for either brand so I’m curious to see whether the Amex credit will work at those locations, and I will update this post when I find out.

Dining Credit

Most of the time when I see people discussing the use of the $10 per month dining credit, they mention using the credit for Grubhub, and occasionally The Cheesecake Factory or Goldbelly. All of these merchants are still available so I see this as a neutral change for most people, with the possibility of being a benefit for people who typically don’t use any of those merchants but do get food from Five Guys on a regular basis.

Limited Dining Spend

One of the few downsides is the new yearly cap of $50,000 on restaurant spend. For most people, this is a non-issue, as that is a very large amount to spend on dining. If you are spending more than $50,000 on restaurants each year, you have several options such as:

• Increase your credit card velocity, so that more of your dining spend is going towards intro bonuses.
• Apply for the Business Gold Card, which allows you to earn 4x on up to $150,000 in combined spend for your top 2 categories each month, and dining is an eligible category.
• Use the spend on specific cards to help earn certain perks, such as:
  • Spending $15,000 on the Hilton Surpass Card will give you a Free Night Certificate that does not have a points cap and can be used for almost any property that has standard room availability. You will also earn 6x Hilton points for dining spend.
  • The Hilton Aspire Card will allow you to earn an FNC at $30,000 and another at $60,000, in addition to the FNC that is issued just for holding the card. You will receive 7x Hilton points for dining spend.
  • The World of Hyatt personal card includes a category 1-4 free night certificate each cardmember anniversary, as well as an additional FNC for $15,000 in spend. This card earns 2x Hyatt points on dining spend. In addition, this card gives you 2 elite night credits towards status for every $5,000 in spend.
  • The World of Hyatt business card does not include an FNC or the opportunity to earn one with spend, but for every $10,000 in spend, you will receive 5 elite night credits , which could be useful for helping you achieve Globalist status, which is commonly regarded as the best hotel status to have. This card also has the option to earn 2x on your top 2 spend categories, and dining is an eligible category.
  • Use a Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Freedom Flex, or Chase Freedom Unlimited to earn 3x UR points. While this is a lower earn rate, many people already have one or more of these cards and UR points are more difficult to earn than MR points, so it could make sense for some people.

Overall Thoughts

Based on my personal spending habits, I view this as an overwhelmingly positive refresh. The main downside is the annual fee increase up to $325. I will gladly pay $75 more for $184 in easy-to-use credits, so keeping this card makes sense, but this may not be the case if your spending doesn’t align with the credits or if you aren’t a fan of the Amex coupon book model.

If you would like to apply for the Gold Card, you can apply using this link and receive up to 90,000 MR points after $6,000 spend in the first 6 months, which will also help support this blog. I’ve seen this link offer 90,000 through Firefox incognito and 60,000 through Edge incognito, so be sure that you have the 90,000 offer showing before applying.