It’s a sad day for Canadians. The American Express Gold Personal Card is no longer offering a waiver on its Annual Fee of $150. This card has been provided with a fee waiver for as long as I can remember and likely to be one of the most popular cards available to Canadians so I am unsure what has prompted this move.
The card itself is still a great value for those looking to quickly accumulate points as it offers 25,000 Membership Rewards after you make $1,500 in purchases in the first 3 months. Additionally, you get 2x bonus on purchase made at gas, grocery, drug store and on travel and is among one of the only cards that has category bonuses in Canada.
So while this card is still worthwhile to have, you now must take into account the initial costs when making your determination if the card makes sense for you.
To find out if this is the right card for you, please read my review of the card.
Essentially you’re now paying 0.6¢ / point. If they relax the once-per-lifetime restriction I can see it still being worth it… but with the uncertainty around that once-per-lifetime bonus it would be gut-wrenching to pay $150 only to receive no welcome bonus.
With the loss of FYF, don’t you think that the AMEX SPG is a better value than the AMEX Gold Personal card now?
Hi Johnm,
I personally feel that the SPG Personal and Business is probably the best card to get for people looking for their first AMEX card as I have been increasingly focusing on SPG points as my currency of choice.
If you think about it, if the AF for the Gold Personal is $150 and you get 25,000 MR, that equals 12,500 SPG because you can transfer MR to SPG at a 2:1 ratio. Now consider the SPG Personal card is offering 25,000 SPG points for an annual fee of $120 and you can quickly see why it’s a better deal just to go with the SPG Personal and even Business cards.
Hope that helps.
Cheers
Jayce
Damn. First no referral bonus for referring to the gold personal and now this.
This deals getting worse all the time!!
This is so ridiculous. I told all my friends about this card then they canceled the referral bonus. Next I showed my mom what a great card it can be. She applied one day online while I was at work. Considering you see ads for this card just about everywhere and how the first year is free she just went ahead and applied for it. Now she gets the bill on her first month to pay $150! We call and they said it was done on sept 14th.
They even had no mercy to try to offer some bonus points at least, if you’re not gonna waive the fee. I was a loyal amex client but after this….I’m def not renewing. Ruined the whole brand for me