American Express to launch new card

UPDATE: It’s official, Gary confirms.

First of all: I don’t have any official documentation in front of me, this is just what I’m hearing from my sources, so take this with a grain of salt in the absence of an official Amex announcement. For all I know, I just hallucinated this whole thing.

With that said, I’m told Amex is going to launch a new card. The details:

• There will be two versions, a basic and a preferred. The basic has no annual fee, while the preferred is $95 per year.
• Both earn Membership Rewards points, and they are the first Amex credit cards (as opposed to charge cards, where the balance is paid off each month) to do so.
• The base version earns 2X at supermarkets, 1X everywhere else, while the preferred version earns 3X at supermarkets, 2X at gas stations, 1X everywhere else.
• An interesting wrinkle with this card is the usage bonus. If you use the basic version 20X in a billing cycle, you get a 20% bonus on your points. For the advanced, it’s 30x / 50%.
• Before you get too excited, supermarket bonus spending is capped at $6,000 per year.
• There’s a 10,000 point sign-up bonus for the basic and a 15,000 point sign-up bonus for the preferred, with both bonuses requiring a $1,000 minimum spend.
• Amex will not start taking applications until April 2, but they plan to air a Tina Fey ad for the card during tonight’s Oscar award broadcast to start building buzz.

That’s all I have. I’ll refrain from commentary until I see something official from Amex.