Amex Gold vs Chase Sapphire Preferred, Which Card is Better? 

by Daniel | Last Updated May 4th, 2024

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If you’re interested in getting either the Chase Sapphire Preferred card or the American Express Gold card, but can’t figure out which card is the best, then this article is perfect for you.

Basically Im going to talk you through how these two cards differ and I’ll cover everything from the annual fee to the benefits and perks on offer.

I’ll even show you how you can get massive value from each card by transferring your points to some of the different travel partners. 

And then at the end of this article,  I’ll give you my opinion on which card is the best value.

https://youtu.be/FsmKqLU4Fcs

Who Are These Cards Good For? 

Now before I start comparing both of these credit cards, it’s worth considering if either card will actually be a good fit for you and your spending habits. 

As you probably already know, there are quite a lot of different credit cards out there that have some nice pretty benefits on offer.
And whilst it is nice to have access to specials offers,
The offers that ore available with both of these cards are essentially there to entice you into applying for the card.
As you will see the benefits associated with each card are almost the same as the annual fee that they hold.  
In my opinion it’s worth considering which card will be able to earn you the most amount of points through your spending habits.

As with credit cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred card or the Amex Gold card you will almost always find the most value via the points transfer options. 
And this is something that I will cover later in the article.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

Sign-up Bonus

Now considering that the Chase Sapphire Preferred card only cost $95 a year, it actually has a really valuable sign-up bonus at the time of making this video.
Currently it is possible to earn 75,000 bonus points if you can manage to spend $4,000 on the card within the first 3 months of card ownership. 
Thats up from 60,000 bonus points that the card usually offers.

So to receive the sign-up bonus you will need to spend about $333 a week over the first 3 months. 
Now Chase Sapphire Preferred Points are worth 1.25 cents per points when redeemed through Chase Travel.
This means that the 75,000 points sign up bonus is worth about $937.
Thats almost ten times the value of the annual fee, so it’s a pretty good deal.

But, let me just you how you can get way more value from these points just by doing a little bit of research. 

Transferring Points To Travel Partners For More Value 

So as I mentioned at the start of this video you will almost always find the most value out of credit cards like these by transferring the points to one of the travel partners. 

And to see how to do this in detail with Chase related credit cards, check out this article here. 

So let’s start by looking at transferring points to The World of Hyatt.
In my opinion this is probably one of the best Hotel partners that is associated with Chase as it quite often has really valuable deals available when using points.

Now it’s worth noting that it is possible to transfer Chase points over to the World of Hyatt a 1 to 1 value. 

So as an example, you could book two nights at the Alila Villas Uluwatu in Bali on July 16th-18th for 70,000 points (or 35,000 points per night). 

Now if you were to pay cash for the same booking you will see that with taxes and fees it will cost $1,748.45.

This means you will be getting a points value of almost 2.5 cents per point.
So it’s way better value than using the points through Chase Travel.

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Now, there is another way were can earn a lot more value than this.

So I’ll just go over to a website called ‘seats.aero’ and here I’ll just just click on the tab ‘explore’ and choose ‘Air France/ KLM – Flying Blue’ as that is one of the partners with Chase.

And they also offer a points transfer value of 1:1. 

Now you will see here that it shows flights from North America to Anywhere. 

Now from here, I’ll just click the  ‘Business button’ to organize Business class flights that are actually available using points.

And you will see here, the third option, that there isa business class flight from Dallas Fort Worth to Paris for 50,000 points.

Now to see the finer details of this flight I’ll just click here on the little information icon, and then when the pop up opens I’ll click on ‘Business’ 

And here it has the flight details, and you will notice that it also requires an additional $202.70. 

Now if I head over to the Air France website and look for this flight, you will see that it will cost $7,913 if you were to pay cash for the flight.

This means you are getting a points value of around 15 cents per point, which is insanely good value, and would value the 75,000 point sign up bonus at over $11,000!

So as you can see, transferring points to a travel partner with this card can provide you with a huge amount of value.

Earning Miles 

Now like I mentioned at the start of the video, earning points with this card from your everyday spending can really help you get a lot more value out of this card.

So starting at the top, it is possible to earn 5x points for any travel that is specifically booked through Chase Travel.
All Lyft rides will also earn you 5x points.

Purchases that are over $150 at Peloton will also earn 5x points, (although this is limited to a maximum of 25,000  points)

It is then possible to earn 3x points on dining, which includes take out and delivery services.

Also, online grocery purchases and select streaming services will earn you 3x points.

Travel that is not purchased through Chase travel will earn you 2x points.

Then all other purchases will earn you 1 point per dollar spent.

So there is a fairly broad option of spending categories where you can earn points from with this card, and if you spend a lot through Chase Travel, on Lyft rides or at Peloton, you will earn the most points.  

Benefits 

Now finally, let’s take a look at the benefits that are included with this card, and seeing that it has a relatively low annual fee of just $95, there isn’t much on offer.

So the first benefits is a $50 statement credit that can be received when you make a hotel booking through Chase Travel.

There is then a DashPass Subscription which means you wont have to pay a delivery fee on eligible order. 

Then there is a 6 month Instacart+ Subscription that provides you with a $15 credit each quarter.

And finally, each account anniversary you will receive a 10% bonus of the total amount you spent on the card.
So if you send say $15,000 on the card over the course of the previous year, you will receive 1,500 points.

This is a pretty nice benefit to have, especially if you spend a lot on the card.

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American Express Gold Card 

Sign-up Bonus

So at the time of making this video, the Amex Gold card is offering a signup bonus of 60,000 Membership Rewards Points after you spend $6,000 on the card within a 6 month period.

That works out to be a spend of $250 a week for 6 months, so if you know you can meet this spend requirement, you can be sure you will receive the signup bonus.

Now with Membership Rewards Points being worth up to 1 cent per point when redeemed through American Express Travel, this signup bonus is worth $600.

So it’s not quite as valuable as the signup bonus that is currently on offer from Chase, but it is still pretty good.

Transferring Points To Travel Partners For More Value

Now much like the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, if you transfer your Amex Points to one of the Travel Partners, you will almost certainly get a lot more value.

So lets start by taking a look at Hilton hotels, as it is possible to transfer Amex Points at a 1 to 2 ratio, meaning 1 Amex Membership Reward Point will earn you 2 Hilton Honors Points.

And I’ve been able to find a nice room in Rome at the Aleph Rome Hotel, which is part of the Curio Collection by Hilton
Now when using Hilton Points it will require 85,000 points for 1 night, which works out to be 42,500 Membership Rewards Points.

Now if you were to pay cash for this room it would cost $632.

This means you will be getting a points value of almost 1.5 cents per point.
And whilst this is not quite a good as what you can receive from Chase Points that are transferred to the World Of Hyatt, it is still pretty good value.

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Now just like that Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you can also transfer Amex Membership Rewards Points over to FlyingBlue, which at least in my opinion, has some amazing deals.

So I’ll head back over to ‘seats.aero’ and click here on ‘Explore’ and then select ‘Air France/‘ KLM – FlyingBlue’ 

I’ll then make sure that its is set to show flights from North American to Europe. 

Then I’ll click on the Business tab to sort the best deals that are availble on Business class.

And right here, you will that there is a flight from JFK to Paris on Air France flying Business class that will require 50,000 points.

So I’ll just click on the little Information tab here to find out the finer details of this flight.
Then I’ll click here on Business, and you will see that the booking will require 50,000 points plus an additional $202.30 USD.

Now if I go to the Air France website to look up this flight, you will see that the same booking will cost me $6,918!

This means you are getting a points value of almost 13.5 cents per point, which is amazing value, and would value the 60,000 point sign up bonus at about $8,100.

So again, this shows you that by transferring your Membership Rewards Points to one of the travel partners, it is possible to get unbelievable value.

You will just need to be a bit flexible when it comes to finding one of these great deals.

Earning Miles

So as I mentioned earlier, the points earning ability of your credit card can really help you to get a huge amount of value, as long as you can take advantage of the larger points earning categories.

And starting with the best points earning offers from the Amex Gold card you can get 4x points for purchases made a restaurants world wide.
This also includes takeout and delivery services that are located from within the US.

It is also possible to receive 4x points for purchases that are made as US supermarkets up to a total yearly spend of $25,000, which works out to be a maximum of 100,000 points.

Then any flights that are booked either directly with the airlines or through Amex Travel will earn you 3x points.

All other purchases made on the card will earn you 1 point per dollar spent. 

So similar to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, there are quite a few different spending categories that can help you earn a substantial amount of extra points.

Benefits 

Now finally, lets take a look at what benefits come with the Amex Gold card, and just keep in mind that these so called benefits are there to esentially help cover the cost of the $250 annual fee.

So the first benefit on offer is a $120 dining credit, that can be used at the following business:

• Grubhub
• The Cheesecake Factory
• Goldbelly
• Wine.com
• Milk Bar
• Select Shake Shack locations

So it is al little limited in where you can actually use the credit, and another thing worth noting is that it is only distributed in $10 allotments each month.

I personally think that it would be much better if it was possible to use the full credit all at once, as a $10 credit is really not much these days.

Very similar to this is a $120 Uber credit, which can be used for either Uber Rides or Uber Eats, and this is also provided in $10 allotments each month. 

So these two benefits alone, if fully utilized will just about totally cover the cost of the annual fee. 

Then finally there is the ability to receive a $100 credit for bookings of 2 nights or more that are made through The Hotel Collection.
This can be quite a nice benefit to have providing you actually stay at hotels on a regular basis.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it, that pretty much everything you need to know about both the Chase Sapphire Preferred card and the American Express Gold card. 

And even though the Amex Gold card has does have a higher annual fee by $155, it is quite easily made up for if you make use of the $120 Uber credit and the $120 dining credit.

But to be honest I would prefer not to have those two benefits and just have a lower annual fee.
As it’s just another thing you have to think about to get back money that you have already dolled out for the annual fee.

In terms of utilizing points for benefits, both cards have the ability to get some pretty amazing value when it comes to flights, specifically when you transfer the points the Flyingblue.

When it comes to transferring points to one of the Hotel Partners, I find that the Chase Sapphire Preferred card does have the leg up over the Amex Gold card, as you can get really good value from the World of Hyatt.

Now if I had to choose one card over the other, I personally would have to go with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.
First of all because it currently has a really good sign-up bonus of 75,000 points.

I also like the fact that you can transfer points to The World Of Hyatt.
This is something that I’ve been able to in the past, and I have almost always found really great deals. 

And finally, as I travel internationally a lot, the fact that the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is a Visa card, means It is accepted at more locations around the world.

I actually have both an Amex card and Chase card, and when I am in Europe I do tend to find it a bit challenging to use my Amex at certain business as they don’t like the transactional fees that they have to pay to use Amex card. 

Now this is not to say that I don’t like the Amex Gold card.

I think both the Chase Sapphire Preferred card and the Amex Gold card can provide you a ton of value, it just comes down to which card you prefer.

And if you like both cards, you can get one of each and start to get even more value from a wider range of transfer partners.

And if you are looking for really good travel related credit card, make sure to check out my latest article here, where I compare all 4 of the Amex Delta SkyMiles credit cards.