I don’t know who coined the term “AMEX Gold Army” but it’s fitting. What is it you may ask? Well, if you have a friendly grocery store that lets you MS the $25K per calendar year on your personal Gold AMEX, then you’ll want to scale up and get as many of those cards as possible. So for a while there, I had a Gold Army of about 9-10 cards. This strategy has been great, but ever since mid 2022 or so, when AMEX has had NLL Business Platinum and Gold links, it made more sense to switch your Gold Army to the Platinum Party (sorry I just coined this terrible term but whatever.)
The optimal strategy is of course to hit the $25K grocery spend early in the year so you earn the 100K MR. Then cancel the card (assuming you’re not within the first 12 months) and apply for a business Platinum NLL link. This should net you another 150K or so. Plus the added benefit of possibly getting the 99 AU offers. If you have the slots, also get you the Business Gold at the same time (lower SUB.) Then rinse and repeat this every 90 days. It beats having a dormant personal GOLD for a year. Then when your Biz Plat AF is due, cancel that and get you a new NLL Biz Plat.
Even if AMEX offered you a retention offer of 55K for $4K spend to stay on Platinum or Gold, you’re still paying the AF of $695. That’s nowhere as good as canceling the card and getting you the NLL Biz Platinum. You’ll then earn 150K+ on the Biz Platinum. Granted you have to do more spend, but if you already have a Gold Army, then you’re already doing massive spend, so the extra spend isn’t a big deal. Once again, all this makes sense to people who have a Gold Army or who can easily MS the SUBs.
Anyway, that’s my current AMEX strategy. Seeing as how they have lowered the NLL Platinum SUB recently, I’m sure it’ll get lowered or pulled eventually, so may as well hit it for 2023. Then in 2024, when the Platinum Party ends, go back to the Gold Army.
Can you have both Gold Army and Platinum Party?
what is NLL? how do you get approved every 90 days to a new bs platinum card?