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 $8,000 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.

Please note that these offers are not available to all applicants.

Amex Gold Card Welcome Offer

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.

What 100K Points Can Be Worth

The best way to redeem 100,000 Amex Membership Rewards points is with the issuer’s airline and hotel transfer partners, opening the door to redemptions that can easily return 5x the Amex Gold card’s $325 (rates & fees). Here are a few examples:

• $5,000 in business class flights to Asia via Air Canada Aeroplan at a 1:1 ratio
• $3,000 to $4,000 in business class flights to Europe via Air France-KLM Flying Blue at a 1:1 ratio
• $2,000 in economy flights within the U.S. via Delta SkyMiles at a 1:1 ratio
• $1,000 to $2,000 in luxury hotel stays via Hilton Honors at a favorable 1:2 ratio

Maximizing Your Membership Rewards Points

Here are a few ideas on some ways to maximize 100,000 points:

• Fly business class to Europe: ANA, a transfer partner of Amex, charges just 100,000 miles round-trip for a United Polaris business class flight to tons of European destinations.
• Book 6+ tickets to the Caribbean: British Airways and American Airlines are in the Oneworld alliance, so you can redeem British Airways Avios to book AA flights from 13,500 Avios per ticket.
• Spend 10+ nights in Tokyo: Choice Hotels offers affordable redemption rates worldwide. You can find hotels for as few as 8,000 points per night, even in high-priced destinations.

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.