Head to head · issuer terms as read 2026-08-30
Amex Gold vs Sapphire Preferred
Amex Gold charges $325 a year; Sapphire Preferred charges $95 — a $230 gap the earn rates and credits have to close. Amex Gold earns Membership Rewards points; Sapphire Preferred earns Ultimate Rewards points. Both have a cash floor we can stand behind at 1.0¢, so the receipts below compare them in the same unit.
On the published earn tables, Amex Gold leads on dining & restaurants, groceries & supermarkets, travel booked direct; Sapphire Preferred leads on gas, ev charging & transit, streaming, phone & online shopping; the rest tie. Credits, as the issuers state them, add up to $424 a year on Amex Gold and $406 on Sapphire Preferred — if you would have spent that money anyway. Monthly credits have breakage; count only the ones you'd really use.
American Express Gold Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred
The terms, side by side
| Amex Gold | Sapphire Preferred | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $325 | $95 |
| Foreign transaction fee | No foreign fee | No foreign fee |
| Earns | Membership Rewards points | Ultimate Rewards points |
| Transfers to partners | Yes | Yes · 14 on the official list |
| Credits stated | 5 · $424/yr if fully used | 4 · $406/yr if fully used |
| Welcome offer, as stated | Not shown on the public page we read | Earn 75,000 points after you spend $5,000 in purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. |
Earn rates by category, as stated
| Category | Amex Gold | Sapphire Preferred |
|---|---|---|
| Dining & restaurants | 4X (cap $50,000/yr) | 3X |
| Groceries & supermarkets | 4X (cap $25,000/yr) | base rate |
| Gas, EV charging & transit | base rate | 3X |
| Travel booked direct | 3X | 2X |
| Travel booked through the issuer's portal | 5X | 5X |
| Streaming, phone & online shopping | base rate | 3X |
| Everything else | 1X | 1X |
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 Sapphire Preferred?
- Sapphire Preferred: $95 versus $325, as stated on the issuers' pages on 2026-08-30.
- Does Amex Gold or Sapphire Preferred charge foreign transaction fees?
- Amex Gold: no foreign fee. Sapphire Preferred: no foreign fee. Read off each issuer's page on 2026-08-30.
- Which earns more on dining?
- Amex Gold states 4X (cap $50,000/yr); Sapphire Preferred states 3X.
- Can I transfer points to airline and hotel partners?
- Amex Gold: yes. Sapphire Preferred: yes (14 partners on the official list).
- 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.
- Sapphire Preferred: Network confirmed as Visa Signature via Chase's own 'Guide to Benefits Chase Sapphire Preferred, Visa Signature' PDF title and via Chase's /visa-credit-cards listing page (not stated in plain text on the main product page itself).
- Sapphire Preferred: 5x Peloton (over $150) and 5x Lyft earn promos are time-limited (through 12/31/2027 and 9/30/2027 respectively per issuer page) and were left out of the core earn-rate table since they are promotional, not permanent, categories — flag before publishing if precision on these is needed.
- Sapphire Preferred: Apple TV and DashPass credits are also time-limited promotional benefits as stated on the issuer page (activate by 12/31/2026); may not persist beyond that.
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