I tend not to cover small business credit cards on Head for Points, because they don’t offer great value.
There are, for example, two British Airways American Express Corporate Cards, which I discuss in this post on the On Business loyalty scheme. They are not desperately exciting, though, and usually have no sign-up bonus.
Reader Joe (thanks!) has tipped me off about what is genuinely a fantastic offer. Amex is currently offering 40,000 Membership Rewards points when you apply for the American Express Business Gold card.
Here are the basics:
- The card carries an annual fee of £125. However, you can get £50 cashback via Quidco.
- Membership Rewards points from small business cards go into a separate Membership Rewards account to any personal MR account you have.
- You need to spend £3,000 in three months to get the 40,000 Membership Rewards points
- You earn 1 point per £1 when you spend on the card
Now, the question is ‘what does Amex count as a small business?’.
Here are the qualifications from the Amex website:
“To apply for the Gold Business Card, you should be able to say yes to the following.
- I am aged 18 or over
- The company has been trading for more than one year and has a current UK Bank or Building Society account
- My personal income is over £20,000
- I have a permanent UK home address
- I/The Business have/has no County Court Judgements for non-payment of debt
- Pay annual fee of £125 (Tax deductable)
I understand that I will not be eligible for any Welcome Bonus award if I have held any American Express Charge Cards in the past six months.”
What is not fully clear to me is whether the last point applies to YOU or to your COMPANY. Since this card is available to limited companies as well as sole traders, and as you need a company bank account to apply, I don’t see how the block on giving you the points if ‘you’ have any Amex Charge Cards could apply to a director, instead of the company itself. I cannot be certain of this though.
It is certainly an offer worth a look if you have your own company. If you have an Amex corporate card for your own small business, please share any experiences below.
I have my own Ltd company and am already an Amex Plat holder I’ll sign up and see what happens!
On second thoughts I’m unlikely to be able to reach the minimum spend requirements for company purchases in 3 months (as I can’t buy high street vouchers which I would if it was a person card) so I’ll give it a miss.
It’s worth noting that the cashback from Topcashback is £50.50 so beats Quidco by 50p.
TCB always beats Quidco by 1%. If they don’t, you can contact them with the current Quidco offer and they usually will.
I called Amex re having previous charge cards and unfortunately they said if you hold a personal gold charge card you won’t get the business gold card welcome bonus. Didn’t check about platinum though.
That’s a shame if true. Shame about the card fee, because if not you could give it a go anyway. As it stands, you’d be £75 out of pocket if the bonus didn’t arrive.
I just called and got the exact opposite answer. According to the person I spoke to, the two cards are not related so you’re eligible for both.
Damn, I got this card for my Ltd about 4 months ago. On the plus side, my card (must be an older version) gives 2 MR per £1 which makes it pretty decent value for general business expenses. A day trip to London this week from Scotland essentially netted me 600MR.
so would these MR points be transferable into a personal BAEC a/c? does making a fully refundable flight booking typically “work” towards min spend thanks?
Yes, they go 1 to 1 into Avios. See this post for other options http://headforpoints.com/2012/09/18/what-can-you-do-with-amex-membership-rewards-points/
A fully refundable flight would do the trick. You should transfer your points to Avios before doing the refund, just to be 100% sure Amex doesn’t take them back.