Head to head · issuer terms as read 2026-08-29
Amex Gold vs Amex Platinum
Amex Gold charges $325 a year; Amex Platinum charges $895 — a $570 gap the earn rates and credits have to close. Both earn Membership Rewards points, so a point is worth the same on either card and the comparison is purely rates, fee and credits.
On the published earn tables, Amex Gold leads on dining & restaurants, groceries & supermarkets, everything else; Amex Platinum leads on travel booked direct; the rest tie. Credits, as the issuers state them, add up to $424 a year on Amex Gold and $3,114 on Amex Platinum — if you would have spent that money anyway. Monthly credits have breakage; count only the ones you'd really use.
American Express Gold Card
$325 feeTransfers
The Platinum Card from American Express
$895 feeTransfers
The terms, side by side
| Amex Gold | Amex Platinum | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $325 | $895 |
| Foreign transaction fee | No foreign fee | Foreign fee: No Foreign Transaction F… |
| Earns | Membership Rewards points | Membership Rewards points |
| Transfers to partners | Yes | Yes |
| Credits stated | 5 · $424/yr if fully used | 16 · $3,114/yr if fully used |
| Welcome offer, as stated | Not shown on the public page we read | Not shown on the public page we read |
Earn rates by category, as stated
| Category | Amex Gold | Amex Platinum |
|---|---|---|
| Dining & restaurants | 4X (cap $50,000/yr) | base rate |
| Groceries & supermarkets | 4X (cap $25,000/yr) | base rate |
| Travel booked direct | 3X | 5X (cap $500,000/yr) |
| Travel booked through the issuer's portal | 5X | 5X (cap $500,000/yr) |
| Everything else | 1X | base rate |
Green = the higher stated multiplier. Brand-specific, promotional and rotating rates are on each card page, not modeled here.
What each nets at sample spend
Three sample monthly budgets, every point at 1.0¢ (the Pay-with-Points floor we paid), fee subtracted, no credits counted. Estimates, not promises — your spend is the input that matters.
Run your own spendQuestions people ask
- Which has the lower annual fee, Amex Gold or Amex Platinum?
- Amex Gold: $325 versus $895, as stated on the issuers' pages on 2026-08-29.
- Does Amex Gold or Amex Platinum charge foreign transaction fees?
- Amex Gold: no foreign fee. Amex Platinum: foreign fee: no foreign transaction f…. Read off each issuer's page on 2026-08-29.
- Which earns more on dining?
- Amex Gold states 4X (cap $50,000/yr); Amex Platinum states no dining rate.
- Can I transfer points to airline and hotel partners?
- Amex Gold: yes. Amex Platinum: yes.
- Which is better for me?
- It depends on where your spend goes. The receipts on this page use sample spend profiles at 1.0¢ per point; the Card Stack Optimizer runs your own numbers against every card we track, net of the annual fee.
- Amex Gold: Welcome offer could not be confirmed: the main marketing page content returned via fetch was truncated and did not include a stated welcome-offer points amount or spend requirement. Amex welcome offers are commonly personalized/variable by applicant, and no single universally-stated offer was found on a fetched issuer page today, so welcomeOffer.summary is set to null rather than guessed.
- Amex Gold: The terms/disclosures page (americanexpress.com/en-us/credit-cards/apply/terms/personal/gold-card/25330-10-0) returned only a page title on fetch with no body content, so it could not be used to independently verify fees or rates beyond what the marketing page and the credit-intel annual-fee page confirmed.
- Amex Gold: transferPartners confirmed from the main marketing page, which states Membership Rewards points can transfer to '20 airline and hotel travel partners'; the specific partner list/names were not enumerated in the fetched content.
- Amex Gold: Hotel Collection Credit cadence is per qualifying stay (2+ nights), not monthly/annual — noted distinctly since it doesn't fit the typical cadence pattern of the other credits.
- Amex Platinum: Welcome offer could not be confirmed as a single stated figure from a fetched americanexpress.com page: the marketing page (amex.com/us/credit-cards/card/platinum/) and the terms/conditions pages (apply.americanexpress.com terms URLs) did not return readable welcome-offer text via WebFetch (JS-rendered / title-only content). Third-party and search-snippet sources cited conflicting/personalized figures (e.g. 175,000 points for $8,000 spend in 6 months vs. 175,000 points for $12,000 spend in 6 months), consistent with Amex's disclosed practice that welcome offers are personalized/variable by applicant. Per instructions, welcomeOffer.summary is set to null rather than guessed.
- Amex Platinum: Earn rate for 'all other purchases' (commonly cited elsewhere as 1X Membership Rewards point per dollar) could not be confirmed via WebFetch of an americanexpress.com page fetched today — the marketing page and the official U.S. Consumer Platinum Card Fact Sheet (PDF, dated 9/16/2025, effective 9/18/2025 benefits) only stated the 5X flight and 5X prepaid-hotel rates. This field is therefore omitted from earnRates rather than invented.
- Amex Platinum: Global Lounge Collection annual value (cited elsewhere as '$850+ in value') appeared in one WebFetch pass of the marketing page but was not present in the fact-sheet PDF fetch; listed here as a non-monetary access benefit without a dollar figure to avoid citing an unconfirmed number consistently across sources.
- Amex Platinum: Annual fee ($895) is confirmed both by the americanexpress.com credit-intel article (fetched today) and the official Amex U.S. Consumer Platinum Card Fact Sheet PDF (issuer press-kit document, dated 9/16/2025), which also lists 'Rates and fees' as footnote 1 for that figure.
- Amex Platinum: Credits list and cadences are taken from the official Amex press-kit Fact Sheet PDF (effective September 18, 2025 benefit refresh) plus the marketing page for Global Lounge Collection description; all values described there as 'up to' statement credits, not guaranteed amounts.
- Amex Platinum: transferPartners confirmed true via americanexpress.com FAQ page fetched today, which states Membership Rewards points can be transferred into frequent flyer or hotel guest programs — this FAQ is generic to the Membership Rewards program (not Platinum-card-specific), but the Platinum Card earns Membership Rewards points per the fact sheet, so this applies.
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