The benzyl alcohol oxidation was investigated over gold nanoparticles supported on TiO2, SiO2, and Al2O3, under aerobic conditions. Here, we show that very high catalytic performances (TOF = 443,624 h-1) were attained for such reaction using 0.08 – 0.05 mol% of gold loading under optimized conditions. The catalysts were prepared by a deposition-precipitation method using urea as the precipitating agent and the reactions were performed in the absence of a solvent. The alcohol oxidation was used as a test reaction to investigate the influence of the metal-support interaction and the catalytic activity and stability of the materials. The conversion of the substrate was found to be particularly associated to the support choice since the Au NPs over the oxides presented similar sizes, as attested by the SEM images, which confirmed well dispersion of the metal on the supports and reproducibility of the method. A sub-stoichiometric quantity of base was sufficient for the catalyst activation and the observation of the catalysts profile over the time enable insights on the recyclability of the systems. The physicochemical proprieties of the catalysts were scrutinized by CO chemisorption, temperature-programmed desorption (TPD), temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method. Also, the total amount of gold on the surfaces of the catalysts was analyzed by flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (FAAS).