Compare the Features and Benefits of American Express® Green Card and
Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card

American Express seems to have positioned the Green Card to more directly compete with high performing mid-tier cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Citi Strata Premier® card, offering a few more direct benefits than each of them in exchange for a $150 annual fee (vs. $95 on those other cards). (Rates and Fees)

The American Express Green Card is a Powerhouse for Travel, Transit and Dining

Whereas the American Express Platinum Card® is all about the benefits (elite statuses, statement credits galore, etc), the American Express® Green Card is all about the 3X Membership Rewards points on all things travel (including Transit!) plus 3X on dining – all for a relatively low annual fee of just $150 (Rates and Fees). It’s great for frequent travelers, especially if you don’t already have a card that earns at least 3X on travel purchases.

And it does have a benefit that can cover the annual fee. If you don’t have access to CLEAR (which lets you go ahead of most other people at airport security in select airports / terminals), this card will cover $209 in CLEAR fees.

It’s worth considering this card in combination with other American Express cards. One solid Trifecta that maximizes points would be an Amex Gold Card, an Amex Green Card, and The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express. You’d use the Gold for restaurants worldwide (4X up to $50,000 a year; 1X thereafter) and U.S. Supermarkets* (4X up to $25,000 a year; 1X thereafter) the Green for 3X points on travel and transit, and the Blue Business Plus for 2X on other eligible purchases (up to $50,000 a year; 1X Membership Rewards points per dollar thereafter).

In another Trifecta replace the Gold Card with a Platinum Card and enjoy all the perks and benefits of the Platinum card while putting all non-airfare travel and transit charges on the Green Card and the rest on your Blue Business Plus.

In short, I don’t think anyone should have the Green Card as their sole credit card, but I do think it has a nice place among a handful of American Express cards that earn Membership Rewards points.

Keep in mind that American Express Membership Rewards points never expire and combine among all of your Membership Rewards-earning cards. All points earned from various American Express cards have the same transfer partners.

The Amex Green Card Functions as a Credit Card

The Amex Green card is part of the same family of Amex proprietary cards formerly referred to as charge cards. However, the Green Card has a built-in Pay Over Time feature, making it function in many ways as any other standard credit card. Unlike a typical credit card, the Green Card allows you to carry a balance for certain charges, but not all.

What this means: Amex generally limits a cardmember to 5 credit cards (personal and small business combined), while they have a limit of 10 on proprietary Amex cards (formerly known as Charge).  This means that even if you already have 5 Amex credit cards, you would still be eligible for a Green Card.

Bonus Eligibility: They still state that if you had the Green Card before, you are not eligible for a welcome bonus on this card. So you’ll be eligible if you have less than 10 Amex charge cards and have never had the Amex Green card before.

Rates and Fees for the American Express® Green Card

Unlike the Capital One Savor card (now discontinued for new applicants, anyway), which offers 4% back dining but the same 3% back on dining, at grocery stores, and on entertainment purchases and popular streaming services) but charges a $95 annual fee, the Savor, despite 1% less in cash back, will be a better choice until you reach a high level of spend such that the annual fee is offset.

Plus, don’t forget that you’ll earn cash rewards (8%) on Capital One Entertainment Purchases and 5% cash rewards on hotels, vacation rentals, and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel.

Early on in this review, I mentioned a “secret” way to convert your Savor cash back into Capital One miles (See our complete guide to Capital One Miles).

If you also have a Capital One Venture X, Venture, VentureOne, or Spark Miles for Business card, you can freely convert your Savor cash back into miles by transferring the cash back to any of those cards. It transfers 1:1, meaning that $10 = 1,000 miles.

Here’s a list of Capital One Miles transfer partners should you transfer your Savor cash rewards over to one of the aforementioned cards (to be clear, you cannot transfer to any of these partners with this card alone; you would need a Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card, or Capital One Spark Miles for Business card to transfer to):

There’s no denying that 3% cash back on dining, grocery store, streaming services and entertainment purchases is a solid deal for a credit card without an annual fee. In fact, entertainment purchases (which include things like concerts and shows) is one of the rarest bonus categories. If you attend a lot of Broadway shows or concerts, this card can really rack them up. And should you happen to resell any tickets on StubHub, etc, this is an extra 3% in your pocket.

Plus, if you don’t mind booking hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, that’s 5% cash back as well.

Bottom line? If you are interested in cash back rather than points, this would be a good card to have in your wallet, however, I would recommend pairing it with another card for other categories. For many, a second card like a Citi Double Cash, which earns 2% on everything, could be the perfect card combo. Or, scroll down and use our own Card Combo tool to see which card would pair best with a Savor based on your own spending profile.

And remember what I said above… there are ways to convert this cash back into Capital One Miles as well.