Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Offer Expired: October 25, 2013The current public offer for the Business Gold Rewards card from American Express carries no bonus or spending requirements, but for a limited time, American Express is offering new cardholders 50,000 Membership Rewards points when you spend $5,000 in 3 months and the $175 annual fee is waived for the first year.Every so often, American Express offers limited-time bonuses on this card that last anywhere from a day to a few weeks. Most recently, the bonus was 75,000 points when you spent $10,000 in 4 months back in March (I personally got in on one of the 75,000-point offers back last February) so if you’re not dying to get this card right now, it could be worth waiting for a higher bonus. On the other hand, while 50,000 points isn’t as attractive as 75,000 points, the fact that the spending requirement is just half might be a major consideration for you.Before you apply, remember, per the terms and conditions,“Welcome bonus offer not available to applicants who have had this product or any Business Gold, Green or Platinum Card account within the last 12 months.” So if you’ve opened another Amex OPEN business charge card (NOT a personal card) in the last 12 months, you can’t apply for this one.However, you should still be able to qualify for this offer if you just have Amex’s personal cards like the Platinum or the Premier Rewards Gold, or Amex’s other business cards like the Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express or the Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express.Like the Premier Rewards Gold card, this card has a similar 3/2/1 spend bonus structure where you earn 3x points on airfare, 2x points on purchases in the U.S. for advertising in select media, gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations, and shipping and 1x points on other purchases. Update: Now you will also earn 2x on purchases made with from select computer hardware, software and cloud computing providers.Remember, even if you don’t have a major business you can still qualify for business cards like this one though American Express OPEN cards are exclusively for business owners. Most issuers will let you get a business credit card by applying with your own social security number if your business is a sole proprietorship (a business run by one person). Plus, since Amex is going to run a credit check anyway, it should be possible for you to apply for a personal card on the same day if you were considering getting a personal Amex card anyway, so it counts as a single hard credit pull.As always, if you recently applied for this card and got a lower (if any) bonus, you can call Amex’s account services department at 877-399-3083 and ask them if they will match the current 50,000-point offer. They’ve gotten a lot stricter about this lately, but it never hurts to ask!Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.To read about great ways to maximize Membership Rewards points and why I find them so useful, check out my Top 10 post on reasons I like Membership Rewards cards, but one of the major reasons is the program’s numerous transfer partners, giving you the ultimate flexibility when redeeming your points.Transfer Partners50,000 Membership Rewards can be worth a tremendous amount of value thanks to the program’s 21 airline and hotel transfer partners which include:AirlinesStar Alliance: Air Canada Aeroplan, Singapore, All Nippon AirlinesOneworld: British Airways, Iberia, Cathay PacificSkyteam: Delta, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Alitalia, AeromexicoOther: Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic, El Al, Frontier, JetBlue, Hawaiian AirlinesHotelsStarwood 3:1Hilton 1: 1.3Best Western 1:1Jumeirah 23:1If you are considering doing an app-o-rama to get multiple cards before this offer expires, the other top rewards credit card deals on the market are on my Top Deals page.
