The best American Express credit cards

Featured cards

All 24 cards in this ranking, with what each one is actually best at. Tap any card to jump to its row.

1. 1 Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express — Best overall for American Express cardholders: 6% on groceries, $95 a year — 6.0¢ back per dollar
2. 2 The Platinum Card from American Express — Best for transferable points: 5x on flights, $895 a year — 5.5¢ back per dollar
3. 3 The Platinum Card from American Express Exclusively for Charles Schwab — 5x on flights, $895 a year — 5.5¢ back per dollar
4. 4 The Platinum Card from American Express Exclusively for Morgan Stanley — 5x on flights, $895 a year — 5.5¢ back per dollar
5. 5 American Express Gold Card — 4x on dining, $325 a year — 4.4¢ back per dollar
6. 6 Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card — 7x on flights, $550 a year — 3.5¢ back per dollar
7. 7 Delta SkyMiles® Platinum Business American Express Card — Best for business spending: 3x on hotels, $350 a year — 3.5¢ back per dollar
8. 8 Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card — 3x on hotels, $350 a year — 3.5¢ back per dollar
9. 9 Blue Cash Everyday Card from American Express — Best with no annual fee: 3% on groceries, no annual fee — 3.0¢ back per dollar
10. 10 Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card — 6x on dining, $150 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
11. 11 Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card — 4x on dining, $125 a year — 2.8¢ back per dollar
12. 12 Marriott Bonvoy Bevy American Express Card — 4x on dining, $250 a year — 2.8¢ back per dollar
13. 13 Hilton Honors American Express Card — 5x on dining, no annual fee — 2.5¢ back per dollar
14. 14 Delta SkyMiles® Blue American Express Card — 2x on dining, no annual fee — 2.3¢ back per dollar
15. 15 Delta SkyMiles® Gold Business American Express Card — 2x on shipping, $150 a year — 2.3¢ back per dollar
16. 16 Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card — 2x on dining, $150 a year — 2.3¢ back per dollar
17. 17 Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card — 3x on dining, $650 a year — 2.1¢ back per dollar
18. 18 Rakuten American Express Card — 2% on dining, no annual fee — 2.0¢ back per dollar
19. 19 Graphite Business Cash Unlimited Card from American Express — 2% on everything else, $295 a year — 2.0¢ back per dollar
20. 20 Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card — 1.5x on transit, $650 a year — 1.7¢ back per dollar
21. 21 Schwab Investor Card from American Express — 1.5% on everything else, no annual fee — 1.5¢ back per dollar
22. 22 Hilton Honors American Express Business Card — 3x on everything else, $195 a year — 1.5¢ back per dollar
23. 23 Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card — 1x on everything else, $650 a year — 1.1¢ back per dollar
24. 24 Blue Business Plus Credit Card — 1x on everything else, no annual fee — 1.1¢ back per dollar

The ranking

What these actually pay on a year of dining

A rate is a promise about one dollar. This is the same ranking run over 145 real dining charges totalling $4,789 — our sample year — scored one charge at a time by the same engine the app uses on your own statement. Caps, category rules and point values all apply; nothing is annualised or rounded up.

On this spending the gap between top and bottom is $91 a year — the effective rate, after caps and point values, runs from 2.50% to 4.40%. Your own charges are what matter, and the app scores those rather than a sample.

How we rank

One arithmetic rule, applied by code to our maintained card database. There is no editorial pick, no hand-ordering and no sponsored slot.

• Printed earn rate. Each card's strongest printed earn rate — the highest flat rate it actually publishes, base rate included — taken from our maintained database. That is what places a card here, so a card leads on the category it is genuinely built for.
• Conservative point value. That rate is multiplied by our conservative mid-range value for the currency it pays, which is why a hotel card printing a large multiplier can finish below a plain cash-back card. Every point value we use, published →
• Annual fee. Printed against every card and used to break ties. The best fee-free card in this pool is Blue Cash Everyday Card from American Express at 3.0¢ per dollar. We never net the fee out of the rate for you — whether it is worth paying depends on how much you spend.
• Caps and limits. Where a card's headline rate stops after a spending cap, that cap is on the card's own page and in the relevant category guide. This ranking uses the printed rate, so a heavily capped bonus should be checked against the cap before you act on it.
• Pool and cutoff. 221 open US cards are in our database; 30 of them are American Express cards and qualify. The page publishes the top 24 by real value — the cutoff is #24, so 6 qualifying cards did not make it and can be found on the full card list.
• Rotating and pick-your-own categories. Kept out of the headline ranking, because they only pay in the right quarter or with the right election. Issuer-travel-portal-only rates are excluded for the same reason: they pay only if you book through the portal.
• Commission. The ranking code has no access to which cards pay us a commission — the ordering function never reads the affiliate file. Any apply link is attached after the order is already fixed, so it cannot move a card up or down. How that works.

Full methodology, including how each point value is set: how we value points and rank cards →

The honest caveat

The best American Express card for you depends on where you actually spend — a card's top rate only counts if your money lands in that category, caps bite, and premium cards carry annual fees a lighter spender won't earn out. The optimizer settles it by re-scoring your real charges against every card here.

Common questions

More guides

Every guide on this site is built by the same code from the same card database, so the numbers on one page mean exactly what they mean on another. Jump sideways:

All 70 best-card guides → · Best card for a specific store or bill →