Amex Gold Card Family Rule
American Express has been rolling out their family rule right and left. First it hit the Platinum card, then Delta cards and lastly the Blue Cash cards earlier this week. Now they have completely jumped the share with this new Amex Gold card family rule. Why is this crazy? Because the Amex Gold card isn't really in a family per se. There are multiple Platinum card offers, which make them a family, but the same can't be said for the Gold card. Unless you call it a part of the Membership Rewards family, but the Green card doesn't have anything new in its terms … at least not yet. (They added it to Green later on)
New Amex Gold Card Terms
Here are the new terms for the Amex Gold Card family rule:
You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card, the Premier Rewards Gold Card, the Platinum Card®, the Platinum Card® from American Express Exclusively for Charles Schwab, the Platinum Card® from American Express Exclusively for Morgan Stanley or previous versions of these Cards...
So if you have ever held a Platinum card of any kind you are now ineligible for the welcome offer on an Amex Gold card. Pure insanity!
Proper Application Timeline For Membership Rewards Earning Cards Now
Once again, Amex left a path to getting all of the cards with this new Amex Gold Card family rule. While that doesn't help anyone that has already unknowingly mucked it up, there is a path to victory for new comers.
This is currently the only way to go about this:
- Green then Gold then Platinum
For a full breakdown be sure to check out our complete Amex family rule guide.
Amex Gold Card Family Rule: ToP Thoughts
The Amex Gold card family rule is the first really surprising family rule by American Express. The other ones I could see, but this is kind of out of left field. It is deterring American Express card holders from holding their two premium cards, at least if they already grabbed a Platinum card. That seems beyond foolish. Which is especially true when the business department hands out multiples of the same card right and left. To be honest, American Express seems like a mess right now.
At this point it has to be assumed every card they can put under a family rule will be handled that way at some point. I figured Hilton would be next, but they decided to do it to the Amex Gold card instead. I am surprised they didn't roll the Amex Green card into the family rule at the same time (but did eventually).
Let me know what you think of these changes over in the ToP Facebook Group.
HT: Tim Irvin in ToP Facebook Group
