American Express Green Card Review 2023

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The Amex Green Card offers strong earning rates for travel, dining, and transit spending. It’s also got up to $289 in annual statement credits, which is more than enough to offset its $150 annual fee. However, frequent travelers may prefer a card with stronger travel incentives, such as free airport lounge access and top-tier travel insurance.

American Express Green Card Review: Is It the Best Credit Card for You?

Normally, the Amex Green Card offers a welcome bonus in the range of 40,000 or 45,000 points after meeting minimum spending requirements. But right now, it has a significantly improved offer of 60,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first six months of card membership and earn 20% on eligible travel and transit purchases made during your first six months of Card Membership (up to $200 back in the form of a statement credit). That’s the highest points welcome bonus we’ve ever seen for the card, not even counting the addition of up to $200 in travel statement credits.

This product is by nature a travel rewards card — if you make a lot of travel, dining, and transit purchases, you’ll be rewarded with 3 points per dollar. Transit is a particularly rare category, and includes merchants like trains, taxicabs, rideshare services, ferries, tolls, parking, buses, and subways.

And with benefits such as up to $189 in CLEAR® credits (helpful for speeding through the TSA airport security line) and up to $100 in LoungeBuddy credits (so you can access airport lounges for free), this is a good starter travel card for occasional travelers.

Here’s what you need to know about the American Express® Green Card.

We’re focused here on the rewards and perks that come with each card. These cards won’t be worth it if you’re paying interest or late fees. When using a credit card, it’s important to pay your balance in full each month, make payments on time, and only spend what you can afford to pay.

Amex Green Card Rewards

Amex Green Card welcome bonus

The Amex Green Card is currently offering 60,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first six months of card membership and earn 20% on eligible travel and transit purchases made during your first six months of Card Membership (up to $200 back in the form of a statement credit). The points alone are worth around $1,080 in travel, based on Insider’s calculation of Amex points value. 

If you’re able to max out up to $200 in travel statement credits, you’ll come out well ahead and more than make up for the card’s annual fee in the first year. However, this credit isn’t as straightforward as it sounds — you won’t be reimbursed for the first $200 in travel purchases you make. Instead, the credit is a 20% rebate on up to $1,000 in qualifying travel purchases ($1,000 x 20% =$200). If you’d make those purchases anyway, the credit is an easy discount.

How to earn points with the Amex Green Card

The Amex Green Card has a simple and powerful earning structure that fits the lifestyle of a frequent traveler. You’ll earn 3 Amex Membership Rewards points per dollar on the following purchases: 

• Restaurants (including takeout and delivery)
• Travel (including airfare, hotels, cruises, tours, car rentals, and more)
• Transit (including trains, buses, ferries, subway, and more)

You’ll earn 1 point per dollar on all other eligible purchases.

Because Insider’s points and miles valuations peg Amex points as worth an average of 1.8 cents each when redeemed for travel, the earning rate of 3 points per dollar is equivalent to a 5.4% return.

To become an Amex points-earning powerhouse, you can complement this card’s bonus categories with other American Express cards. For example, the Amex Gold Card earns 4 points per dollar at US supermarkets (on up to $25,000 spent per year, then 1x) and at restaurants.

How to use points from the Amex Green Card

There are myriad ways to use Amex Membership Rewards points, each offering drastically different value.

To get the biggest return for your rewards, you’ll want to use them for travel — namely, transferring your points to airline and hotel partners such as Air Canada Aeroplan, ANA, Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and Hilton. For example, you can:

• Transfer 87,000 Amex points to Avianca for a one-way first-class flight to Frankfurt on Lufthansa (a $7,000+ value)
• Transfer 39,000 Amex points to Singapore Airlines for a round-trip flight to Hawaii on United Airlines  (a $500+ value)
• Transfer 120,000 Amex points to Hilton for a weekend stay at the Conrad Bora Bora (a $2,500+ value)
• Transfer 88,000 Amex points to ANA for a round-trip business class flight to Europe on United Airlines (a $3,500 value)

Alternatively, you can use your points to effectively “buy” flights through the American Express Travel portal at a rate of 1 cent each. You can reserve hotels, rental cars, cruises, etc. through the portal, too, but your points will be worth just 0.7 cents each.

Other options (though we don’t recommend any of these) include:

• Purchase gift cards with your points, generally at a rate of 1 cent per point
• Pay with points for Amazon purchases and with other stores like Walmart and Best Buy at 0.7 cents per point
• Receive a statement credit for your points at 0.6 cents per point

Amex Green Card Benefits and Features

The Amex Green Card isn’t as jam-packed with benefits as similarly priced travel rewards credit cards, but it’s got enough to more than offset the card’s annual fee each year.

Up to $100 in LoungeBuddy statement credits

LoungeBuddy aggregates most airport lounges worldwide and allows you to purchase a day pass. This is beneficial if you don’t already have a credit card with free airport lounge access, and if you don’t frequently travel enough to warrant opening one of the aforementioned cards.

Prices for a day pass through LoungeBuddy vary with each location, but day passes can cost as low as $25. If you and a travel buddy want to enter a lounge, you could well get two visits each from this annual statement credit.

Up to $189 in CLEAR® statement credits

CLEAR® is an expedited airport security program that lets you skip to the front of the TSA line. It also operates at the entrance of some stadiums.

A membership to CLEAR® normally costs $189 per year — so a $189 statement credit would lower your out-of-pocket cost to $0 per year.

Modest travel and lifestyle insurance

As with most cards in this price range, you can receive purchase insurance with eligible items. You’ll get:

• Purchase protection
• Extended warranty protection
• Return protection

And because this card is primarily for travelers, it comes with:

• Rental car insurance — This coverage is secondary, so it will pick up what your personal auto insurance doesn’t cover.
• Trip delay insurance — When your flight is delayed 12 hours or more, you’ll get up to $300 per trip (max two claims per year).
• Baggage insurance — Offers reimbursement in the event of lost, stolen, or damaged baggage.
• 24/7 Global Assistance Hotline — Helpful for various emergencies, such as cash wire transfers, medical problems, etc. (you must be at least 100 miles from home).

Amex Green Card Annual Fee and Other Costs

The Amex Green Card charges a $150 annual fee. But it doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, so it’s a great companion when traveling internationally.

The card isn’t a good choice if you plan to carry a balance using Amex’s Pay Over Time feature, because the card charges interest (See Pay Over Time APR). If you know you’ve got big expenses coming up you can’t pay off all at once, you could save money by opening one of the best zero-interest credit cards with an introductory 0% APR instead.

The card also charges fees for certain types of transactions, including:

• Cash advance fee: Either $10 or 5% of the amount of each cash advance, whichever is greater
• Late payment fee: Up to $40
• Returned payment fee: Up to $40

How the Amex Green Card compares

Amex Green Card vs other Amex cards

*on up to $25,000 spent at U.S. supermarkets per calendar year, then 1x

***up to $10 in statement credits per month when you use the Amex Gold card at Grubhub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Wine.com, Goldbelly, Milk Bar, and participating Shake Shack locations. Enrollment required.

****up to $10 in Uber Cash per month (this is only applicable to U.S. Eats orders and Rides, and the Gold Card needs to be added to the Uber app to receive the Uber Cash benefit)

*****Eligible digital subscriptions include Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu, Audible, SiriusXM, The New York Times, and Peacock

Amex Green Card vs other travel rewards cards

Amex Green Card Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Methodology: How we reviewed the Amex Green Card

The credit card team at Insider reviewed the Amex Green Card in relation to other travel rewards cards from Amex and other banks. We considered various factors, including:

• Ease of use — Does the card come with an easy-to-understand earning structure, or are there lots of complicated categories to memorize? Are there multiple options for redeeming rewards?
• Earning potential — We look at the card’s welcome offer and ongoing earning, including the usefulness of bonus categories. We also consider if any bonus categories are limited to a maximum spending cap.
• Benefits — Does the card have useful benefits for travelers, and are they worth paying the annual fee for? These could be things like statement credits, discounts, lounge access, and travel protections.
• Annual fee — When there’s a high annual fee, is it offset by the rewards-earning potential and card perks? Is it reasonable compared to similar cards?

Here’s our full methodology for reviewing credit cards for a closer look at how we calculate our card ratings.