---
title: 'Amex Gold Update - 10 Things You Must Do in 2026'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=BL4duRY44Tw'
video_id: 'BL4duRY44Tw'
date: 2026-07-27
duration_sec: 919
---

# Amex Gold Update - 10 Things You Must Do in 2026

> Source: [Amex Gold Update - 10 Things You Must Do in 2026](https://youtube.com/watch?v=BL4duRY44Tw)

## Summary

The Amex Gold card has received a significant update for 2026, adding new benefits and enhancing existing ones. This video explains the 10 essential actions cardholders must take to maximize the card's value, from welcome offers to redemption strategies.

### Key Points

- **New and Enhanced Benefits** [00:01] — Amex Gold introduces new benefits for 2026, including updated dining partners (Buffalo Wild Wings, Wonder replacing Goldbelly and wine.com), Hertz 5 Star status, and expanded Uber and Resy credits.
- **Welcome Offer and Its Value** [00:26] — Welcome offer up to 100,000 Membership Rewards points after $8,000 spend in 6 months. Points worth $600-$2,000 depending on redemption method.
- **Redeem Points Wisely** [01:45] — Avoid low-value redemptions like Amazon checkout (0.7 cpp) or statement credits (0.6 cpp). Best options: Amex Travel portal (1 cpp) or transfer to partners like Qatar Airways for 2+ cpp.
- **Use Spending Multipliers** [05:06] — Earn 4x points at restaurants and US supermarkets, 5x on prepaid hotels via Amex Travel, 3x on flights booked directly or via Amex Travel.
- **Maximize Annual Credits** [06:40] — $10 monthly dining credit (Grubhub, Buffalo Wild Wings, etc.), $10 Uber cash, $100 Resy credit (split $50 Jan-Jun and $50 Jul-Dec), $84 Dunkin credit ($7/month). All use-it-or-lose-it.
- **Hotel Collection Benefits** [09:07] — Book through Hotel Collection for benefits like room upgrade, $100 experience credit, late checkout. Requires 2-night minimum stay.
- **Hertz 5 Star Status** [10:27] — New benefit: Hertz 5 Star status (mid-tier, below President's Circle). Offers car selection, premium vehicles, and upgrades, but not guaranteed.
- **Premium Car Rental Protection** [11:06] — Gold card offers secondary coverage, but you can opt into premium plan for $19.95-$24.95 per rental for primary coverage up to 42 days.
- **Travel Protections Included** [11:49] — Includes trip delay, baggage insurance, and secondary damage insurance. Not as strong as Chase Sapphire Reserve, but useful.
- **Amex Offers and Rakuten Stacking** [12:30] — Check Amex Offers for extra statement credits (e.g., $15 back on $75 at Chewy). Use Rakuten to earn additional Amex points by shopping through their portal, stacking with Amex Offers.

### Conclusion

The Amex Gold card remains a top choice for food and travel spending, especially with the 2026 updates. Key to maximizing value is understanding point redemption, leveraging all credits, and combining with third-party tools like Rakuten.

## Transcript

anniversary celebration. And now, on top of all the existing stuff this card what they're calling new and enhanced benefits that they believe could bring card members even more value in 2026 and beyond. Now, honestly, I'm not too
benefits, and you'll see why. But, with this new update, there's now a total of 10 things I think you must be doing with the Amex Gold card if you want to get video, I want to go over every single feature and benefit you need to know
about as someone who's had this card for 6 years now, starting with the first and taking advantage of a great welcome offer. So, right now, the offer on this card is that you can earn as high as 100,000 membership rewards points after
spending $8,000 in purchases within the first 6 months of card membership. And are as high as 100,000 points. Now, what this means is that American Express is amount of points you could get from this offer, but in reality, the offer you do
and person-to-person, and is based on a number of different factors. The good to see what offer they're going to give you before you actually go through with because they have this apply with confidence feature where you can know if
impact, find out what your offer amount is, and then decide if you want to go personally, I would not settle for anything less than their highest you're in the market for a card like the Amex Gold, then you can decide for
let's say you are offered that 100K amount. Those 100,000 points are going to be worth anywhere from around 0.6 cents per point to upwards of 2 cents choose to actually redeem them. And that means 100,000 Amex points could be worth
between $600 on the low end to around $2,000 or above on the high end. So, in year one, that alone is going to more than offset the $325 annual fee with bring me to the next thing you must do with the Amex Gold, and that is you must
good and the bad redemption options that American Express is going to give you, as much value as possible out of that welcome offer and all the other points the truth is, credit card issuers know that earning points is pretty
going to focus a lot of their time and attention on earning those points. But, how you can actually turn this hard-earned points into real-world per point comes into play because if you can understand the difference between
decrease the value of your points and which options actually increase the get so much more out of your Amex Gold compared to someone who doesn't redeeming your points at checkout for Amazon purchases only gets you around
0.7 cents per point, which makes 100,000 points worth $700. And then redeeming your points for a statement credit only gets you 0.6 cents per point, which makes 100,000 points worth $600. Those values may sound good on the surface
but there's actually a massive opportunity cost here that most about because anything getting you below 1 cent per point is just a bad deal. And a no annual fee cashback credit card instead of the more powerful Amex Gold.
those 100,000 points to book flights through the Amex travel portal at a rate of 1 cent per point where you'd be able to get $1,000 in value. Or if you've that transferring your points is going to be even better because you could find
doing that. An example of this would be if I booked a $400 American Airlines award flight by transferring 20,000 Amex points over to Qatar Airways, who's an Amex transfer partner. So, $400 divided by 20,000 points without considering any
that's going to give you a redemption value of 2 cents per point. And 2 cents per point is typically my target that I like to aim for if I can. Getting $400 of travel value from 20,000 points is obviously going to be a much better deal
credit from those same points at only 0.6 cents per point. So, take some time, then understand which redemption options are going to give you the best value for able to turn our credit card points that we've earned over the years into tens of
just learning how this game of transferring points works. And speaking of today's video, who makes the luggage that I bring with me everywhere I go my wife and I actually just got back from exploring Banff National Park,
recommend. And of course, we brought our Away suitcases along with us every step the bigger carry-on in jet black right here, and my wife Jackie using the were both perfect for this long weekend trip that was filled with airport
hotels. Away's great for all that travel though, because their luggage features a signature patented interior compression system, which includes a double buckle perfect amount of clothes for a trip like this. Plus, there's a bunch of
accessories. Every Away suitcase also goes through a rigorous process of every single component all meets the highest levels of standards for suitcases, Away also makes some other high-quality travel bags like their
here as well. I like to use this whenever I have to travel with a suit or because it zips up with those things inside. And then this duffel also allows shoes at the same time. So, yeah, if you want to check out Away, then I highly
get 10% off your first order from Away if you head over to their website by description or by scanning the QR code on the screen. And then just make sure that's going to tell you how to get that 10% off your first order. So again, go
to Away for sponsoring this video. All right, next up here for the third thing that's going to be to use both the new and the existing spending multipliers on both food and travel spending. So, the most popular multipliers on the Amex
Gold are definitely going to be the ones for 4x points at restaurants worldwide on up to the first $50,000 in purchases per calendar year, and for 4x points on groceries at US supermarkets on up to $25,000 in purchases per calendar year.
value from the annual credits that come along with this card, which we'll talk be a no-brainer to have in your wallet for a wide variety of food-related Amex Gold is actually now kind of underrated as is to use on certain types
because you can also earn 5x points on prepaid hotels booked through amextravel.com or the Amex Travel app, which is one of the new and enhanced then you can also still earn 3x points on flights booked through Amex Travel or
prepaid car rentals and cruises booked through Amex Travel. Those multipliers flights are actually pretty close to the Amex Platinum multipliers for 5x on the fact that you get those travel multipliers on the Gold card and the 4x
well, that makes this by far the better card to carry with you to rack up a ton and the occasional travel spending compared to the Platinum card that going for it. However, even though the multipliers on this card are very good,
none of that really matters if you're paying a $325 annual fee without getting any value from the credits on this card that can help to offset effectively some use those annual credits is going to be the fourth thing you need to be doing
with the Amex Gold. Now, over on the American Express website, you can see unlock $500 in annual value with the following benefits, which is mostly made here's how these credits work and what you need to know about them. First, we
actually split up to where you can earn a total of $10 in statement credits monthly with select partners. So, that's up to $120 over the course of a year, from one month to the next, so they're basically use or lose it. Now, for the
dining credit every month, those are going to be Grubhub including Seamless, Buffalo Wild Wings, Five Guys, The Cheesecake Factory and Wonder. And also, enrolled in this benefit from the benefits page inside of your Amex
don't forget to do that. Now, Buffalo Wild Wings and Wonder are going to be this credit as part of those new and enhanced benefits to go alongside that well as a few other things we'll get to in this video. And then one other thing
that Buffalo Wild Wings and Wonder are basically going to be replacing Goldbelly and wine.com who are no longer going to be dining credit partners after June 30th of 2026. After that, there's a $120 Uber cash benefit where you're
going to get $10 of Uber cash deposited into your Uber account every month. And either rides or Eats with Uber. This is also a use it or lose it benefit though. from one month to the next. So, you want to be aware of that. And to get access
just add your Amex Gold card to your Uber account and then remember to actually pay with any Amex card at checkout with Uber to access the $10 of cash can only be used in the US, which is actually a pretty notable downside to
people talk about. Next, there's also a $100 Resy credit where you can get up to $100 in statement credits each calendar year at over 10,000 qualifying US Resy card. And for this one, enrollment is required as well. And again, it's only
are here in the US. Now, these Resy statement credits are going to be split up into $50 that you can get back from January through June and then another through December. And I've been a big fan of this credit personally since
restaurants around me, but your mileage may vary with this depending on where you live. There's also an $84 Dunkin credit where you can get up to $7 in Gold card at Dunkin locations that are here in the US as well after enrolling
these four major annual credits for select dining partners, Uber, Resy, and going to be very subjective depending on the person, but you should definitely be as possible to get the most value out of the Amex Gold. All right, next up here
we've got booking hotels through the hotel collection within Amex Travel. And going to use every time you want to book a hotel with the have the Amex Gold, but sense, then there's actually a pretty good amount of value that the hotel
collection is a group of properties that American Express has picked that are usually very nice and typically kind of just a step down from being luxury. And being part of the hotel collection whenever you run a search inside of the
booking these properties through Amex with your gold card are benefits like room upgrade upon arrival when available, late check-out when available, and then most importantly, a $100 credit that you can put towards
But, these can include things like dining, spa, and other resort activities about when you check in. American Express says on their website that are part of this program. But, one thing you have to keep in mind here is that
require a 2-night minimum stay, so that's a bit of a limitation here. But, point multiplier on prepaid hotel bookings made through Amex Travel when Collection, then you can actually earn a solid amount of points and receive that
However, I do want to warn against booking the Hotel Collection by to be one of those bad redemption options that's only getting you around 0.7 cents per point. All right, next up here is another new and enhanced benefit
the 60th anniversary of the Amex Gold Card, and that is going to be Hertz 5 benefit if you're somebody who rents cars a lot. So, Hertz 5 Star is their President's Circle. But, with this, you're going to be able to get some
line and just choose a car and go like you can with other status levels from Hertz. And then, you do get a slightly wider selection of premium vehicles and according to their website. Now, this benefit is just okay, but it doesn't
because the Amex Platinum card that I already have comes with that top tier One Venture X card holders can get for free as well. But, still, I will say President's Circle has given me, so I'm sure the 5 Star status is still going to
for some people. Now, if you do find yourself renting cars quite a bit and that offer you primary auto rental coverage, then another less talked about with an American Express consumer card like the Gold Card are premium car
Gold, unfortunately, only comes with secondary auto rental coverage, which is really like opting into enrolling for a special primary coverage plan that Amex when renting a vehicle. Now, these premium car rental plans start at $19.95
cost here, but that's going to get you up to 42 consecutive days of coverage to be way cheaper than any sort of similar coverage that the car rental directly. So, definitely something to know about here with the Amex Gold card.
some other travel protections that you do get included with the Amex Gold, for this video. So, like I said, the Amex Gold is both a food and a travel offers. And anytime you have good multipliers for things like hotel stays
going to get at least some travel protections that you can use in the with this card, you're going to get some trip delay insurance, baggage insurance, damage insurance that's secondary and not primary. All of those are fine, but
terms to see exactly what's covered here and for how much. So, generally, I like Sapphire Reserve is going to beat out the Amex Gold and even the Amex Platinum protections, but again, at least the Amex Gold does have some travel
here for another thing I think you must be taking advantage of with this card, which in my experience can easily put at least another $50 to $100 at a minimum on spending that you were going to be doing anyway. Now, Amex offers can be
found inside of your Amex account, and there's even a dedicated tab for this. these offers every now and then to see if there's any good ones that could be what you might find in there, here's some of my offers right now on my own
Gold card. First, I got this offer where if I spend $50 or more with Amazon, I'm points, and I can use this offer up to three times. Then, here's an offer that's for $15 back after spending $75 from Chewy, which is great for people
like myself with pets. And then, here's a couple of other offers for 15% back at There's a bunch of other offers for fun stuff like Topgolf, Ray-Ban, and past year just to name a few. Plus, there's a bunch of additional 60th
available as well, like a few of these wine offers that I found in my account, discount that's also part of that gold card 60th anniversary. American Express available now through October 30th of 2026 where you can get a one-time
statement credit of up to $96 when the gold card is used to pay for an annual back if you're somebody who would get value from Uber One, which could be a Uber One might give you with savings on top of that. So, yeah, definitely do not
of the biggest ways that I've been able get some real savings in addition to about earlier. And then one more thing that you really do not want to sleep on is earning even more points with Rakuten. So, in case you're not
familiar, Rakuten is basically just a cashback shopping portal where you can find a ton of deals to get anywhere from like 2 to 20% of extra cashback or brands that you might already be shopping with. All you have to do to
through the link provided by Rakuten and that's it. But, what's great is that where instead of getting paid out that extra cashback in dollars, you can Amex points or Bilt points. So, obviously, if you're trying to maximize
from the gold card, then you could choose to earn Amex points in your to get paid out this extra Amex points every 3 months. What's even better actually stack together an Amex offer
deal to basically double dip on savings. And you're still going to earn at least anything when you're paying with the gold card as well. Now, with all these the Amex gold card, like I said before, you want to be redeeming those the right
you can. So, if you want to see a few examples of exactly how to do that, make video over here on the screen next. In that video, I've got a few step-by-step the whole process works. But, as always, let me know if you guys have any
Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.