The American Express Business Gold card has been good to me. In the first year of card membership, I was able to get in on the 75,000 bonus Membership Rewards points offer (after spending $10,000 in 3 months), as well as get $285 in Amex Offers, and do it all with a $0 annual fee.
All-in-all, the American Express Business Gold card garnered me about $1,135 in net value in the first year. Not too shabby!
Well, I’ve just hit the 1-year mark on holding this card, as such, it’s time to decide: cancel it or keep it and pay the $175 annual fee.
Calling The American Express Retention Line:
Before making any “keep or cancel” decision, I’ve found it wise to always call the card company and see if there are any retention offers available.
I called the American Express Retention Line at 1-800-452-3945. I quickly got a representative, told him I was trying to determine if I should keep the card, and asked him straight-up if there were any retention offers available to me.
My Retention Offer for the American Express Business Gold Card:
The representative first tried to explain the virtues of the card and its value proposition, and then launched into a hard spiel about why I should keep the card. I noted that the earning categories of this card overlapped with other cards I held.
He then said he’d check if there were any retention offers for me [note: I had spent about $11,000 on this card in year one]. To my surprise, the representative said he only had one offer, “and it wasn’t that great”.
Offer #1: 1,000 Membership Rewards points now, with an additional 1,500 points per month, for the next 3 months, after spending $1,500 in each of those 3 months. This worked out to be 5,500 bonus Membership Rewards after spending $4,500 total.
H was right, it wasn’t a great offer. I valued this offer at $55.00 (less if you factor-in opportunity cost). This was a little surprising to me because I had recently gotten decent retention offers on the American Express Platinum card and the American Express Everyday Preferred card.
Any Potential Upgrade Offers?
I asked if there were any upgrade offers (to an American Express Business Platinum card) available to me, and he said “no, not at this time, but keep checking your account, you never know when or if they are going to pop up”.
To Keep Or Cancel?
This was a tough one. For some reason, this card seemed to have the very best Amex Offers of all my American Express cards. In fact the $285 in Amex Offers outweighed the $175 annual fee by $110 alone.
However, the potential point earnings on this card were not the best, and even the 3x category on this card overlapped with other cards I held.
By my math, I valued Offer #1 at $55. Which, against an annual fee of $175, set me back $120 out-of-pocket for a card I wan’t likely to use very much, other than for Amex Offers (and those were no guarantee).
What Did I Choose?
As the $175 annual fee just hit my account, I decided to wait 28 days and see if an upgrade offers came along, otherwise, I’m leaning hard to “cancel”. I’ll keep you posed.
The Bottom Line: My Retention Offer for the American Express Business Gold Card:
As you can see, it’s always wise to call for retention offers if you are the fence about keeping or canceling your card. In this case, I’m leaning towards “cancel”, but I’ll keep you posted on how this plays out.
Cheers!
