Amex Blue Cash Preferred vs. Amex Gold

Short answer: Blue Cash Preferred is the lower-cost card for a typical grocery bill, and the Gold pulls ahead only if you spend well past the Preferred’s $6,000 yearly grocery cap and will transfer its points. The Preferred charges $95 and we count none of its credits, so $95 is its real cost. It pays 6% cash back at U.S. supermarkets (up to $6,000 a year, then 1%) and on select U.S. streaming, plus 3% on transit and at gas stations. The Gold costs $325, or about $145 after the credits we count as usable ($60 of its Uber Cash and its $120 dining credit), and earns 4x points at restaurants (up to $50,000 a year) and U.S. supermarkets (up to $25,000 a year). Hand-calculated, 4x is worth 6% at the optimizer’s 1.5-cent travel-mode value and 2.4% at its 0.6-cent cash-mode value, so for the first $6,000 of groceries the Preferred matches or beats it. Choose the Preferred if groceries run about $500 a month or less and you want cash back. Choose the Gold if you spend heavily on dining and groceries and transfer points. The Gold’s 5x on hotels applies only to prepaid Amex Travel bookings. The head-to-head run below solves both cards against your own spending.