Card Rankings
Amex Cobalt vs Gold Rewards: Which Amex Should You Carry?
The Cobalt and the Gold Rewards are Amex Canada's two mid-tier Membership Rewards cards, and they're built for different jobs: the Cobalt is an earning machine, the Gold is a travel package. Here's the math on both, from our scored reviews of the Cobalt and Gold Rewards. For the live side-by-side spec table and component-level score breakdown, see our Cobalt vs Gold Rewards comparison page.
Head to head
| Cobalt | Gold Rewards | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $191.88 ($15.99/mo) | $250 |
| Food earn | 5x (groceries, restaurants, delivery) | 2x groceries |
| Travel earn | 2x | 2x |
| Welcome bonus | Up to 15,000 MR (dripped monthly) | Up to 90,000 MR |
| Travel credit | — | $100/year |
| Lounge access | — | 4 Plaza Premium passes/year |
| First-year net value | ≈ $750 | ≈ $1,700 |
Both earn Membership Rewards with full 1:1 Aeroplan transfers — the currency is identical. (What those points are worth: our Amex MR value guide.)
Year one: Gold wins, clearly
The Gold's up-to-90,000-point bonus is worth roughly $1,800 at our index valuation against a $250 fee. The Cobalt's drip bonus tops out at 15,000 points. If you're choosing one card to open this year, the Gold's first-year math is more than twice as strong.
Every year after: Cobalt, and it isn't close
Spend $1,000/month on groceries and restaurants and the Cobalt earns 60,000 MR a year from food alone — $1,200+ at our valuations, from one category. The Gold earns 24,000 points on identical spend. The Cobalt's 5x is the single strongest earn rate in Canadian cards; the Gold's 2x categories are merely good. Once the Gold's bonus is banked, its case rests on the $100 travel credit and lounge passes offsetting the fee gap — real value, but not $36,000-points-a-year value.
The acceptance caveat applies to both
Both are Amex: Costco and some grocery independents won't take either. That's a wallet-design problem, not a tiebreaker — see our two-card wallet guide for the standard fix.
The verdict
- Food-heavy spender, holding long term: Cobalt. It out-earns cards at four times its fee.
- Chasing first-year value or you travel enough to use the credit and lounge passes: Gold Rewards.
- The hobbyist play: open the Gold for the bonus, keep the Cobalt for the earning. They share one MR balance, so the points pool.
Both currently sit in our overall ranking; the Cobalt's ongoing-value score is why it ranks where it does.
Offer details change frequently — confirm current terms on Amex's site before applying. Bonus values use The Points Standard Index.