American Express Green Card

I’ve gone through some of my favorite Chase cards, so I figured I’d now go through some US-based Amex cards.  The first card on the agenda is the ‘classic’ Amex card: the Green Card.  This card is one of my favorites.  It was my second Amex card (and first Amex charge card) and my first card with an annual fee.  The card has a $150 annual fee, which is the lowest fee Amex charge card available.

I provide the information here just to give readers a vague idea if the rewards offered by the card might make sense for them to consider the card.  All information should be confirmed with the card company before applying.

Welcome Offer

At the time of posting, the Amex Green Card has a welcome offer of 40 000 bonus points after spending $2 000 in 6 months.  Previously, welcome offers as high as 50 000 bonus points have been offered on this card.  When I got mine in 2021, I got a 45 000-bonus point offer, which was solid.  40 000 Amex Membership Rewards points are worth a minimum of $450 when redeemed toward travel through Amex Travel. 

Earnings

The Green card is a pretty straightforward card and a good entry-level card into the Amex eco-system.  In broad terms, the Green Card earns 3x points/$ on dining and travel/transit and 1x point/$ on general spending.  The travel/transit category is extremely broad.  I’ve gotten the bonus points on trains, planes, hotels, parking lots, etc. The dining category covers restaurants worldwide and delivery/takeout in the US. It used to cover delivery/takeout worldwide as well, but that changed relatively recently. I don’t know if I got any notice to it changing because suddenly Deliveroo in the UK stopped earning 3x points…

Dining and travel have long been my biggest two spending categories, so the card fits me very well.

Benefits

Like all Amex charge cards, this card offers enough credits to completely offset the annual fee, if the credits are actually of interest.  The first credit is a $100 clear credit, which reduces the price of clear to $19 (assuming you have an entry-level free United/American/Delta membership, which you should if you read my blog).  I decided I’d try out Clear since I had the credit.  I wasn’t impressed.

The second credit is a $100 Lounge Buddy credit.  Lounge Buddy is a competitor to Priority Pass and is owned by Amex.  Lounge Buddy is not as useful as Priority Pass, and between the substantially fewer options and the pandemic, I wasn’t able to use this second credit during 2021.

How to use the points

There are two primary ways to use Membership Rewards Points.  The first way is to redeem them for flights at a rate of 1 pt = 1¢.  Redeeming the points this way has the big plus of the tickets counting as revenue tickets for the purpose of earning redeemable and tier qualifying points on the airline.

The second way is to transfer them to a partner to redeem them for reward travel.  Amex sometimes has transfer bonuses to partners, which is a great way to get even more value out of the points.  Based on how I’ve redeemed transferrable points in the past, I peg the value of Amex points at around 1.4¢/pt on average when used to book travel. 

Examples of using the card

These examples exclude the credits that come with the card.  I don’t personally have a big use for either of the credits offered by this card, but my spending habits are, generally, atypical.

Spend per month

	Example A		Example B		Example C		Example D
Groceries (1x)	$300	300	$200	200	$600	600	$400	400
Gas (1x)	$0	0	$100	100	$200	200	$100	100
Airfare (3x)	$700	2 100	$200	600	$0	0	$400	1 200
Hotels (3x)	$1 000	3 000	$200	600	$0	0	$300	900
Gen Travel (3x)	$400	1 200	$0	0	$300	900	$100	300
Dining (3x)	$600	1 800	$300	900	$300	900	$0	0
General (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$500	500	$500	500	$400	400
Total	$4 000	9 400	$1 500	2 900	$1 700	3 100	$1 700	3 300
Average points/$		2.35		1.93		1.82		1.94

The Green Card’s broad travel category and solid earnings means that the average points earned is around 1.8 – 2.4 points/$, which is worth 2.5 – 3.4 ¢/$, with the valuation of 1.4¢/point for Amex Membership Ultimate Rewards points.

Specific examples

Card	World Traveller ($750)  (% return)	Marriott Hotel night ($230/night)	Points values (WT/Hotel)
No rewards card	2 728 (4.9%)	2 200 MP (7.3%)	$37.10 / $17.60
General 1% cashback card	2 728 + $7.50 (5.9%)	2 200 MP + $2.30 (8.3%)	$44.60 / $19.90
Chase Sapphire Preferred	2 728 Avios + 1 500 UR (7.9%)	2 200 MP + 460 UR (10.3%)	$59.60 / $24.50
Amex Green Card	2 728 Avios + 2 250 MR (9.1%)	2 200 MP + 690 MR (11.5%)	$68.60 / $27.26

Is this credit card right for you?

This card is great for anyone who spends substantial amounts on travel and dining, who values travel rewards, and who doesn’t mind doing a bit of work and research to optimize their redemptions.  Unlike the Chase Sapphire Preferred, which I consider to be Chase’s competitor to this card, this card doesn’t provide any Amex MR-points related perks, beyond access to them and bonus points.  That’s part of the reason I value Chase points a bit more than the Amex points.