Most cards don’t have great redemptions for grocery spend.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is 1 point per dollar spent on groceries
The Chase Freedom Unlimited is 1.5 points per dollar spent on groceries.
These are two of our main daily use cards & that’s not a great point redemption.
Recently, we applied & were approved for a new card that we chose mainly because of its grocery benefits.
Which card is it?
The American Express Gold Card.
It gives you 4 points per dollar spent on groceries up to $25,000 total per year.
Wow!
With my Chase Freedom Unlimited card, I’d earn 37,500 points (1.5x) if I spent $25,000 on groceries in a year.
But with the AMEX Gold card, I’d earn 100,000 points (4x) on that same grocery spend! Whoa!
And those 100k points are worth about $2,000 in free travel.
That’s a nice extra vacation a year just by putting your grocery spend on a strategic card.
Now, if you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you know that I don’t recommend applying for any non-Chase cards until you’ve hit 5/24 (see this link for more details). That’s because Chase cards are some of the most valuable cards and non-Chase cards count toward your limit. The exception here would be if you’re not wanting to get many cards & just want a few strategic ones.
But, once you hit 5/24, you should definitely start racking up points from other card carriers.
Back to AMEX Gold.
The 4x on grocery spend is not the only perk from this card.
It also offers 4x on restaurant spend — nice!
My Chase Sapphire Preferred already offers 3x on restaurant spend, so it’s only marginally better in that category.
There is an annual fee of $250, but it’s easily offset by the $10/mo GrubHub & $10/mo Uber benefit you get with the card. We don’t use GrubHub or Uber much, but since getting this card, we make sure to hit the $10/mo on GrubHub/Uber by ordering pickup from Chipotle, Chic-Fil-A, or some other restaurant we frequent. We would’ve eaten out that night anyway, so it reduces the annual fee to $10 when you account for the $240 you were reimbursed for eating out.
This doesn’t even count the benefit of the welcome bonus which could be ~$1,200 in free travel in the first year.
If you’d enjoy an extra vacation each year just by putting your groceries on a strategic card, definitely check out the AMEX Gold Card.
And, if you do apply, do you mind using our referral link? It gives us extra points for referring you & then you can refer others once you have it too — win/win & my wife will be thrilled! :)
Referral link: https://americanexpress.com/en-us/referral/EMILIGNc94?xl=cp10at
