Recently I finally gave in to my wife's promptings and got an American Express gold card. I've never wanted an AMEX before, just figured it's a hassle compared to using a debit card. I finally gave in.

The protections offered by AMEX as everyone knows are leaps and bounds above anything offered by a debit card, so losing your AMEX card isn't going to impact your checkbook like losing a debit card will. In addition, my card earns "reward points" that I'd never get if I just continued to use my debit card.

More importantly, the level of customer service from American Express is exemplary! I've already dealt with them twice. The first was when all my secondary cards arrived before my primary card arrived. Two days later I still didn't have the card in my name so I got nervous and called. He assured me it would be there shortly and suggested that if I didn't have it by the weekend to call and they would cancel the card that hadn't arrived and send a replacement via overnight UPS. What other company would send you a replacement card overnight?

Next, I was looking online and noticed my billing date would fall alongside my mortgage and both car payments, so I used their online system late Thursday evening to send an email asking how to get my billing date changed to the middle of the month. At 5:49 AM Friday morning I had received a response that they had changed my billing date for me per my request. Not only that but instead of sending out a bill when it would have been due, and then another two weeks later, they told me that my first bill would not arrive for an extra two weeks due to the change.

It's like night and day compared to dealing with any other card on the planet.