The American Express® Green Card is newly refreshed and now provides a compelling offering in the mid-tier travel category. With 3x earning on broader travel, restaurants and transit as well as annual statement credits for CLEAR and LoungeBuddy that more than cover its annual fee, the Green from Amex is a card that modern travelers should consider. Card Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐*

There’s a 50k offer via incognito mode! This is the best ever offer on this card. It seems you can only see this offer from referral links, not from public links. It is also reported that there is currently a 60k pre-qualified offer, see the application link part for the links.

Who is this card for?

The earning rates and benefits of the American Express Green Card will be most attractive to young professionals and millennials (or millennials at heart) who travel for work, pleasure or both. The card earns 3x Membership Rewards points on travel, restaurants and transit, so you’ll want to consider this card if a large chunk of your budget goes toward these categories.

The Amex Green also offers annual up to $100 CLEAR and up to $100 LoungeBuddy statement credits that can more than offset the $150 annual fee (see rates and fees) while making your time in the airport more efficient and relaxing. If you can utilize these statement credits, the card can easily be a worthwhile addition to your purse or wallet.

Benefits

  1. Public 30k offer: earn 30,000 Membership Rewards (MR) Points after spending $2,000 in the first 3 months. (note that, again, we recommend waiting until you can see the 45k incognito offer).
  2. [Limited time offer – ends on 2020.01.15] $100 AWAY luggage credit.
  3. We estimate that MR are worth about 1.6 cents/point, see below for a brief introduction. So the 30k sign-up bonus is worth about $480. If you can pull the 45k incognito mode offer, that bonus is worth about $720!
  4. Earn 3 MR Points per $1 spent on restaurants and travel worldwide, and 1 MR on all other purchases.
  5. $100 CLEAR credit per calendar year. CLEAR is a service to bypass the travel document checker at security checkpoints in selected airports.
  6. $100 Lounge Buddy credit per year.
  7. No foreign transaction fee.
  8. With this card, you can get access to Amex Offer, which usually offers very good discounts at some stores, such as: spend $15 or more and get $5 back at Walmart; spend $75 or more and get $25 back on Amazon.com.
  9. Refer a friend: You can earn 5,000 bonus MR points for every approved account you refer, up to 55,000 MR points per calendar year.
  10. This card is very easy to get approved, because it is a charge card, not a credit card. Charge card means that you don’t have an option to make a minimum payment, you have to pay your balance in full on the due date. Charge card applications will also result in a hard credit pull, similar to credit card applications.
  11. Charge Cards have no pre-set spending limit.

Disadvantages

  1. $150 annual fee, not waived for the first year.
  2. If you add an Additional Card to your account following your Basic Card application, you will be charged an annual fee of $30 for up to 5 Additional Cards. The annual fee for 6 or more Additional Cards is $30 for each Card. Waived for the first year.