American Express® Gold Card review: The gold standard for foodies

Compared to the Amex Gold card, the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card has a higher $395 annual fee (See Rates & Fees) and doesn’t carry bonus categories for dining or U.S. supermarket purchases. You also won’t earn the card’s maximum rewards rate unless you book flights, hotels and rental cars through the Capital One Travel portal. However, these disadvantages may not be deal-breakers if you take advantage of all the card’s features.

When you book travel through the Capital One Travel portal, the rewards rates are higher than booking travel through the Amex portal with the Amex Gold card, so you can boost your earnings on travel purchases. The Venture X earns 10X miles on hotels and rental cars and 5X miles on flights through Capital One Travel. Your general purchases will earn 2X miles — twice as much as the Amex Gold card. However, you will earn more with the Amex Gold from commonly used categories like restaurants and U.S. supermarkets.

The Venture X also comes with an annual credit worth $300 for travel booked through Capital One Travel, a credit worth up to $100 to cover the cost of Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fees and 10,000 bonus miles on your account anniversary (once your annual fee is paid). To top it off, you can access Capital One and Priority Pass lounges. These perks have the potential to easily offset the Venture X’s annual fee and help the card outshine the Amex Gold card if you want more flexible travel perks and rewards as opposed to dining-based credits.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is a more versatile travel card compared to the Amex Gold card. The Sapphire Preferred carries a much lower $95 annual fee and offers higher rewards rates on more travel options besides airfare, as long as you book travel through the Chase portal. You can also earn 3X points on dining, select streaming services, online grocery purchases (excluding Walmart, Target and wholesale clubs); 5X total points on Lyft rides (through March 31, 2025) and purchases made through Chase Travel; and 2X points on other travel purchases made outside the Chase travel portal. Depending on your spending habits, the number of categories earning bonus rewards could make up for the Sapphire Preferred’s slightly smaller dining and grocery rewards limitations. 

The Sapphire Preferred is also one of the rare travel rewards cards that offers great value for various non-travel redemptions. Your points are worth 1 cent apiece when redeemed for statement credits and 1.25 cents when redeemed for travel through the Chase Travel℠ portal or for statement credits with boosted Pay Yourself Back categories. These non-travel redemption values beat the Amex Gold’s options across the board.

The Sapphire Preferred only has one $50 hotel credit, which can’t match the overall value offered by the Amex Gold card. But when you take the Sapphire Preferred’s hotel credit and factor it in with the lower annual fee, outstanding rewards program, annual account anniversary bonus points and potential for greater value when redeeming your rewards, this mid-level travel card can potentially outshine the Amex Gold.

A 2 percent cash back card may be lucrative for any expenses outside U.S. supermarkets, dining or flights. The Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card earns an unlimited 2 percent cash rewards on purchases which would fill in the gaps of spending outside the Amex Gold’s bonus categories for no annual fee. 

The Amex trifecta is one of the best credit card combinations available, covering a variety of categories and giving exceptional perks and benefits. 

The Platinum Card® from American Express offers stronger travel category coverage and rewards rates than the Amex Gold. The top-tier Platinum card benefits can add numerous annual credits and luxury travel perks to your card portfolio, including perhaps the best airport lounge access available and complimentary hotel elite status with Marriott and Hilton.

The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express rounds out the trifecta as the only flat-rate Amex card that earns Membership Rewards points (2X points on up to $50,000 in purchases per year, then 1X points). Since it’s a no-annual-fee card, it’s a great way to ensure your Membership Rewards points never expire if you decide to cancel a higher-fee card, because all your points are pooled together. However, it’s only available if you can qualify for a business card. 

The Amex Gold is a top choice for food and travel since it has perhaps the highest rewards rates, travel rewards value and monthly credits for food purchases on the market. Plus, no foreign transaction fees, potential hotel privileges and excellent transfer partners add more travel benefits than many competing supermarket and dining-focused cards offer.

Considering the monthly Uber Cash credits, the Amex Gold is one of the more lucrative cards available if you frequently rideshare or order food. In fact, this card carries some of the best Uber features you’re likely to find on a general-purpose rewards card.

The Amex Gold has a flexible spending limit and the option for the card to function similarly to a charge card, except you also have the option to carry a balance with the Pay Over Time feature (at the cost of an ongoing APR). If you toggle the Pay Over Time off, your purchasing power may be greatly extended beyond a traditional credit limit — although you must pay off your card monthly.

The primary criteria for a rewards or cash back card’s rating is its rewards value. This includes the card’s average rewards rate, estimated annual rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value and reward redemption value.

To estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings, we first calculate its average rewards rate based on how much it earns in different bonus categories and how closely its categories align with the average person’s spending habits, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Based on this data, we determine a “chargeable” spend (which purchases are likely to be put on a credit card and earn rewards). This includes the following spending by category:

• Groceries: $5,200
• Dining out: $3,000
• Entertainment: $2,500
• Gas: $2,100
• Apparel and services: $1,700

Using this data, we assign a weighting to each of a card’s bonus categories. For example, a card’s grocery rewards rate receives a 23 percent weighting based on how much of the average person’s budget is spent on groceries. We also estimate the redemption value of points or miles from various issuer, airline and hotel rewards programs.

This weighting and rewards valuation allows us to estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings — how many points or miles you’d earn with a given card if your spending was about average and you used the card for all of your purchases, as well as what those points are worth. We also use point valuations to determine a card’s sign-up bonus value

With these calculations complete, we assign each card a score based on how its average rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value, rewards rate and redemption value stack up against other rewards cards.

We also rate cards based on how much it costs to keep them in your wallet or carry a balance. 

To start, each rewards or cash back card is scored based on whether it offers an intro APR and how its ongoing APR compares to the rates available on other rewards or cash back cards. 

We also score each card based on how its annual fee influences its overall value. 

We consider a card’s annual fee in two ways — how it ranks relative to the fees you’ll find on other cards in the category and how it impacts a card’s overall rewards value. Cards with an annual fee will always be at a slight disadvantage in our scoring system since annual fees inherently cut into your rewards value, but if a card offers terrific value via its ongoing rewards and perks, it can earn a high score even if it carries a high annual fee. 

With this in mind, we rate a card based primarily on how its ongoing rewards value and ongoing perk value (such as annual credits or bonuses) stack up against other cards in the category when you subtract its annual fee.

We rate each card’s flexibility based on the restrictions it imposes on earning and redeeming rewards and factor this rating into a card’s overall score. 

Flexibility factors include whether a card only allows you to earn a high rewards rate on a small amount of spending or requires you to meet a certain earning threshold before you can redeem rewards. We also examine whether your points are worth less when you redeem for some options versus others and whether a card gives you the flexibility to transfer rewards to airline and hotel partners. 

We also score each card’s set of features – its perks and benefits — against five tiers of features to provide a rating. 

We break down these tiers as follows:

• Tier 1 has less than standard card features (an ultra-streamlined card that offers basic utility and next to nothing in the way of ancillary benefits. 
• Tier 2 includes the benefits you’d expect on standard Visa or Mastercard credit cards, such as free access to your credit score, car rental insurance and $0 liability for fraudulent charges. 
• Tier 3 includes “prime card” or better-than-average card features like cellphone insurance, lost luggage insurance, concierge services and purchase protection. 
• Tier 4 includes luxury features such as airport lounge access, elite status with an airline or hotel and credits for expedited security screening membership programs. 
• Tier 5 includes the sort of exemplary benefits you’ll find on top-tier luxury cards, such as high-value travel credits, cardholder memberships and other unique and valuable perks.

You’ll have the best approval odds if you apply with a good to excellent credit score (a FICO score of at least 670 or a VantageScore of at least 661). Interested applicants can use the Bankrate CardMatch tool or American Express’s pre-qualification page to see if they’ll be approved before submitting the application and braving the temporary ding to their credit score.

Although not made of actual gold, the Amex Gold is a top-tier metal card if you’re looking for a sleeker finish and heftier weight than a traditional plastic credit card. You can choose either the traditional Gold or the Rose Gold art before submitting your application, or you may be eligible to request the Rose Gold art if you’re already an Amex Gold cardholder.

While the Amex Gold has several travel protections like trip delay insurance, baggage delay insurance and car rental loss and damage insurance, it’s not the best for travel insurance. You won’t get trip cancellation and interruption insurance and emergency evacuation and transportation coverage. For these benefits and many more, consider the Amex Platinum instead.