50,000 Points for Amex Business Gold Rewards Card

Update: There is no current sign up bonus for the American Express Business Gold Rewards Card.

Amex just increased the sign-up bonus on the Business Gold Rewards card up to 50,000 points when you spend $5,000 within the first 3 months of cardmembership. The public sign-up bonus for most of this year has been 0, though they have run a couple very limited offers of 75,000 points, but those required $10,000 in spend. The 50,000 point offer only requires $5,000 and is good until November 26, 2012, so I doubt they will run any more 75,000 offers until then, but you never know!

 

This card is the business version of the popular Premier Rewards Gold card and offer a similar 3/2/1 spend bonus structure. You earn 3x points on airfare, 2x points on purchases in the U.S. for advertising in select media, gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations, and shipping and 1x points on other purchases. Restrictions: Points are earned only on eligible purchases. Bonus points limitations apply. The $175 annual fee is waived the first year. Note: The card does have 2.7% in foreign transaction fees so I do not recommend using it for travel outside the US or spend with foreign vendors.

This card card also gives you access to American Express’ Open Savings program, which automatically gives you discounts when you use your card at certain vendors: for example 3% at Hyatt, 5% at Courtyard by Marriott, 10% at Hertz, 5% at Office Max and 5% at Fedex.

You don’t need to have a big corporation to get approved for this card- you can apply with your Social Security Number as a sole proprietorship and likely get approved if you have good credit and either have a small business or plan to start one. Check out this post for more info on applying for business cards.

Note: “The bonus offer is not available to applicants who have had this product or any other Business Gold, Green or Platinum Card^® account within the last 12 months.” I interpret that to mean Business Green/ Business Platinum card and if you’ve closed either 12 months or more prior, you should be good to go.

The points earned on this card are Membership Rewards points and can be transferred to
Airlines:
Star Alliance: Air Canada Aeroplan, Singapore, All Nippon Airlines
Oneworld: British Airways (current 40% bonus), Iberia, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
Skyteam: Delta, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Alitalia, Aeromexico
Other: Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic, El Al, Frontier, JetBlue, Hawaiian

Hotels: Starwood, Hilton, Best Western, Jumeirah

Points can also be used for giftcards and Pay With Points (purchasing airfare and hotels at 1 cent per point through Amex Travel), though I personally find the most value from airline transfer partners- especially when their are transfer bonuses, like the current British Airways 40%.

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