Are you Belgian and new to American Express? Are you struggling to decide whether you should sign-up for the American Express Gold Belgium or the American Express Platinum Belgium? With the right strategy, you can rack up a ton of American Express Membership Reward points. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you maximize your points potential with the Gold Card.
Understanding the Sign-up Bonus
Keep an eye on Amex’s promotions and offers. They often change, so it’s worth checking regularly to see if a particularly enticing sign-up bonus is available. The sign-up bonuses can go up to 60.000 points for American Express Gold Belgium and even 150.000 points for American Express Platinum Belgium. If you would like to see how much the current promo is offered, click here.
If the promotion offers a high sign-up bonus, it is a great moment to step in and get yourself an American Express card. However, it could also be a very good strategy to choose the American Express Gold Belgium card first which I’ll explain shortly. If the promotion is low and you are in need of the American Express credit card (e.g. because you want to plan a trip and make use of the offered insurances), you could decide to get the American Express Gold card also and wait for a great moment to upgrade. Why? Keep reading.
The Upgrade Bonus
Every few times a year, the credit card company offers American Express Gold Belgium card holders an interesting upgrade bonus. By having the Gold card, you’re eligible for this extremely good offer that comes up from time to time. By following this strategy, you can rack up much more points than deciding to get the Platinum card immediately. You can find here if American Express is currently offer an upgrade bonus.
Let’s say you sign-up for an American Express Gold Belgium card, you earn a sign-up bonus of 60.000 points due to a high promotion and you used an invitation link such as one from this blog. You keep the Gold card for a year and American Express offers Gold card holders an upgrade bonus of 150.000 points. You end up earning 210.000 points on top of your points that you’ll earn from your daily spending!
Maximizing Gold Card Benefits
We have created a guide on how to maximize your American Express Belgium Platinum Card in case you have are planning to make use of the Upgrade Bonus. Below I’ll list how you can maximize your Gold Card in Belgium.
PriorityPass
Make sure to use the 4 lounge passes with PriorityPass that are included in your American Express Gold Belgium Card. You can check here which airports have lounges accessible with PriorityPass. Unfortunately, only the card holder is eligible to use the lounge passes and cannot be used for guests.
Dining Credit
The American Express Gold Belgium Card has a dining credit (2024) of €100, which is translated as €50 per restaurant per semester. One could easily book a brunch for 2 for this amount on the cost of American Express without additional costs. Make sure to use this benefit. Click here to see the list of participating restaurants.
Get Amazon Prime
Don’t forget to sign-up for Amazon Prime as American Express refunds the costs on your card when registering for Amazon Prime membership. The benefit gives you up to 36 euro refund per year. Not only will you benefit from purchases on Amazon, you’ll also get access to their streaming platform.
Know your rights
Become familiarized with the insurance package offered by American Express Belgium to make sure you don’t forget about them when you actually need them. The Gold Card offers a handful of generous insurances that are mainly focused on travelling as well as purchase protection. Read the product information here.
Amex Friends Explained
Amex-friends.be is the website made by American Express Belgium to create invite links for your friends or relatives. It is a great way to boost your Membership Rewards points if you know someone who’s interested in an American Express Card. Usually it is a win-win situation as the person who’s signing up as well as the referrer will earn additional points.
On top of that, it does not matter which card you hold versus the card someone wants to sign-up for. It is therefore possible to invite someone for Platinum while you’re a Green or Gold Card holder and vice-versa. Unusualtravelbog.com is using Amex Friends in our American Express offer blogpost so that you can easily sign-up without searching someone who can invite you and can enjoy the sign-up bonus immediately.
As credit cards allow borrowing money please note that borrowing money also costs money.
For full disclosure of the credit card conditions, please visit the official website of the credit card issuer.
Read the agreement before signing up to any credit card.