Earn as High as 100K Points With Amex Gold Card Welcome Offer [Targeted]

Amex has been generous with welcome offers throughout the past year. The American Express^® Gold Card is providing one of its most impressive welcome offers to targeted new cardholders.

The current public welcome offer is:

• Apply and find out if you're eligible for as high as 100,000 points after spending $6,000 in eligible purchases in the first 6 months. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer.

Here’s how to find a welcome offer as high as 100,000 points and how you might potentially redeem this stash of points.

Targeted offers are discussed in the article below. Please note that these offers are not available to all applicants. Any information related to targeted offers has been collected independently and has not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Amex Gold Card Welcome Offer

The current public welcome offer on the Amex Gold card is: Apply and find out if you're eligible for as high as 100,000 points after spending $6,000 in eligible purchases in the first 6 months. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer.

We value Membership Rewards points at 2.2 cents each on average, making this offer worth up to $2,200. In contrast, the previous welcome offer of 60,000 points would be worth $1,320.

There are a few different methods you can try to find as high as 100,000 points.

Option 1: Check on Amex Directly (Try This First)

If you’re applying for the Amex Gold card, we recommend you first check for offers directly on the American Express website to find out your exact welcome offer. On the front page, you should see messaging that your offer can be as high as 100,000 points.

After clicking the button that says “Apply Now,” either log in to your Amex account (if you have one) to autofill the required information or fill out the requested details to proceed.

After filling in the details, the exact number of points in your personalized offer will be shown, and you’ll have the option to accept the welcome offer.

If you quit the application at this stage, your credit score will remain unaffected. That’s because American Express uses a soft credit check rather than a hard inquiry for this process. Your credit score may be impacted only if you decide to accept the card’s offer and open the account.

Like other targeted offers, these offers are not available to all applicants.

Option 2: Check on CardMatch

If you strike out on the American Express website, the second thing we recommend is checking through the CardMatch tool. This tool completes a soft credit check to see if you’re eligible for any elevated offers. Like the Amex check, it’s not a hard pull, so it won’t show up on your credit report.

To receive matches, you need to provide personal information such as your name, address, and email address.

You can also look for targeted email offers, so long as you’ve opted in for these offers.

After logging in to your American Express account, click on the button that says “Account Services” in the top menu, then choose the tab that says “Alerts and Communications.” From here, click on the option that says “Marketing Email Preferences” to ensure you’ve opted in to notifications about targeted offers.

Option 3: Snag a Referral

The highest welcome offers we see can also come from targeted referral offers. Find a friend (or 2) with an Amex Gold card. Have them send you their link and check if it’s for as high as a 100,000-point welcome offer. If not, try again.

Benefits of the Amex Gold Card

The Amex Gold card doesn’t come with as many benefits as the Platinum Card^® from American Express offers, but it does feature strong earning categories and a couple of annual credits:

• Get up to $120 in Uber Cash, which is good for rides and Uber Eats orders in the U.S. (up to $10 per month; you must add your Amex Gold card to your Uber account as a payment method). To redeem the Amex Uber Cash benefit, you must select an Amex Card as the payment method for your Uber or Uber Eats transaction.
• Up to $120 in dining credit, which is good at Grubhub, The Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, Wine.com, and Five Guys (up to $10 per month)
• Up to $100 in Resy credit, redeemable at any U.S. Resy restaurant and other eligible Resy purchases (distributed as $50 semiannually)
• Up to $84 in Dunkin’ credit redeemable at U.S. Dunkin’ locations (distributed as $7 per month)

Enrollment is required for some benefits, so make sure you’re enrolled to maximize your card’s benefits.

This is in addition to the 4x points you earn at restaurants worldwide (up to $50,000 per year, then 1x), and 4x points at U.S. supermarkets (up to $25,000 per year, then 1x). As you can see, this makes the Amex Gold card excellent for everyday spending. The card comes with an annual fee of $325 (rates & fees).

Maximizing Your Membership Rewards Points

If you earn 100,000 Amex Membership Rewards points, you have many ways to spend them, given the number of Amex transfer partners available.

1. Fly United Polaris to Europe and Back

ANA, a transfer partner of Amex, charges just 100,000 miles round-trip for a United Polaris business class flight to Europe.

As a Star Alliance member, you can enjoy sundaes in the sky by redeeming miles on other Star Alliance partners, including United, Air Canada, Lufthansa, and SWISS. There are many European summer destinations, including Paris, the lakes of Switzerland, and the fjords of Norway.

2. Experience Singapore Airlines First Class to Europe

While 100,000 Membership Rewards isn’t quite enough to book Singapore Suites first class on the airline’s longest routes, it’s more than enough to book the airline’s fifth-freedom route from New York (JFK) to Frankfurt (FRA).

Though it’s not taking you all the way to Singapore, booking this flight to Europe gives you enough time to enjoy the Singapore Airlines first-class experience and costs just 97,000 Singapore Airlines miles one-way. Germany has plenty to do all year round, like hiking in the Black Forest and taking in the Rhine Valley in summer or Christmas markets and excellent skiing in winter.

3. Take the Whole Family to the Caribbean on American Airlines

British Airways and American Airlines are in the Oneworld alliance, so you can redeem British Airways Avios to book tickets on any American Airlines flight with award space. Though it can get hot in the Caribbean during the summer, the Caribbean summer is filled with vibrant cultural festivals and pristine sandy beaches.

Since British Airways employs a distance-based award chart, American Airlines award tickets are priced based on the flight length. For awards from the U.S. to the Caribbean, flights under 650 miles start at 13,500 Avios, while flights between 651 and 1,150 miles cost 18,000 Avios. A good example is this flight from Miami (MIA) to Montego Bay (MBJ), Jamaica, for 13,500 Avios one-way:

You can book a flight from Miami to Eleuthera (ELH), a beautiful island in the Bahamas, for just 16,000 points and minimal taxes and fees. This flight can be well over $400 one-way when booked at the last minute, giving you over 2.5 cents per point in value.

4. Spend 12 Nights in Tokyo

Choice Hotels may not be the most popular program in the award travel world, but it deserves more attention. With its extensive portfolio of hotels and affordable redemption rates, you can find hotels for as few as 8,000 points per night, even in high-priced cities such as Tokyo.

Summer in Japan is the peak time to climb Mount Fuji, with the season starting in July and running through roughly the first week of September. July and August are also a season of fireworks in Japan, ranging from small-town celebrations to humongous events in the larger cities. It is generally hot and humid during the summer months in Japan, so plan accordingly.

Final Thoughts

If you haven’t already, now might be an excellent time to consider adding the Amex Gold card to your wallet. With a generous welcome offer available to targeted applicants, there is a wide range of options for redeeming points.