Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Amex Currency Exchange 1,000 Avios deal now at avios.com

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I posted two weeks ago about the offer of 1,000 bonus Avios via British Airways Executive Club for buying £300 of currency from American Express Currency Exchange.

This is a quick heads up that the same offer has now appeared at avios.com as well.

This gives you a potential chance to get 2 x 1,000 Avios bonuses.  It reads to me that you can get one bonus for crediting a transaction to avios.com and another 1,000 Avios for crediting a different transaction to BAEC.

Take a look at my original post  and the 50+ comments if you want to learn more about this offer.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (19)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • jp says:

    I see they explicitly EXCLUDE sterling tc’s

    “You’ll not collect Avios on the purchase or sale of Sterling Travellers Cheques.”

    and also looks like collection only.

    • Raffles says:

      This is also in the T&C’s for the BAEC offer, and is enforced.

      However, if all you are bothered about is getting through the £2,000 of qualifying spend on your new Amex card to trigger the bonus, then £TC’s are the way to go. The fact that you don’t get Avios from Amex Currency Exchange is immaterial.

    • Neil Spellings (@neilspellings) says:

      Not sure why you think it’s collection only:

      2. To receive a bonus 1,000 Avios, you must exchange a minimum amount of £300 (GBP) with American Express Currency Exchange (including online at travelmoneynow.com/avios) or Moneycorp in the UK between 28 January 2013 and 31 March 2013. You are not eligible to receive these bonus points if you have already collected Avios with American Express or Moneycorp between 1 September 2012 and 27 January 2013.

  • DV says:

    I’m not sure you can earn the bonus a second time. See the terms and conditions:

    All you have to do is enter your Avios membership number when you order your currency between 28 January 2013 and 31 March 2013 and we’ll automatically enter you into the prize draws and add 1,000 Avios if you exchange over £300 in one transaction and have not ordered currency with American Express between 1 September 2012 and 27 January 2013.

  • DV says:

    …which conflict with the terms and conditions here:

    2. To receive a bonus 1,000 Avios, you must exchange a minimum amount of £300 (GBP) with American Express Currency Exchange (including online at travelmoneynow.com/avios) or Moneycorp in the UK between 28 January 2013 and 31 March 2013. You are not eligible to receive these bonus points if you have already collected Avios with American Express or Moneycorp between 1 September 2012 and 27 January 2013.

    • Alan says:

      But if you collect the Avios using your Avios.com membership number then they’ll have no way of linking that to Avios collected using your BAEC number. You can then just move the Avios across from Avios.com to BAEC.

      • DV says:

        It would be best to use a different card to purchase the currency with. Amex cards earn MRs or Avios on the currency purchase, so if you have already used a Platinum Amex, you should switch to BA Amex, for example.

      • Raffles says:

        Exactly my thinking. They are, technically, meant to take your passport data for money laundering but I doubt they use that for the purposes of checking whether you qualify.

  • jp says:

    The rate looks a bit off, not sure if this is such a great deal, checking delivery options, on 600Euros (to take it reasonably over the £500 mark for free delivery)

    via this link you pay: £527.33 with a rate of 1.1378

    checking via MSE,the normal rate for ACE delvery is 1.164 thus costing you only £520.51

    i accpet that the bonus avios make it slightly better depending on how much you are exchanging.

    • jp says:

      should clarify, i don;t mean your link raffles, just the difference between the “avios link” and the normal ACE rates.

  • Neilypokie says:

    Hope you guys are patient, I’m a bit of an avois noob 🙁

    I’ve just signed up for Amex platinum – if I were to order £1k of US$ and £1k of EUR€, I think this will qualify me for:
    2000 conditional spend, and thus 52k MR points
    1000 bonus avois through Amex promotion
    2000 avios (1 per £ of spend)
    No cash advance or other fees (not sure about this one..)

    Thanks

    • Raffles says:

      All correct, except that Amex is likely to throw a bit of a wobbly if your first two transactions are for currency. You are also likely to breach the daily cash limit on your card, which annoyingly Amex doesn’t tell you!

      I would limit an initial purchase to £300 of each – in separate transactions, ordered on separate days, albeit you can collect them on the same day. You can try a higher number if you want although you might get knocked back.

      In theory, if you order £300 against your BAEC account and £300 against your avois.com account, you may get the 1,000 Avios bonus twice. The rules are not clear.

      Definitely no cash advance fees unless Amex suddenly change their policy.

  • tom says:

    Not the best rates

    GBP to USD middle rate yesterday was 1-1.58 on amex official currency website exchange was 1-1.54 (not to bad ..) and same amex currency website via the BA or AVIOS link was 1-1.525 ! That’s 1% more exchange rate then going threw AMEX directly!

  • Jason Thorpe says:

    Just tried ordering with my BA Amex and transaction didn’t go through because cash withdrawal isn’t activated it says. So perhaps it now counts as withdrawal, not spend?

    • Raffles says:

      I ordered £509 worth last Wed, collected on Friday, on a BA Amex. Hasn’t gone through yet but shows as Pending with no fee attached.

      • Jason Thorpe says:

        Mine was rejected outright, told me to use another card. Very surprised as I had no trouble with an SPG Amex last year.

        • Raffles says:

          Odd. I can confirm that the £509 I put through my BA Amex last Wednesday posted overnight as a purchase, as expected.

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