In this post, I’ll be doing a quick review of the American Express Business Gold credit card. I’ll try to answer some basic questions, such as:

• What are the perks of this card?
• Who’s the card for?
• What’s the link to apply?

Let’s get started:

Review Of The American Express Business Gold Sign On Bonus

Currently, you can get 70K bonus points after you spend $10K in the first 3 months. However, Amex’s rewards for this card varies wildly, depending on what time of year it is.

For example, when I signed up for this card last year, my bonus was only 50K.

70K bonus points is quite generous, considering Amex points are quite versatile due to their relationships with hotel and travel partners.

My rating for the sign up bonus: 8/10. Generous, but not a killer deal like Amex Platinum or Chase Sapphire Preferred currently is with their 100K point bonus.

Bonus Categories

This card’s insanely main perk is that you get to earn 4X points on select categories…without the overly specific restrictions.

There’s a lot of cards out there that give 2-3X points on specific categories, like how Chase Sapphire is with travel. And there’s some cards out there that give 5X points, but are extremely restrictive with those 5X points – like how Amex Platinum and Chase Sapphire is with some of their travel perks.

Notice I’m comparing this card with the heavy-hitter cards: Chase Sapphire Reserve costs $550/yr and Amex Plat is $695/yr. This card is only $295/yr.

The main drawback? You’ll only earn 4X points on the 2 categories where you spend the most money each month from the list below:

• Airline tickets
• Advertising
• “Some” technology services.
• Gas stations
• Restaurants

4X points is a lot. And to be honest, if you’re running a small business – it’s unlikely your business will be able to spend significantly on more than 2 of the above categories each month.

Thus, getting 4X points back on 2 categories is more than reasonable and I’d rate the overall points program 10/10.

I’ve said before in another credit card review that the American Express Gold Business is my favorite credit card. So, spoiler alert there.

If that’s enough to convince you to sign up for the card, grab yours here.

If not, then keep reading to see if this card’s a right fit for you.

Airline Tickets

You get 4X points on airfare purchased directly from the airline.

This is insanely flexible, especially for 4X points!

There’s cards that offer 5X on airline tickets, but those alternatives have some tradeoffs to them.

• Example: Sapphire Reserve, Preferred require you to book through their portal to redeem 5X points for travel. This is generally going to be much more expensive than booking through directly with the airline.
• Example 2: American Express Platinum does allow for 5X points on flights booked directly through airlines – but their annual fee is about $400/yr more expensive.

If your business requires a ton of air travel, getting 4X points on this expense is amazing.

As air travel can rack up enormous expenses for businesses, getting 4X points return on flights is almost unbelievable. For that reason, I give this 4X category a rating of 10/10.

4X Points On Online Advertising

Most businesses spend a ton of money on advertising.

Whether you’re a small or a big business, marketing is an integral part of almost every company’s strategy.

And if it isn’t, then the company is either Tesla, or about to go bankrupt.

As such, advertising is likely to be one of your biggest business expenses. To get 4X points on one of your biggest expenses is incredible. It’s like being gifted a ton of free points just to do marketing for your business, which you’ll have to do anyway.

If you’re a smaller business and you only run some ads, but not a lot, you might consider the Chase Business Preferred Ink where their cheaper $95/yr annual fee might be less daunting.

Getting 4X on one of your business’s biggest expense is an easy 10/10.

Tech Services Bonus Category.

I’ll be honest. I have no idea what the hell this does or what qualifies. On their website, they have some vague wording telling you that you’ll get 4X points on:

• “US purchases made directly from select technology providers of computer hardware, software, and cloud solutions.”

To my knowledge: I have yet to trigger any awards in this category, so I can’t speak about how useful this is, nor do I know what this is referring to.

Because I’m cognitively biased against things I don’t understand, I give this category a useless 0/10 rating.

Gas Stations

Getting 4X points on gas is great because we all hate paying for gas and it’s expensive.

But at the same time, this is kind of a ‘throwaway’ category. Because while yes, gas is expensive, it’s unlikely to be one of your 2 most expensive categories in your business.

Unless your business operates a bunch of vehicles, or you’re driving for Lyft (which I don’t recommend), you realistically just aren’t going to be spending a ton on gas.

Because this category is quite useless, and I’m environmentally friendly and think you should get an electric car, I give this category a rating of 3/10.

4X Points On Restaurants?!

If you’re in a business where you need to wine and dine clients, this is a great perk.

And even if not, getting 4X on restaurants could be quite good. Just use this card to pay for your personal meals out and have your friends Venmo you back or something. Just make sure you don’t commingle your funds: your restaurant bills on this card must paid with your personal account and not your business checking. Unless you like having your corporate veil pierced.

To me, it seems like you’re quite likely to use this category if you use the airfare category a lot.

• That is, this is a great card for businesses that require a lot of travel (and thus require meals during those trips).

Because I can see this category and airfare being extremely relevant for travel-intensive businesses, I rate this category a 10/10.

Shipping

I’d imagine 4X points on shipping is great for those with businesses where they ship a lot of stuff. But this category is a bit elusive to claim in practice.

• For me, I have yet to trigger this bonus even though I run an e-commerce business as I use warehouses to handle the shipping for me.
• And even when I flip pokemon cards on ebay and ship them myself, I normally print the shipping labels out from ebay due to their discounts. And because I pay ebay for the shipping label, the expense doesn’t count as shipping.

I feel like this category is somewhat limited and is niched down to businesses who are deep into logistics. But it’s a bit too niche and not relevant to a ton of businesses, so this category gets a 4/10 from me.

Overall Rating And Review For the American Express Business Gold

Overall, this is a great card for those:

• Who do a lot of business travel (can get 4X points on airlines and restaurants).
• Businesses that utilize advertising a lot, since ads are a huge expense, and a huge number times 4 is an even bigger number!
• Businesses that need to pay a lot of gas money.
• Businesses that specialize in logistics and spend a ton of money on shipping.

This is not a great card for those:

• Who don’t have a business, as a lot of these expenses don’t make a lot of sense for personal spending. If you only want this card for travel, you might as well shoot for the Sapphire Reserve and get a $300 rebate and end up with a $350/yr fee with Global Entry/Premiere Pass bonuses.
• Those who have a business but don’t really travel, run ads, need shipping, or pump gas often. Or anyone whose business is sufficiently small that the extra points won’t offset the $295/yr cost.
• Have a business who’s running ads, but not enough to justify the $295/yr cost. In those cases, they can consider the Chase Ink Business Preferred card.

In conclusion, even though I feel like some bonus categories are “useless,” there’s a few categories here that are relevant to almost all businesses. And practically speaking, you can only get 4X points on 2 of these categories anyway. So whatever you do, you’ll naturally claim 4X points for the spending categories that are most relevant for your business.

Also, I can’t really judge categories that I don’t deem useful for me and my business as completely useless for all other businesses under the sun.

So, even though there’s only a few categories that’s relevant for most businesses, the fact that you can get 4X points on those highly-relevant categories means that this card still gets a 10/10 rating from me. If this card makes sense for you, use my affiliate link here and grab yours!