A few days ago I hit publish on yet another post where I discuss the Citi Prestige card. In that post I went through some of the benefits of the refreshed card, but also considered how it would fit into My Wallet. In that post I compare the Citi Prestige card to the Chase Sapphire Reserve, American Express Platinum, and American Express Gold cards.
Since that post I’ve thought more and more about the topic and my views have changed a bit. No, not my views on the Citi Prestige card, but instead, my views on the American Express Platinum card. The more I think about it, I think the Citi Prestige card could replace both the Chase Sapphire Reserve cards and the American Express Gold cards. Here’s why.
What Benefits Does The American Express Gold Card Offer?
When the refreshed American Express Gold card came out I was incredibly excited about the card. Sure I was excited about the sleek metal Rose Gold design, but mostly I was excited about the card’s benefits.
Most notably the American Express Gold card allows card members to earn 4X points on US Restaurants, 4X points at grocery stores, 3X points on airfare booked with the airlines or Amex Travel, and 1X points on everything else. Additionally, American Express Gold card members receive a $100 Airline of Choice credit and $120 of monthly dining credits at select merchants. For all of those benefits you’ll pay an annual fee of $250. So, the effective annual fee to carry this card is $30 a year.
However, that effective annual fee assumes that you maximize the annual credits and that’s where I’m starting to have an issue. I just don’t love the $120 dining credit as it doesn’t exactly fit into my typical spending habits. Ultimately, I find myself making a qualifying purchase 1X a month just to satisfy the credit. This means I end up spending more on a qualifying purchase than I typically would and therefore this card could actually be costing me money.
Do I Keep My American Express Gold Card?
It’s that point, the extra expense that is making me reconsider carrying the Gold card. Additionally, there is significant overlap in the bonus points categories of cars that I already carry or plan on carrying.
Take airfare for example. 100% of my annual airfare spending ends up on my Platinum card. Therefore, I won’t ever put a dollar of airfare spend on this card. Because of that, I end up working a little bit harder each year to realize the $100 Airline of Choice credits which I don’t like doing.
Next, is US Restaurant spending. When I open the Citi Prestige card all of my restaurant spending, including international spend, will go on that card. That’s because I’ll earn 5X points on all restaurant spending from the Citi Prestige card.
So, basically all that is left is grocery store spend. On average I spend about $100/week at various grocery stores which means I only spend about $5,200 a year at the grocer. Further, about $1,500 of that spend goes on the Chase Freedom card when grocery stores are included as a 5% back category. So, I’m really only putting about $3,800 of spend on this card. In the end, I’m only getting about $200 of value from this card annually so it might be worth putting it on the chopping block.
Final Thoughts
I’m a bit conflicted about this decision at the moment. On the one hand, carrying the Amex Gold card really only costs me about $30 a year, provided I put in a little effort and work on maximizing the $10 monthly food credit. For that I’m earning about 15,000 MR points a year which are worth just over $220, so all in, I’m getting about $190 – $200 of value from the Gold card.
However, there isn’t another card out there better for my grocery store spend. The only card that offers a higher grocery store return is the Amex BlueCash Preferred card. With that card I’d earn 6% Cash Back on grocery store purchases which in my case would net me about $230 of Cash Back annually. For that I’d have to pay a $95 annual fee which makes carrying the card significantly less appealing.
So, while I hate the idea of my Rose Gold card becoming a weekly grocery store card, I’m not seeing much other reason to use it. That being said, given the current competition, I’m also not seeing a reason to switch to anything else. So, for now, I’ll keep the card, but I won’t be carrying it with me daily as I have been.
Featured Image Courtesy of American Express
