We have two personal American Express Gold Cards. Yes, the fee is steep. And yes, we use every cent of the monthly dining credits to help offset the cost. Here’s how:
Uber Credit (Uber Eats)
The Amex Gold card offers a $10 monthly Uber credit to help offset those pesky surge fees and discount your Uber rides. Uber also has a dining service called Uber Eats, and the Amex Gold card credits can also be applied to Uber Eats purchases.
Since we don’t Uber much (we own two cars), using the Uber Credit on Uber Eats is a much better use case for us. Since we own two American Express Gold cards, we have added both to our Uber account to get $20 in monthly credits.
I use these credits for the occasional lunch out (I’m a sucker for Chinese food)—but we also use the credit toward family meals when we’re too tired to cook anything for our four (very hungry) kids. There’s a great Thai food place nearby, and we can get two Shrimp Pad Thai meals basically comped using the credits—and end up only spending about $35 total (we order to-go instead of delivery to stretch these credits even further).
These Uber credits have come in clutch over the last several years.
Goldbelly Credit
I’ll be honest: I didn’t fully utilize my $120 annual dining credit from my Gold card for the first year of ownership. We don’t frequent the Cheesecake Factory and aren’t fans of the GrubHub fees.
But I was hooked when I found out that we can use our credit at Goldbelly (order premium restaurant food from across the U.S.). We use our $10 monthly credit for each card to stack up on Goldbelly gift cards. Once we have enough—I plan to order several Chicago Deep Dish pizzas from Peqoud’s and Bartolini’s (Google it—trust me).
I dutifully purchase $10 gift cards on each of our two cards—and the credit hits about a week later. I’m excited to redeem these in the coming months.
Dunkin’ Credit (New in July 2024)
Listen—I’m from Seattle. We are coffee snobs.
So there’s no way I’ll use my new $7 monthly Dunkin’ credit on subpar coffee (sorry, not sorry).
But—my kids are suckers for donuts, and now that we live in Florida—there’s a Dunkin’ location on every corner.
To be the hero dad, I’ll definitely get a half-dozen donuts for just over $7 once a month.
Resy Credit (New in July 2024)
Resy is a restaurant booking service that helps you get hard-to-find reservations at in-demand locations. And Amex Gold now offers $50 semiannually ($100 total for the year) to help you pay for these restaurants.
Date night is hard to come by in my household (four kiddos, ages 2 to 12)—so this is a perfect credit to save a few bucks on the occasional date night. Mostly—it will make up for the cost of the babysitter—well worth it in my opinion.
Also, it’s important to note that even if you can’t use Resy to book the restaurant for you—if you pay for a Resy-listed restaurant meal with your linked Gold card—you will still receive the credit.