AMEX Gold Card (American Express)

Member Name: Robbie.N

Product:	American Express
Date:	20/03/04 (9281 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: helps insecure snobs feel better about themselves

Disadvantages: no worthwhile features, audacious annual fee increases, poor acceptability

The AMEX Gold Card annual fee gets you the following features:

1) The Gold Card Travel Service offers assistance with booking holidays, flights or hotel accommodation.

2) The Flight Companions scheme offers a complimentary companion ticket when you book a Business or First Class ticket on selected airlines.

3) If you find yourself in a legal or medical emergency abroad, a 24 hour assistance helpline is available.

4) If you charge public transport tickets to your Gold Card, you'll receive up to £250,000 travel accident insurance cover.

5) If your flights are cancelled or delayed for four hours or more, you will be covered for expenses up to £200 towards restaurant meals and refreshments. If you are delayed for over six hours you can charge up to £400 to the Card for hotel accommodation.

6) You can charge up to £750 to your American Express Gold Card for essential clothing and toiletries if your bags are lost.

7) An entertainment booking service for theatres and other events and attractions is available.

8) If you buy goods from UK retailers, on or off-line, and they won't take back any covered goods within 90 days of purchase, the purchase price will be refunded up to £300 per item.

9) An Annual Summary of charges is provided, to help monitor spending.

10) Purchases with the Card earn you points that can be redeemed for leisure, dining and retail rewards.

The overriding flaw with these outrageously derisory and over-priced features is of course that they are rarely (probably never) going to be of any use. For example, credit cards are available from other issuers, offering exactly the same level of travel accident insurance, with no annual fee at all. Sifting through the list of "benefits" above allows me to categorise the market profile that AMEX seems to be targeting:

I suggest, based upon the above complementary benefits on offer, t
hat the archetypal AMEX Gold Card member would indeed be someone who:

- is not able to make their own travel arrangements or book their own holiday (they need someone else to do it for them);

- inexplicably loses their baggage during travel and never gets it recovered;

- somehow finds it appropriate to charge up to £750 on toilet paper if their baggage goes astray;

- has not arranged any comprehensive travel accident insurance before travelling overseas (international legal and medical assistance is typically standard with such a policy);

- feels it is necessary to pay to insure themselves against being dismembered in a bus/coach/plane crash (this cover is normally free elsewhere);

- does not realise that EU airlines are legally bound to fully compensate/reimburse passengers who are delayed for more than four hours;

- cannot book their own theatre tickets;

- needs an annual statement to remind them of details of transactions which they have already been sent in their monthly statements.

So, given that (hopefully) no-one genuinely fits these criteria, it must be concluded that cardholders pay the annual fee for something else. Image.

Certainly the dark gold/black appearance of AMEX Gold attracts attention (its pretentious and shamelessly ostentatious design makes sure of that). Even if just one feature were to be included in the package which were of some practical benefit (e.g. comprehensive travel insurance - or at least discounts on AMEX insurances) this could make the overall product more attractive... but unfortunately it isn't.

Incidentally, I have not included the current annual fee here. The reason for this is the apparent hyperinflation being experienced at AMEX - the charge card fees seem to increase weekly.

Other AMEX charge cards available are:

Gold Fidelity
Gold AEIMA
Business Gold Card
Platinum Card
Platinum Fideli
ty
Platinum AEIMA
Business Platinum Card
Centurion Card
Business Centurion Card
Executive Business Card


So if you are willing to pay the annual fees for essentially no reason at all, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Gold Card. Indeed it could save your life in the event of any unforeseen case of dysentery, were your luggage to go missing abroad.

Image? I suggest to you that in reality no-one on the street gives a flying *%@# about the "image" of your credit card so you are all the sadder for paying to wave it about in stores thinking that they do. Opt instead for a card which offers worthwhile features, e.g. free travel accident insurance or cash-back, (not to mention one which is widely accepted).

A quick comparison of the Gold Card's annual fee with that on AMEX's U.S.- based website shows that, once more, the Brits are being shafted backwards - it is nearly twice as expensive to have one in the U.K. (dollar to pound), and you don't get access to the better offers and rewards available there either. Customer service is disastrously poor, with it often proving difficult for them to understand what you are saying. The reason for this infuriating service stems from the fact that AMEX can make even more money out of you by paying hardly anything to its outsourced call handlers based in Ugandan shanty towns who can barely speak English.

The AMEX Foundation for the Profoundly Egoistic needs your money, so if you must, help them out.... give generously!!

Isn't it strange how so many places don't accept AMEX?

Summary: