One of the things I’ve given my wife, Sharon, a hard time about since I started collecting points and miles was her insistence on keeping a certain card. No matter what, it always had a place in her wallet.
Her reasoning?
She knew the card number by heart.
And the card she refused to part with was the American Express Green Card.
That never made sense to me. Why pay a $150 annual fee for familiarity, especially when there were so many other cards that offered better value? But I didn’t push it too hard. The Green Card was her oldest account, and as anyone who understands credit scores knows, that kind of long history matters.
And let’s not forget: this is the same woman who once maxed out her FICO score. (Note from Sharon: Ta-da!)
So the card stayed.
For years, I thought of it as one of those legacy cards people keep because they’ve always had it. But over time, AMEX has changed the Green Card enough that I had to admit something I didn’t expect:
Sharon may have been right all along.
Annual Fee
The AMEX Green Card has a $150 annual fee. That used to be tough to justify. But over the past few years, AMEX has quietly added enough value that the math now looks very different.
This still isn’t a card for everyone, and it’s not the flashiest card in the AMEX lineup. But if you spend regularly on travel, transit and dining, it can be far more useful than I used to give it credit for.
Sign-Up Bonus
AMEX is currently offering a welcome bonus of 40,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $3,000 in eligible purchases in the first six months of Card Membership. That’s a decent runway, and if you use our referral link, we’ll get a bonus too.
Before applying, there are two important things to know.
First, AMEX has added more restrictions around welcome offers. You may not be eligible for the bonus if you’ve had other AMEX personal charge cards, including the Green, Gold or Platinum Card. We wrote more about that here.
Second, there’s always the possibility of landing in what people call AMEX pop-up jail. That’s when AMEX lets you apply for the card but warns you that you won’t receive the welcome bonus. We’ve seen the dreaded pop-up firsthand, and here’s what it looks like.
Bonus Categories: 3X Where It Counts
The Green Card earns 3X Membership Rewards points per dollar in three major categories:
- Travel – Includes airfare, hotels, cruises, car rentals, campgrounds, tours, and purchases made through third-party travel sites, as well as travel purchases on amextravel.com.
- Transit – Covers taxis, rideshare services, subways, trains, tolls, ferries, buses, and parking.
- Dining – Earn 3X at restaurants worldwide.
That combination is what makes the card more interesting than it first appears. Travel and dining are easy enough to find on other cards, but transit is where the Green Card quietly fills a gap. Tolls, trains, parking, subways and rideshares can add up quickly, especially when we’re traveling.
There is some fine print to keep in mind. AMEX says you may not earn 3X at restaurants located inside hotels, casinos or other establishments. Bars, nightclubs and convenience stores are also excluded, and some third-party, non-U.S. food delivery services may not trigger the bonus.
That’s not unusual in the credit card world, but it’s worth remembering. Just because something feels like dining or travel doesn’t always mean it will code that way.
No Foreign Transaction Fees
This one is straightforward and important if you travel internationally.
The Green Card doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, so you can use it overseas without getting hit with extra charges on every purchase.
That matters because a card earning 3X on travel and dining would be much less useful if AMEX charged a foreign transaction fee every time you used it abroad.
The CLEAR Plus Credit
To help offset the $150 annual fee, the AMEX Green Card offers up to $209 in statement credits per calendar year for CLEAR Plus when you pay with the card.
Whether CLEAR is worth paying for is another discussion entirely. The service can be useful at some airports and underwhelming at others, and the value depends heavily on where you travel and how often you use it.
But if you already use CLEAR, this credit alone can cover the card’s annual fee. That changes the equation quite a bit. Instead of asking whether the Green Card is worth $150 out of pocket, the better question may be whether the card’s bonus categories are worth keeping once the CLEAR credit offsets the fee.
Membership Rewards Still Matter
Points earned with the Green Card go into AMEX’s Membership Rewards program, which remains one of the most useful transferable points currencies.
You can redeem Membership Rewards points through AmexTravel or for gift cards and merchandise, but that’s usually not where the best value is. For us, the real value comes from transferring points to airline and hotel partners.
Instead of listing every partner here, we compiled a full ranking of AMEX transfer partners, from S-tier to F-tier, based on how useful they are for real-world redemptions. You can read that full breakdown here.
We’ve used Membership Rewards points for some of our most memorable redemptions, including our $25,000 trip to Australia and Japan and the best award trip I ever booked, which wasn’t even for me.
That’s why earning 3X Membership Rewards points in everyday travel categories is more useful than earning cash back or points locked into a single program.
Travel Insurance & Protections
The AMEX Green Card doesn’t compete with premium travel cards when it comes to protections, but it does include a few useful benefits.
- Trip Delay Insurance – If your round-trip travel is booked entirely with the card and delayed by 12+ hours due to a covered reason, you can be reimbursed up to $300 in eligible expenses, such as meals or lodging. Coverage is limited to two claims per 12-month period.
- Rental Car Insurance – Coverage is secondary, meaning it applies after any primary insurance you have, such as your own auto policy. You must decline the rental agency’s collision damage waiver to be eligible.
- Lost, Damaged, or Stolen Baggage – If your luggage is lost or damaged, you may be covered for part of the loss. This does not include baggage delay protection, which is a separate benefit and not included here.
This is one area where the Green Card doesn’t replace a premium travel card for me. I still prefer using a card with stronger travel protections and primary rental car coverage when that matters. But for everyday travel purchases, transit and dining, the Green Card has become much easier to justify.
Final Thought
For years, the Green Card felt like the forgotten child of the AMEX lineup. It wasn’t as flashy as the Platinum Card and didn’t have the obvious grocery and dining appeal of the Gold Card. To me, it was the card Sharon kept mostly because she’d had it forever.
But that’s not really fair anymore.
Earning 3X on travel, transit and restaurants gives the Green Card a legitimate place in our spending strategy. It turns out the travel card I almost wrote off has become surprisingly useful.
(Note from Sharon: And I get to keep my Green Card without grief anymore!)
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