The American Express Business Gold Rewards Card Review
The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN is one of their upscale-oriented charge cards where you must pay off the balance each month but get nice perks like purchase price protection and the AMEX extended warranty.
- The annual fee is $0 for the first year of card membership, and $175 thereafter. This way you can try out the card for a year for free and then decide if you wish to keep it.
- Get unlimited Additional Gold Cards for a one time fee of $50. but this fee is also waived for the first year.
- Earn 3X points on airfare, 2X points on advertising, gas, and shipping, 1X points on everything else.
Business Credit Card Eligibility
Many people aren’t aware of the fact that they can apply for business credit cards, even if they are not a corporation or LLC. Why? Because any individual can be a business as well. The business type is called a sole proprietorship. Maybe you sell items on eBay, Craiglist, or Etsy. Maybe you do some freelancing occasionally. Boom! You’re a sole proprietorship. This is the simplest business entity, but it is fully legit and recognized by the IRS. On a business credit card application, you should use your own legal name as the business name, and your Social Security Number as the Tax ID.
Meeting Minimum Spend Requirements
Some possible ideas are to buy gift cards upfront from places you’ll visit eventually, buying American Express gift cards that you can spend later, making purchases for others and getting reimbursed, and prepaying bills that allow it like utilities, insurance. I’ve even bought some Forever postage stamps to put me over the top.
If you don’t think you can make the requirements, here are some more credit card sign-up bonuses with easier offers.
* My favorite. I just noticed right now a $100 Home Depot gift card is 20% off at 8,000 MR points. I hope they are still around by the time I get these points.
The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN
“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”
By Jonathan Ping | Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 9/21/10, 4:00am
September 21st, 2010 at 6:58 am
Keep in mind that this is a business card and is exempt from the recent CARD Act legislation.
September 21st, 2010 at 9:40 am
Woohoo! Thanks for the heads-up. I just got approved. At $600, this is the best offer since the Chase Southwest card a couple months ago, which netted an equivalent $750 after a similar spend.
September 21st, 2010 at 1:50 pm
I got the same offer by mail few months ago. But the spending needed to get 50k points was only $500. Just last week cashed the 50k points for $625 in home depot gc
September 22nd, 2010 at 3:47 am
Anyone know exactly which stores the gift cards are for. Is Target on the list? I know that someone already has mentioned Lowe’s.. Any others please..
September 22nd, 2010 at 4:20 am
@Margaret – Just go to MembershipRewards.com and look around, no need to log in or be a member.
September 22nd, 2010 at 7:25 am
So the terms and conditions state:
By submitting this application, you, as an individual and the Authorizing Officer of the Company, (a .. c), and (d) are REPRESENTING THAT ALL CARD(S) ISSUED ON THE ACCOUNT WILL ONLY BE USED FOR COMMERCIAL OR BUSINESS PURPOSES.
How does this work with the sole proprietorship? If your “business” is that you occasionally sell things on craigslist, how can you justify any random purchase as being for your business?
September 22nd, 2010 at 2:05 pm
@Curious – For a sole prop, it’s not that cut and dry because there is no legal distinction between you the person and you the business. From Wikipedia:
September 22nd, 2010 at 9:59 pm
@MM..how did you get the targeted American express biz card offer w/ the $500 spending requirement?
September 23rd, 2010 at 8:53 pm
@MM
I got the same offer by mail last year and with the same spend $500 receive 50,000 points. I cashed the 50,ooo points for our cruise vacation valued at $450.
September 24th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
This is a great offer! I got it last November 2009 because I already had to platinum AMEX cards doing $30k/month in business buys. Its a great offer if you can get to the free points, otherwise you will be paying $125 for no reason.
Personally I think the best value that comes from the AMEX rewards program is the Delta Air miles that I can get. 50,000 points will be about 2 airline tickets, depending on when you get the tickets. Two free tickets to me is about $800-$1000 value.. OR you can get $250 in gift cards. Their gift cards are 20k points for $100, but if you get them during a promotional time they are 16k points for $100 gift card.
Overall.. Great deal and easy to obtain if you do most of your spending using credit cards, like us! Maybe we should change our platinum cards to this Gold card also?
Thanks Jonathan!
September 27th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Be careful because I had to send them a message to get my free 50k points. Its been almost a year since I was supposed to get the points, but they got them to me right after I asked for them. You would think they would be automatic.
October 4th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
[...] For those that charge a lot, especially with reimbursed airfare, that’s enough for 70,000 frequent flier miles (possibly two flights to Hawaii) or $700 in gift cards. If you don’t, there’s still that $250 upfront bonus with only $1,000 minimum spending. If you can spend $10,000 in four months, there is still the bigger 50,000 points offer for the American Express Business Gold Rewards Card. [...]
October 4th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
[...] For those that charge a lot, especially with reimbursed airfare, that’s enough for 70,000 frequent flier miles (possibly two flights to Hawaii) or $700 in gift cards. If you don’t, there’s still that $250 upfront bonus with only $1,000 minimum spending. If you can spend $10,000 in four months, there is still the bigger 50,000 points offer for the American Express Business Gold Rewards Card. [...]