American Express Gold Card Free for 1 year: worth it?

Investing / Cryptocurrencies
1

Hi everyone!

I was a bit bored and decided to check the American Express cards available for Switzerland.

Perks of Gold Card:
-30k Reward Points
-Priority Pass Membership (admission to lounges)
Insurances:
-Foreign Travel Medical Expenses Insurance
-Personal assistance
-Transport Accident Insurance

You get the first year for free and after that you need to pay 300CHF per year.
Has anyone had the card for one year, took advantage of the bonuses and then cancelled the card?
Is this even possible? Or would AMEX just sent you the bill for the 300CHF fee?

Thank you in advance!

2

I have a free Amex and I have to carry a second card in case I go to Aldi/Lidl or any of the other 1000 place that don’t accept it.

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3

Just put them both on Apple Pay and problem solved :slight_smile: Am doing exactly that

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4

Does anybody know of an Amex card that works on Google Pay too?

5

I have the Amex Plat which gave 100K MR points. I plan on canceling it just before the first year expires. Amex card in CH you pay the full next years charge immediately after the year is up and its not prorated if you cancel earlier like in other countries. Also in CH you can cancel at any time and it can be immediate, no notice period.

That means, you should be able to take the bonuses and cancel before the second year kicks in. Per T&Cs they do have a right to claw back the bonuses but my understanding is that if you truly use it and cancel it before the year is up, it’s fine as you kept/used it for 12 months. I plan on doing that with my platinum and might get this free-gold offer. As always, Amex (direct) cards in CH are severely disadvantaged as points exchange is limited and in lot of European countries the Gold card is entirely free if you have a yearly spent of beyond 10K/year (you do have to ask for it). Sadly here they want 300CHF/year after the second year, which is bonkers.

Tl;dr - I think yes, if its not outright attempt to freeload. Get the card and use it, cancel before end of year. Would not recommend to get and cancel outright after a month or so.

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6

Thank you for the in-depth reply!
I was thinking of ordering it and using it for 10-11 months and then cancelling to avoid the second year fee.
I will keep you updated on what happens!

7

So what did happen? They still offer it now with 40 K points.

8

Keep in mind though that an AMEX in Apple Pay is still an AMEX - and will only work (or not) on terminals that accept AMEX.

Apple Pay will only help against that merchants whose terminal can accept AMEX - but whose employees are denying the cards or “kindly ask” for another one.

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9

same with samsung pay or google pay. Still don’t work at Aldi/Lidl. So another Mastercard/Visa is helpful. But anyway these are the only places which are not accepting AMEX in our use cases.

10

I’m somewhat cetain that I’ve used Google Pay at Aldi. Most of the card terminals in Switzerland are the same and as long as they accept NFC payments they usually support Google Pay.

11

…but probably not with an AMEX card. :wink:

12

There’s afaik no AMEX card that supports Google Pay in the first place :frowning: (I wish there was, then the cashback ones would be a no brainer)

13

Can someone try Samsung Pay with Amex on a non-amex shop? I wonder if it works (it shouldn’t)