American Express is making some changes to their Premier Rewards Gold Charge Card starting June 1st. They are mostly positive, but there are some negatives.
Changes:
-2nd year annual fee increasing from $175 to $195
- $100 credit for incidental travel fees - This is calender year based so you can get two credit your first year, one in 2015 and one in 2016. As reported by DansDeals, this works on $100 American Airlines gift cards.
- Restaurants are now 2x points, along with gas stations and supermarkets. Airline tickets remain at 3x.
- No more foreign transaction fees
Is this a worthwhile card to keep long term? Maybe
As reported by Doctor of Credit, and this has been my personal experience as well, American Express allows you to have up to 4 credit cards. This includes personal and business cards, but does not include charge cards. Credit cards and charge cards are essentially the same thing except that you cannot keep a balance on a charge card.
American Express runs promotions every year like Small Business Saturday that apply equally to cards with no annual fees as to cards with large annual fees. If this counted as one of your 4 cards, it would be a no brainer to get rid of it, grab a card with no annual fee and get the same promotions, but having this card only increases the number of promotions you can receive.
Small Business Saturday this year gave up to a $30 credit for each card and authorized user added to that card. The Premier Rewards Gold card allows up to 5 authorized user. That's $180 in free merchandise for an annual fee of $195 and still gives you the travel credit. That being said, American Express may decrease the credit for next year so who knows. My gut is that they won't get rid of it entirely but will likely decrease back to $10 or $15.
Posts
