American Express Business Green Rewards Card Review

Pros

• Decent rewards
• Increased rewards on travel booked through Amex’s portal
• Welcome bonus
• Pay Over Time

Cons

• Annual fee
• Foreign transaction fee

What Is American Express Business Green Rewards?

American Express Business Green Rewards Card has long been a part of Amex’s business credit card lineup. However, its mediocre rewards rate, unimpressive early spend bonus, and $95 annual fee mean that you’ll find many better business credit cards on the market, both from Amex and from competing issuers.

Keep reading for the specifics on how the Amex Business Green Rewards charge card measures up.

Amex Business Green Rewards: Quick Facts

Rewards & Perks

Amex Business Green Rewards comes with a somewhat reasonable (though not great) slate of spending rewards for a card with no annual fee — the problem is that the card does carry an annual fee.

Welcome Bonus

To start, the card bundles in a welcome bonus of 15,000 points after you spend $3,000 within the first 3 months. Assuming the standard rate of 1 point equals 1 cent, this offer is effectively worth $150, which is relatively low for a business rewards card.

Unlimited 2x Points On Travel

The highlight of Business Green Rewards is its standard rewards rate of 2x points per dollar spent when you pay for travel through American Express’s booking portal, amextravel.com.

While it’s nice that the card offers an elevated rewards rate for travel, compare this with Capital One’s line of Spark business credit cards, every one of which offers unlimited 5x points or 5% cash back on all hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One’s online travel portal.

1x Points On Everything Else

Beyond travel rewards, the Amex Business Green Card is simple: You’ll nab the regular 1x point per dollar spent on all other purchases.

Redeeming Rewards

The most common way to use points earned with a Business Green Rewards Card is on travel. Through amextravel.com, you can redeem your points for flights, hotels, cruises, and upgrades. Flight bookings and upgrades will be the most economical — 1 point equals 1 cent here; hotels and cruises are valued at 1 point equaling 0.7 cents.

If travel redemption doesn’t suit your fancy, Amex includes a couple of other options. You can use points during checkout at an array of shopping experiences (including Amazon, Amex Express Checkout, Best Buy, and Dell.com) as well as cash them in for gift cards.

Rates & Fees

Technically, Amex Business Green Rewards is a charge card, which (theoretically) means that your balance is due in full at the end of each month. However, Amex’s Pay Over Time feature allows you to pay off certain purchases over time (an APR applies here, just as with a “normal” credit card).

Keep in mind that certain types of charges are not eligible for Pay Over Time. This means that, depending on how you use your card, a portion of your balance may be due at the end of the month and cannot be carried over to the next billing period.

A Reasonable Pay Over Time APR

The Business Green Rewards’s Pay Over Time APR of 18.49% - 27.49% (variable) compares favorably with the APR of “normal” business credit cards.

Again, remember that certain charges, such as gambling transactions and certain insurance premiums, are not eligible for the Pay Over Time option.

Annual Fees

Business Green Rewards comes with a $95 annual fee. This isn’t the highest annual fee you’ll see in a business credit card — the problem is that this card’s rewards scheme would be underwhelming even if the card had no annual fee. Add the annual fee to the mix, and you have a business credit card that offers questionable value relative to the competition.

Foreign Transaction Fees

This card comes with a 2.7% foreign transaction fee, which, while less than the 3% foreign transaction fee charged by some competing cards, reduces this card’s value for the international traveler.

Other Fees

As for other fees, there’s a late fee of $39 or 2.99% of the amount that has to be paid in full — whichever is greater. Returned payments will cost you a $39 fee.

Features

As with most American Express cards, the Business Green Card comes with a healthy array of perks and benefits beyond the base rewards scheme, earning the card strong ratings in this category.

Eligibility Requirements

We recommend that applicants have excellent credit to qualify for the Business Green Rewards card. Amex doesn’t actually publish a credit score requirement for this card, but the consensus position among reviewers is that most Business Green Rewards applicants will need excellent credit.

Given this card’s modest rewards program, one would hope that this card would be available to business owners with lower credit scores, but this is not the case.

Customer Service

This Amex business card offers a full range of customer support options.

With 24/7 live support, an online FAQ, and some favorable assessments from cardholders, Business Green Rewards earns solid marks in this category.

American Express Business Green Rewards Reviews

Amex Business Green Rewards has been around for quite a while, yet user feedback on this card is limited. Still, the card’s average user score of 3.8/5 at WalletHub (based on 370+ reviews) indicates a decent degree of cardholder satisfaction.

How Does Amex Business Green Rewards Compare To The Alternatives?

Let’s discuss a few business credit cards that offer greater value than the Business Green Rewards card.

Final Verdict: Is The Amex Business Green Rewards Card Right For You?

The American Express Business Green Rewards Card is a simple business charge card designed for domestic travelers. Its points scheme and redemption methods could be helpful to frequent domestic fliers.

However, no matter what your business spending is concentrated on, you can almost certainly qualify for a business credit card with a more lucrative points scheme — and that’s assuming you restrict yourself to a no-annual-fee card.

If you’re willing to pay an annual fee (as you’ll have to do with Business Green Rewards), the vast majority of the business credit cards you can get — including several from Amex — will reward you much more handsomely for your business spending.

Finally, if your credit score isn’t excellent (or even good) but your business is doing well, you may want to explore the best corporate credit cards instead.

You might want to apply if…

• You want a straightforward credit card for domestic travel
• You need a credit card with some premium benefits but can’t afford to shell out hundreds on other cards

You might want to look for a different card if…

• You plan to use this card for foreign travel
• You won’t spend enough to offset the annual fee
• You want a business credit card with a more competitive rewards scheme

Credit Card Review Methodology

We spend hours researching and evaluating each credit card that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on key characteristics to generate our ratings.

When rating credit cards and credit card issuers, we use an 18-point rubric that looks at rewards and perks, rates and fees, features, eligibility requirements, customer service, and user reviews. We weigh each section differently to calculate the total star rating.

• Rewards & Perks: 40% of the total star rating
• Rates & Fees: 30% of the total star rating
• Features: 15% of the total star rating
• Eligibility Requirements: 5% of the total star rating
• Customer Service: 5% of the total star rating
• User Reviews: 5% of the total star rating

Each section is further broken down into granular, weighted subsections, in which we examine specific attributes like APR, introductory offers, cash back and travel rewards, credit score requirements and disclosures, foreign transaction fees, and the availability of employee cards.

Read more about how we rate business credit cards.

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