| Card Details and Application Link |
|---|
American Express® Green Card 40K Points ⓘ Friend-Referral 40K after $3K spend in first 6 months. Terms apply. See Rates & Fees$150 Annual Fee Click Here to Apply This is a friend-referral offer. A member of the Frequent Miler community may earn a referral bonus if you are approved for this offer Information about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy. Recent better offer: 60K after $3K spend in first 6 months + 20% off travel and transit purchases for first 6 months. [Expired 8/21/23] FM Mini Review: This card is worth considering as your go-to travel card, but only if you value its CLEAR and Lounge Buddy credits. Also note that Amex cards continue to have limited acceptance in many international destinations. Click here for our complete card review Earning rate: ✦ 3X on travel & transit (including flights, hotels, taxis, and rideshares) ✦ 3X dining ✦ 1X points on other purchases. Terms apply. See Card Info: Amex Pay Over Time Card issued by Amex. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Noteworthy perks: $189 CLEAR credit annually ✦ $100 LoungeBuddy credit annually Terms Apply. |
Intro
The American Express Green Card is a reasonably rewarding card for travel thanks to it offering 3x rewards for all travel and dining spend. Additionally, if you value the card’s CLEAR benefit, the net cost of owning the card is roughly zero.
The biggest issue with the Green card is that its an Amex card. Internationally, Amex isn’t as widely accepted as Visa or Mastercard and so its use is limited when you’re likely to need it the most.
Application Tips
Amex Application Tips
Check application status here. |
Should you apply?
Green card welcome bonuses are usually worth considerably more than the card’s annual fee. So, as long as you can meet the offer’s minimum spend requirements, it can make sense to apply and keep the card for at least one year. You can always cancel once the annual fee comes due in year 2 to avoid paying for the second year.
One thing to note: Amex imposes a limit per person of 5 credit cards and 10 Pay Over Time cards. And the Amex Green Card is weird. It is technically a Pay over Time card, and it is treated that way when applying for the Green Card, but if you already have the Green Card, it is treated as a credit card towards your credit card limit. This applies only to the consumer Green card. The Business Green card acts as a regular Pay Over Time Card.
Amex Green Card Reconsideration
If denied, call reconsideration: 877-399-3083 (new account holders); 866-314-0237 (current account holders)
How to Meet Minimum Spend requirements
Eligible purchases to meet the Threshold Amount do NOT include fees or interest charges, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchases of gift cards, person-to-person payments, or purchases of other cash equivalents.That said, many techniques for meeting minimum spend are perfectly fine. Here are some techniques that are safe for meeting Amex minimum spend requirements (click each link for more information):
Annual Fee
The Amex Green card has a $150 annual fee. Additional cardholders are free.
Amex Green Card Perks
The Green Card offers the following perks:
- 3X Points On Restaurants, Travel, & Transit
- $189 CLEAR® Plus Credit per calendar year: Simply pay for your CLEAR Plus membership with your Green card.
- $100 LoungeBuddy Credit per calendar year: Use your Green card to purchase lounge access through the LoungeBuddy app and you’ll be reimbursed up to $100 per year.
Redeem Points
In general, Membership Rewards points are worth up to 1 cent each when redeemed for merchandise or gift cards. Fortunately, there are three ways in which it is possible to get more value: redeem points for flights, transfer points to hotel or airline partners, or invest rewards. More on each below…
Travel
The Business Platinum Card offers a 35% Airline Bonus: Get 35% of your points back when you redeem points through Amex Travel for either a First or Business class flight on any airline, or for any flights with your selected airline.
After you receive the 35% rebate, the value works out to 1.54 cents per point. That's very good, but it does require owning this ultra-premium card.
Transfer points
The best use of Membership Rewards points, in our opinion, is to transfer points to airline and hotel partners in order to book high value awards. Your best bet is usually to wait until you find a great flight or flight award before transferring points. One exception: Amex often offers transfer bonuses to certain programs (Virgin Atlantic and British Airways are two common examples). If you’re confident that you’ll use the points for good value, it may make sense to transfer points when those bonuses are in effect.
For specific examples of great ways to use points transferred to airline miles, please see: Amex Membership Rewards sweet spots.
Current Transfer Bonuses
Here are the currently available transfer bonuses from Amex Membership Rewards (this table will update automatically when new offers are found):
| Transfer Bonus Details | End Date |
Points can be transferred to the loyalty accounts of the primary cardholder or any authorized user or employee on the account.
Transfer Partners
It is free to transfer Membership Rewards points to foreign airlines. For transfers to US airlines, however, Amex charges an “excise tax offset fee” of $0.0006 per point (with a maximum fee of $99). Airlines subject to this fee are noted below.
| Rewards Program | Amex Transfer Ratio | Best Uses |
|---|---|---|
| Aer Lingus Avios | 1 to 1 | Fuel surcharges are sometimes lower when booking with Aer Lingus (Avios.com) rather than British Airways, Qatar, or Iberia. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. |
| AeroMexico ClubPremier | 1 to 1.6 | AeroMexico is a SkyTeam partner. Club Premier points can be used to book flights on AeroMexico, SkyTeam alliance members (such as Delta or Korean Air), or on select partner airlines. Unfortunately many have reported that awards are extremely difficult to book through AeroMexico so we do not recommend transferring points to this program. If you want to fly AeroMexico, look to transfer points to another SkyTeam partner (such as Air France) and then book AeroMexico with that program. |
| Air Canada Aeroplan | 1 to 1 | Redeem for Star Alliance flights and/or flights with Air Canada partners (such as Etihad). No fuel surcharges; $39 CAD award booking fee; 5,000 points to add stopover on one-way award. See: Air Canada Aeroplan: Everything you need to know. |
| Air France KLM Flying Blue | 1 to 1 | Monthly Air France Promo Awards often represent very good value. Air France miles can be used to book Sky Team awards, including Delta awards. Air France often offers very good business class award pricing between the US and Europe & Israel. |
| ANA Mileage Club | 1 to 1 | Redeem for Star Alliance flights. Multiple stopovers allowed. ANA offers many great sweet-spot awards, including flying around the world in business class for as few as 115K miles! See also: ANA - a terrific Membership Rewards gem. |
| Avianca LifeMiles | 1 to 1 | Avianca LifeMiles can be great for Star Alliance awards. They offer reasonable award prices and no fuel surcharges on awards. They also offer shorthaul awards within the US (for flying United, for example) for as few as 7,500 miles one-way. Best of all, their mixed-cabin pricing can lead to fantastic first-class award prices. See this post for details. |
| British Airways Avios | 1 to 1 | While flights on British Airways itself often incur outrageously high fuel surcharges, many BA partners charge low or no fuel surcharges. Excellent value can be had in redeeming BA points for short distance flights. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. |
| Cathay Pacific Asia Miles | 1 to 1 | Cathay Pacific has a decent distance based award chart, but they no longer allow stopovers longer than 24 hours. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles can be a good option for booking American Airlines flights with a distance based award chart, especially if other OneWorld Alliance miles aren't available. For long distance flights, it is possible to reduce the cost of a premium cabin award by adding on a lower cabin segment. See this post for details. |
| Choice | 1 to 1 | Choice Privileges points seem to be randomly valuable within the US, but dependably valuable internationally in expensive locations such as Scandinavia and Japan. Points can sometimes offer great value when used towards participating Preferred Hotels of the World. |
| Delta SkyMiles | 1 to 1 plus excise tax | Delta no longer charges change or cancellation fees on awards originating in North America. Flash award sales and flights to/from locations other than the U.S. or Canada can offer great value. See: Best uses for Delta miles. |
| Emirates Skywards | 1 to 1 | The best use of Emirates miles has been to fly Emirates itself. Unfortunately fuel surcharges can be steep. See: Emirates Sweet Spot Awards - First class from 30K miles round trip. |
| Etihad Guest | 1 to 1 | Etihad offers a distance based award chart for flying Etihad and another for its partners. Points may offer good value for expensive but short-distance flights. |
| Hawaiian Miles | 1 to 1 plus excise tax | Hawaiian Airlines’ award prices tend to be quite high, but there are some not-terrible uses: fly to neighboring islands for 7.5K miles, fly first class round-trip from Hawaii to South Pacific islands for as few as 95K miles, fly first class round-trip from Hawaii to Australia for as few as 130K miles, or use miles to upgrade paid flights. |
| Hilton | 1 to 2 | 5th Night Free awards. Best value is usually found with very low end or very high end Hilton hotels. Bonus: award nights are not subject to resort fees. |
| Iberia Avios | 1 to 1 | On their own flights, Iberia offers low award prices and a very reasonable 25 Euro cancellation fee. Partner awards can offer good value under some circumstances as well, but these are usually nonrefundable. Fuel surcharges are sometimes lower when booking with Iberia rather than British Airways, Aer Lingus, or Qatar. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. |
| JetBlue | 250 to 200 plus excise tax | JetBlue points offer the most value when cheap ticket prices are available and when award taxes are high relative to the overall cost of the ticket (more details can be found here). The JetBlue Plus Card and the JetBlue Business Card offer a 10% rebate on awards, so you can get more value by holding one of these cards. |
| Marriott Bonvoy | 1 to 1 | 5th Night Free awards. Opportunities to get outsized value exist but can be hard to find. |
| Qantas Frequent Flyer | 1 to 1 | Best use is probably for flights on El Al with no fuel surcharges. Also useful for short AA flights. Qantas offers distance based award charts similar to Cathay Pacific. Both are OneWorld Alliance members. I recommend comparing award prices across both programs before transferring to either. Qantas offers round the world business class awards for only 280,000 points (but with many restrictions) |
| Qatar Privilege Club Avios | 1 to 1 | Qatar has reasonable award prices for flying Qatar itself. Points are now transferable 1 to 1 to British Airways (and from there to Aer Lingus or Iberia). It is now also possible to book JetBlue flights with Qatar Avios. |
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | 1 to 1 | Use to book Singapore Airlines First Class awards (generally reserved for their own members), Alaska Airlines economy awards, or for Star Alliance awards (including United Airlines). |
| Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | 1 to 1 | Virgin Atlantic offers a few great sweet spot awards including US to Europe on Delta One business class for 50K points one-way. See: Best uses for Virgin Atlantic points (Sweet Spot Spotlight). |
Cash back (invest with rewards)
Other options
You can also redeem points for gift cards or merchandise. At most, with this approach you’ll get 1 cent per point value, but usually you’ll get quite a bit less.
You can also use points to pay some merchants directly (Amazon.com, for example). Don’t do this. These options offer very poor value. Further, they may compromise the security of your account (i.e. if someone hacks into your Amazon account, they might spend your Membership Rewards points – causing you a headache in getting your points reinstated).
Manage Points
Combine Points
Amex automatically pools all of your points together. When you earn points with different cards, the point total shown when viewing either card is the total across cards.Share Points
Unlike Chase and Citibank, Amex doesn’t allow members to move points from one person’s account to another. That said, it is possible to transfer one person’s points to another person’s loyalty program account. The key is that the person who receives the points must be an authorized user or employee on the other person’s account. For example, my wife can transfer Membership Rewards points to my Virgin Atlantic account as long as I’m an authorized user (or employee) on any of her Membership Rewards cards.An authorized user card must be active for 90 days before it will unlock the ability to transfer your points to the authorized user’s loyalty program account.
How to Keep Points Alive
Thankfully, it is very easy to keep Amex Membership Rewards points alive. Simply keep any Membership Rewards card open. For example, if you are about to close your one and only Membership Rewards card, then open another Membership Rewards card account first in order to preserve your points. Amex offers some no-fee Membership Rewards cards, such as the Blue Business Plus and the Amex Everyday, so this shouldn't be much of a burden.Related Cards
| Card Offer |
Getting This message: ‘XXXXXX, you are not eligible to receive the welcome offer. In determining eligibility, we considered your history with credit card balance transfers, your history as an American Express Card Member, the number of credit cards that you have opened and closed and other factors.”
Did not have this card in the past, never had a balance transfer, have 1 personal card and business checking account, under 5/24 and Last card opened (any) 3/21/23. Any other reasons I deemed as not “worthy” 😉 ?
FYI there are 45k mile offers by referral s
Also note the CLEAR credit is now $189
Any updates to this offer? If Resy offer has expired is the 40K offer the best available now?
Is there a current offer that’s working? This Resy offer ended awhile ago.
What’s the best green offer these days? The resy offer doesn’t work.
You can get a total of 45K points after $2K spend in 6 months instead of 40K with a referral link.
Appears there is no longer a Resy offer for American Express® Green Card. The link no longer returns a Green only Plat, Gold and Blue.
So is the 2 cards in 90 Day Rule: You can get at most two credit cards within 90 days. – Is this specific to American Express Cards? I was just declined by American express and I am wondering why… Thank you
Yes, the section entitled “Amex Application Tips” is specific to Amex.
As to why you were declined, you can try calling the reconsideration phone number listed in that section to speak with someone. Know that they won’t always have the actual reason and may just make one up, but if it’s something like the 90 day rule or 5 credit card rule, they will let you know.
Green card referral link broken