American Express® Business Gold Card review

The American Express Business Gold Card gets you a stellar 4-point bonus on the two categories you spend the most in each billing cycle. Plus, you’re entitled to a 25-percent bonus for eligible redemptions through the American Express travel portal. American Express also offers financing features that give cardholders some options for managing cash flow.

Flexible bonus categories

To help match rewards with your spending, the Business Gold Card rewards 4 points per dollar in the two categories your business spends the most in each billing cycle, between directly purchased airfare, U.S. restaurants, U.S. gas stations, U.S. shipping purchases and purchases made directly from select U.S. computer hardware, software or cloud solution providers. This means if you spend more on U.S. restaurant purchases in one month and more on U.S. gas station purchases the next, you’ll still earn great rewards. Plus, you earn one point per dollar on the remainder of your purchases.

Note, the 4-point bonus is capped at $150,000 in total purchases per year, but this is a very high spending cap, and cardholders shouldn’t have much trouble earning a large number of Membership Rewards points at a high rate.

Fair introductory bonus

The American Express Business Gold Rewards Card currently offers 35,000 points for spending $5,000 in the first three months of card ownership. While this is not the largest bonus the card has ever offered, when you pair this with the bonus points offered on several categories, including gas station and travel expenses, you stand to gain enough in the first few years of ownership to offset the annual fee, especially since the cap is set so high for each bonus category.

25-percent bonus for travel redemptions

The Membership Rewards points that you earn with the card are a flexible, valuable currency — you can use points in a variety of ways, including buying gift cards and merchandise, and booking travel on the American Express website. You can also transfer points to one of American Express’s 16 partner airlines.

Redeeming your points for travel is probably the best option of all, because – as one of the best benefits of being an Amex Business Gold card member – you earn a 25-percent bonus when you redeem points for eligible travel purchases, including airfare, through the American Express Travel portal. Essentially, your points earned with the Amex Business Gold card are worth 1.25 cents apiece when redeemed for airfare, making them much more valuable than the average rewards card point.

No foreign-transaction fees

The Amex Business Gold Card doesn’t include a foreign-transaction fee (See rates and fees), which means you can use your card overseas without having to pay the additional 2 to 4 percent in fees that most cards charge. That said, American Express isn’t universally accepted outside of the U.S.

Manage your cash flow

The Amex Business Gold Card offers a few nifty options for business owners looking to finance a business:

• Pay Over Time– With the Pay Over Time option, cardholders can choose to pay for purchases of more than $100 over time with interest, up to a specified limit each month.
• The Working Capital Terms program – American Express offers short-term financing to help card members pay vendor invoices and manage cash flow.
• Business Loans – Card members are also eligible to apply for fast (approved in as little as 60 seconds), fixed interest rate loans for working capital and short-term financing.

High annual fee

The biggest drawback to this card is the annual fee: at $295 per year, it is one of the highest among the cards we’ve evaluated, and more than double that of cards with similar offers. The Business Gold Card does justify this fee with some nice features and perks. But you can find cards with similar benefits for half the price and a higher rewards value.

Why get the American Express Business Gold Card?

• You value outsized travel benefits more than regular cash back.
• You want to maximize rewards in the above six categories.
• You are a small business owner searching for a card with travel benefits and options for managing cash flow.

How to use the American Express Business Gold Card:

• Use the Amex Business Gold Card to pay for everything in the bonus categories, unless you have another card that offers a higher rewards rate for a particular category.
• Book your travel through the American Express Travel site to earn a 25-percent redemption bonus (for eligible purchases).
• Before transferring points to an airline, make sure seats are available.
• Use Membership Rewards points when you need to book expensive flights, such as full-price economy, first class or business class travel.

For rates and fees of the Amex Business Gold card, please click here.

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