Amex Business Gold Retention Offer Details

I don't know that I have written about any retention offer more than an Amex Business Gold card retention offer. It seems like the card I get offers on most often, but also a card I have had more of because of no lifetime language offers. In the past I have accepted good ones, and I have refused bad ones, but what about in the middle ones? That is exactly what I got this time around. Let's take a look at my Amex Business Gold retention offer details.

Details Of The Offer

The Amex Business Gold retention offer details are for my wife's card. Unfortunately, I struck out when reaching out for an offer on my account. I do love that I was able to chat with a rep on my wife's account and secure this bag. No wife points burned with a phone call over here! The following are the terms that were offered:

• Earn 20,000 Membership Rewards points that will be applied to your account after you spend a minimum of $10,000 on qualifying purchases on your card over a 3 month period
• The $375 annual fee is not waived
• I would need to keep the card open for 12 months from the date of acceptance.
  • Not from when the next annual fee posts, which will be a few weeks earlier than a full 12 months from accepting the offer.

This offer was better than the 10,000 point offer that I turned down a few years ago, even if that required less spend. It is significantly worse than the 35,000 point offer I accepted a little over a year ago. That is true in terms of points, and in terms of required spend. This Amex Business Gold retention offer was just good enough to my cancellation frown upside down.

Card Earning Structure

In case you needed a reminder, here are the earning categories for the Amex Business Gold card. These also were “refreshed” a bit a few years ago.

• Earn 4X Membership Rewards(R) points on the 2 categories where your business spends the most each billing cycle from 6 eligible categories.
  • While your top 2 categories may change, you will earn 4X points on the first $150,000 in combined purchases from these categories each calendar year (then 1X thereafter).
  • Only the top 2 categories each billing cycle will count towards the $150,000 cap.
    • US purchases on the following 6 categories are options:
      • Electronic goods retailers and software & cloud system providers
      • Monthly wireless telephone service charges made directly from a wireless telephone service provider in the U.S.
      • Transit purchases including trains, taxicabs, rideshare services, ferries, tolls, parking, buses, and subways.
      • Online, TV, and radio advertising
      • Gas stations
      • Restaurants (including takeout and delivery)
• Earn 3X Membership Rewards® points on flights and prepaid hotels booked on AmexTravel.com.
• Earn 1x on other purchases.

I find the 4x earning categories to be compelling, and a big reason that I was hoping to have a Amex Business Gold retention offer good enough to keep one of these cards open.

Other Reasons I Decided To Accept This Ho-Hum Retention Offer

You can see that the 4x earning, on up to $150,000 in spend each year, is one of the reasons I decided to keep the card above. That alone wasn't enough though. If I can earn 3x in some of those same categories each year, then I would need to spend $25,000 each year just to break even on the $375 annual fee. That is if I value the points earned for the extra 1x at 1.5 cents ($375 / $0.015).

The card perks are nothing amazing, but the $20 monthly credit is pretty easy to use. I am able to get the full $240 of value out of it each year, which drops the annual fee down to a net of $135. If we did the same calculation at that rate, it would require $9,000 in 4x spend to break even versus a 3x earning card. Better, but still requires a decent amount of effort and opportunity cost involved in getting to break even.

That is why the 20,000 Membership Rewards point offer really flipped this situation to a positive. If I give those points a cash value of 1.1 cents each (thanks Charles Schwab Platinum) then I am walking away with $220 in value. That is $115 to the good when compared to the $135 net annual fee cost.

Yes, this retention offer requires me to spend $10,000, but I would have had to spend $9,000 to break even anyway. By taking advantage of this retention offer I essentially get to keep the 4x earning on all my spend. Plus, I get to be $115 to the good in terms over net value. That number jumps up to $165 if we value the points for travel at 1.5 cents each instead too.

Amex Business Gold Retention Offer Details: ToP Thoughts

I was really hoping to keep one our Amex Business Gold cards open for some extra 4x earning capabilities. I am pretty happy with this outcome overall because of that. While the 20,000 point offer isn't the best, especially for $10,000 in spend, it was enough to give me a positive return for another year on the card. Here's to hoping that I receive another Amex Business Gold no lifetime language offer this year so we get back to two cards in the household again. To check out all of the recent retention offer data points on tons of cards be sure to check out our complete database.