Amex Gold Card?

Rosco1112

Hi Everyone, I have just been looking at the American Express website and the Gold Card looks interesting. You get free travel insurance with it and other useful services like free upgrades whilst traveling! There is an annual fee of £95 though, what do you all think?

Cheers

Ross

Bokkens

you will probably save that in upgrades if you fly a lot.
Amex platinium gives cashback on all your spend once a year so if you spend 30K on it you will get £330-ish and it is fee free.They recently upgraded mine to unlimited but it is always paid off in full,shame the APR isn't 0%.It would be a useful stooze then!

skyrider007

Free upgrades on air travel is *RARE* unless you hold an elite level frequent flyer card. They may offer you a buy one get one free ticket when you pay full-fare first/business class with your card (a full-fare return ticket in BA First to JFK can exceed £15,000). AMEX Gold is no longer viewed by establishments as worthy to hand out free upgrades, compared to Centurion or Platinum CHARGE card.

I suggest you take a closer look at the original green American Express charge card. The annual fee on this card is much lower and it does have free travel insurance. If you want free upgrades, I suggest you sign up for a FF programme with the carrier/alliance/hotel you most frequently use and obtain an elite status.

taxi73

The platinum has free travel insurance as well

skyrider007

taxi73 wrote: »

The platinum has free travel insurance as well

and no annual fee* :j

* for Platinum credit card, Platinum Charge card has an annual fee of over £300

Rosco1112

ok great thanks a lot, I already have a platinum card so the travel insurance is all taken care of. The reason I originally posted this question is because a year ago I applied for a gold card, but it was a US Dollar gold card! I thought it would save me on conversion fees because I buy a lot of stock from the States however this will only benefit someone if they have a US bank account and get their salary in US Dollars. So anyway I kind of forgot about this card and I just got a statement through with a charge of $300 on for the annual fee!!!!!!!!! I phoned the Brighton based amex up and they urged me to swap it for a Sterling Gold Card but after reading everyones comments I just want to cancel it and get my $300 back. I'm a bit worried they won't refund it.

skyrider007

Rosco1112 wrote: »

I'm a bit worried they won't refund it.

They will. AMEX is quite a good and honest company. They've once incorrectly charged me higher annual fee because my billing address was outside the UK, but with one phone call I had the difference refunded in the following statement.

If you do business in the US, why not have a look at one of the offshore accounts provided by HSBC or Barclays? If you have enough money, they do hand out fee-free currency cards.

Rosco1112

skyrider007 wrote: »

They will. AMEX is quite a good and honest company. They've once incorrectly charged me higher annual fee because my billing address was outside the UK, but with one phone call I had the difference refunded in the following statement.

If you do business in the US, why not have a look at one of the offshore accounts provided by HSBC or Barclays? If you have enough money, they do hand out fee-free currency cards.

This sounds interesting, I am currently using the Nationwide credit card which is getting me pretty much $2 to the pound. Where can I find out more about these offshore accounts? Will I get hit by admin/conversion fees transferring sterling to Dollars into the account?

Thanks for all your help people

skyrider007

Rosco1112 wrote: »

This sounds interesting, I am currently using the Nationwide credit card which is getting me pretty much $2 to the pound. Where can I find out more about these offshore accounts? Will I get hit by admin/conversion fees transferring sterling to Dollars into the accounte

Read all about it here:

http://www.offshore.hsbc.com/1/2/international/home

and

http://www.barclays.com/international/