I was in the market for a new credit card and fortunately a card I was looking at just announced an increased sign-up bonus. After doing some shopping around between offers, I put in an application and was instantly approved for the American Express Gold Card.
In a great case of timing, this event now allows me to get rid of a card that has been on the chopping block since last year. The Business Green Rewards Card.
The starter business American Express charge card is the least rewarding of the AMEX Membership Rewards cards. In fact, it’s the only one of the business or personal cards that has not gotten a total refresh over the last couple of years. For the $95 annual fee, you earn 1 Membership Rewards point per dollar spent and 2 points for purchases made at Amex Travel.
If you think about it, AMEX has gone out of its way to make the Green Business card less relevant by introducing the no-annual-fee Blue Business Plus that earns 2x Membership Rewards points the first $50,000 in purchases each year. When I previously called AMEX asking for a retention offer for the Green Business card, their rep actually suggested the Blue Business Plus as an alternative.
The main reason I kept the card open was that I had no other Membership Rewards earning cards in my wallet. I canceled my Platinum card a few years back and then closed my Business Gold card. The AMEX rep on that call made sure I still had a card to keep my points active and this was the only one left.
The only other thing the Green Business card had going for it was the ability to add authorized users at no additional cost. This is helpful if you have someone who you might want to transfer Membership Rewards directly into their loyalty partner accounts. Since AMEX now requires that person to be an authorized user for at least 90 days, I’ll have to find another AMEX card to use for this purpose.
Now that I have the Gold card, there’s no need to keep the Green Business card. The best part of the story is that my annual fee just hit for the card. All that’s left to do is to get AMEX on the phone.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
