[Dead] Amex Business Gold $295 Annual Fee Waived First Year via Referral

[Update 1/7/19: Deal appears dead now. Those applying now are seeing the regular $295 fee. Those who got in beforehand will hopefully retain the $0 fee for first year.]

The American Express Business Gold card comes with an annual fee of $295, no mention of it being waived the first year. However, multiple r/churning members note that the cardmember agreement showing after card approval shows the annual fee waived the first year. In the Amex online login, go to Account Services > Request Cardmember Agreement to see the terms on your card.

From the data points on Reddit and in the comments here, it looks like all of those seeing the fee waived are those who applied through referral links, while using an ordinary link does not result in the fee waiver. Regardless, it could just be a mistake, but so far data points indicate the fee hasn’t been charged, even after two billing periods, for those who used a referral link.

View Comments (102)

  • Awesome. Both my P2 and I got the new biz gold off each other's referral this past December and expected an AF. Still hadn't seen any AF hit, then i saw this post just now. Lucked out! Thanks for the info.

  • hmm... i applied using my own referral (i didn't get the sign-up bonus because i already have an amex biz gold card), and after my online application, I was in pending status. They wanted me to call amex to verify some info, so i called them, and it got approved over the phone, expedited shipping. anyways, i just checked i got the $0 fee for first year... agreement date 1/8/19 http://i.imgur.com/3S7uSGx.png

  • Grrr...just as I was preparing to apply. Is it definitely dead, or are there just a couple of negative dp?

  • God fuck. Tried to apply through a self-referral twice last night and both times got the pop-up saying I wasn't eligible for the bonus, even though I have only one Amex charge card and two credit cards (opened 8–9 months ago). Possibly it was because I had racked up an $8,000+ balance on my Biz Platinum card (for which I had already scheduled a payment to post today). The payment is processing now; I was going to wait for my balance to update to $0 and then try again. Goddamnit.

  • I or my wife do not have any Amex MR card. I have Blue Cash and wife has SPG card. If I refer her for Biz Gold card, will that waive the fee for her, and will I get any referral bonus?

  • What specific card holders can refer to this card and have the 1st year AF waived for the new card? I see some posts saying that referrals originating from Amex personal cards aren't working? Which ones are the ones that are working?

      • Thank you for the clarification. I think the posts that were saying the referrals from personal cards weren't working were people saying they didn't see a reference to the $0 annual fee BEFORE applying. But from what I can tell, no one, regardless of where the referral is coming from is getting that. They are only seeing $0 AF after getting approval.