American Express Gold Charge Card Review

If you like the bonus MR points milestones on the Amex MRCC, then you should check out the American Express Gold Charge card. The Gold Charge is a premium card with a monthly MR points milestone with lifestyle benefits. The key difference is this is a charge card. So, you cannot carry over balances and need to pay in full every month. Here’s a review of the American Express Gold Charge card to see if it is worth getting this one.

American Express Gold Charge Card Eligibility

Unlike other credit card issuers, Amex has some of the simplest eligibility criteria for its credit cards. To apply for an Amex Gold Charge card we need:

• CIBIL Score: 750+
• Annual Income: Rs 6 Lakh+

Fees and Charges

Joining Fee	Rs 1000+GST
Welcome Benefit	4000 MR Points + 2000 MR Points (with referral)
Annual Fee	Rs 4500+GST
Renewal Benefit	5000 MR points on payment of the annual fee (Only for the first year)

Unlike the MRCC, Gold Charge does not get any annual fee waiver on spends. But, you can always negotiate with Amex to get some retention benefit in lieu of the fee. To get the welcome benefit of 2000 MR points, spend Rs 5000 within 90 days of card issuance.

Regular Rewards

Spend Category	Rewards	Cap
Retail Spends	1 MR point/Rs 50 ~0.8% to 1.2%	None
Utility	1 MR point/Rs 50 ~0.8% to 1.2%	10K MR points/month
Fuel	1 MR point/Rs 50 ~0.8% to 1.2%	5K MR points/month
Insurance & EMI	No Rewards

The American Express Gold Charge card has an unique USP over MRCC and Platinum Travel. It offers you MR points even for utility and fuel expenses. There is a max cap but those are very high. The reward rate above is determined based on the assumption that the MR points will be redeemed for the Gold Collection.

• You can spend Rs 5 Lakh per month on utilities before hitting the max cap.
• You can spend Rs 2.5 Lakh per month on fuel before hitting the max cap.

Bonus Membership Rewards

The base reward rate might seem low for the American Express Gold Charge card but there are two ways to earn accelerated MR points. The first one is to do 1000 X 6 transactions in a month. This will give you 1000 bonus MR points every calendar month. This can be any type of spend, even fuel, utilities or insurance. You can even buy Amazon Pay and Amazon Shopping GV from Amex Reward Multiplier.

On redeeming from the Gold Collection, this is equivalent to at least Rs 436 to between Rs 580 if we include the regular 1 MR point per Rs 50. So, we get a return of 7.3% to 9.7% on spending Rs 6000. We can also transfer these MR points to transfer partners like Marriott Bonvoy for hotel stays.

Amex Gold Charge gets 5X on Reward Multiplier

American Express Gold Charge card gets 5X on Reward Multiplier. This is better than what MRCC and Plat Travel get at 2X and 3X respectively.

• Standard Reward Rate: 1 MR point/Rs 50
• 5X Reward Rate: 5 MR points/Rs 50

This makes Gold Charge an ideal option for using on Reward Multiplier. Along with the regular Reward Multiplier spend offers, you can get a 10% reward rate on your spends.

Key Lifestyle Benefits

The Amex Gold Charge also provides quite a few lifestyle benefits which will be useful to some of us.

• Truefitt & Hill: Instant discount of Rs 1000 on minimum transaction of Rs 1000
• Tata CLiQ Palette: Get Rs 750 off on purchase of Rs 2499

There are many other benefits that you can check out here.

Complimentary Airport Lounge Access

We find this quite surprising. The Amex Gold Charge card does not get any complimentary airport lounge access, not even domestic. When you charge 4500+GST as the annual fee, this is something basic to be expected.

• Domestic Airport Lounge Access: Not Available
• International Airport Lounge Access: Not Available

Fuel Surcharge Waiver

American Express Gold Charge card gets a 0% convenience fee for HPCL fuel pumps. This is valid for all transactions of value less than Rs 5000. So, you can potentially use your Amex Gold Charge card at HPCL fuel pumps to hit the milestone. You will not get regular MR points but you will get the milestone bonus MR points.

Other Benefits & Charges

• Fuel Surcharge Waiver: Not available except at HP fuel pumps
• Foreign Currency Markup: 3.5%+GST ~4.13%

18 and 24 Carat Gold Collection for Amex Gold Charge Card

For the American Express Membership Rewards credit card, one of the best options is to redeem for the 18/24 Carat Gold Collection rewards. These offer you a good value for your membership reward points if you do not want to do a points transfer.

American Express Gold Collection: 18K MR points

The 18K Gold collection offers you access to Amazon Pay, Flipkart, Myntra, Shoppers Stop, Reliance Digital, Tata CLiQ and Taj Hotels stay vouchers. If we go purely by value per MR point, then Taj Hotels is your best bet. But, you also have multiple options if you do not want to do a travel redemption.

E-Voucher	Value	1 MR Point Value
Amazon	₹ 6000	33p
Flipkart	₹ 6000	33p
Reliance Digital	₹ 6000	33p
Myntra	₹ 7000	39p
Shoppers Stop	₹ 7000	39p
Tata CLiQ	₹ 7000	39p
Taj	₹ 9000	50p

American Express Gold Collection: 24K MR points

The 24K Gold collection offers you access to Amazon Pay, Flipkart, Shoppers Stop, Taj Hotels and Tanishq Diamond Jewellery gift vouchers. If we go purely by value per MR point, then again Taj Hotels is your best bet. The 24K Gold collection gives you access to few more non-travel redemptions. Tanishq Diamond Jewellery stands out in this with a marginally higher value per MR point.

E-Voucher	Value	MR Point Value
Amazon	₹ 8000	33p
Flipkart	₹ 8000	33p
Reliance Digital	₹ 8000	33p
Tanishq Diamond Jewellery	₹ 9000	38p
Tata CLiQ	₹ 9000	38p
Shoppers Stop	₹ 10000	42p
Taj	₹ 14000	58p

Catalog Redemption Options – Better to Avoid

The Gold Collection is delayed gratification for rewards redemption as it requires accumulating MR points over several months. There are multiple other options for redeeming the MR points on the Amex Gold Charge card on the go. These include electronics, luxury and lifestyle products, fashion accessories, and instant gift vouchers for various brands. We can even pay for transactions using MR points. The MR point value in these options is around 25p per point. But, better to avoid all these options.

Transfer to Airlines/Hotel Loyalty Programs

Amex MR points are also one of the most versatile ones when it comes to using them for airline and hotel loyalty programs. We get multiple transfer partners.

Partner	Conversion Rate
Asia Miles	800 Points = 400 Asia Miles
Club Vistara	900 Points = 300 Club Vistara Points
Emirates Skywards	800 Points = 400 Emirates Skywards Miles
Etihad Guest	1600 Points = 800 Etihad Guest Miles
Hilton Honors	1000 Points = 900 Hilton Honors Points
Marriott Bonvoy	100 Points = 100 Marriott Bonvoy Points
PAYBACK	1 Point = 1 PAYBACK Point
Qatar Privilege Club	500 Points = 250 Avios
Singapore KrisFlyer	800 Points = 400 KrisFlyer Miles
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club	800 Points = 400 Virgin Points

Is the Amex Gold Charge card worth it?

The Gold Charge is best utilized with the 1000 MR points milestone and the 5X Reward Multiplier. This will give you 1600 MR points every month (1000 bonus MR points plus 600 from Reward Multiplier). The total MR points per year from this comes to 19200. The Gold Collection gives a good value for these reward points. But, you will also get a better value if you use these points for one of the transfer partners.

But, there is one problem many of us will see with the Gold Charge card. It is the lack of a defined renewal benefit or annual fee waiver criteria.