Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Up to 50,000 – yes 50,000 – free Membership Rewards points for Amex Platinum holders

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If you have an American Express Platinum card, this is a fantastic deal.

If you don’t have an American Express Platinum card, this deal may well persuade you to get one – especially as it runs until the end of February.

Take a look at this.

American Express is offering 10,000 Membership Rewards points for every supplementary card you add to your Platinum charge card account.

This is a phenomenal deal.  10,000 Membership Rewards points gets you 10,000 Avios amongst many other things.  More importantly, supplementary cards are FREE.

You can take a look at the Membership Rewards catalogue hereThe airline redemption partners are here.

If you don’t currently have any supplementary cardholders on your Platinum charge card, you could earn 50,000 bonus Membership Rewards points by adding the maximum five people.

As an Amex Platinum charge card holder, you are allowed to issue FIVE supplementary cards.  The first one will come as a Platinum card and will receive ALL of the Platinum card benefits.  They will receive their own Priority Pass for airport lounge access and can claim their own Starwood Gold, Club Carlson Gold and Le Club Accorhotels Platinum status cards.  They also receive Eurostar lounge access.

The other four supplementary cards will be Gold or Green.  These cards will benefit from the Platinum travel insurance coverage but do not qualify for any hotel status cards or a Priority Pass.  You also do not receive the Lounge Club airport lounge access card that comes with a standalone Amex Gold.

Here are a few other points to remember:

All of the charges on the supplementary cards appear on YOUR statement as the main cardholder.

You, as the main cardholder, are legally liable for ensuring they are paid.

Supplementary cardholders must be over 18.

A supplementary cardholder is not treated as being an American Express cardholder in their own right.  This means that, if they later choose to apply for their own Gold or Platinum card in their own name, they will be treated as a new customer and will receive a sign-up bonus.

Whilst you are liable for any spending by supplementary cardholders, American Express will still do ID checks on your applications.  If the applicant does not have a UK bank account and/or does not appear on the electoral roll, on the council tax register and/or does not have other credit cards in their own name, they are likely to be refused.  I tried and failed to get a supplementary Amex card for our nanny a couple of years ago.

As you can see from the application page, this offer runs until February 28th 2015.

If you do not already have a Platinum charge card but had been thinking about it, this may swing it for you.  As well as the 30,000 Membership Rewards points you receive for signing up, you could also receive a further 50,000 points for issuing five supplementary cards.  My full review of Amex Platinum can be found hereThe application page for new cardholders is here.

Note that you MUST use this link to apply for your supplementary cards in order to receive the 10,000 bonus points.  Any other link, including adding supplementary cards during the application process for a primary card, will not work.


Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current 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

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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

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

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

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

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

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

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

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Comments (205)

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

  • Jonty says:

    Sorry got that wrong the 4 Gold/Green supplementary cards would be free but it says
    additional Platinum supplementary cards would be £170
    You can apply for up to 5 Supplementary Cards to give to your family or others close to you. The first Supplementary Platinum Card is included in your annual fee, any additional Supplementary Platinum Cards will incur an annual fee of £170 each. You can also apply for up to four complimentary Supplementary Green or Gold coloured Cards. You will be the main Cardmember but the Supplementary Cardmember(s) will be able to make charges. You as the main Cardmember will be liable for all charges made on the Supplementary Card(s). Supplementary Cardmembers must be 18 or over.

    If one paid the £170 for a supplementary Platinum card would that get the Priority Pass/Hotel benefits ?

    • SimonSchus says:

      Hi Jonty,

      You asked “If one paid the £170 for a supplementary Platinum card would that get the Priority Pass/Hotel benefits ?”.

      I emailed AMEX UK last week and they confirmed that “Any extra Platinum Supplementary Card will be charged £170 annual fee … the main Card holder and the first Platinum Supplementary Card holder gets the Complimentary Priority Pass membership. If you apply for another Platinum Supplementary Card, it will not have Complimentary Priority Pass membership”.

      As such, no extra Priority Pass for anybody other than the first Platinum supplementary cardholder.

      Simon

  • pointsarb says:

    I recall someone saying before that you can maximise the 30k plat mr bonus by applying for gold first then upgrading to plat.

    Is that process still intact and does anyone know if there is a time restriction to upgrade from gold to plat and also what the upgrade bonus is over and above the 30k mr bonus that you already get with plat?

    Thanks!

    • Rob says:

      Unlikely you could pull it off in this timeframe. You need to apply for Gold (20k points or 22,000 if I refer you via the refer-a-friend scheme). You need to wait for the card (could be after Christmas now), spend £2000 to trigger the Gold bonus, upgrade to Platinum (15,000 points bonus) and then try to get your supplementary cards approved, all by February 28th.

      Not impossible but more of a squeeze than I would be happy with unless you know you can spend £2,000 within a week or so.

      • Mike says:

        The upgrade to Platinum can be instant (the website updated instantly for me anyway), as was my approval for a supplementary card (did it a day later).

  • Rob says:

    A refer-a-friend referral from me is probably a better deal, though, as you are getting 35,000 points instead of 30,000. Details in my review.

  • Andrew S says:

    Excellent just ordered one for some trusted family members. But note there is a supplementary charge of £170 for supplementary platinum card from the 3rd one issued – i.e. you get one free.

    • Pol says:

      Did it give the option of which colour to order? Really wanted the green one as my daughter is supplementary on my husbands gold account so it would be easier for her to tell them apart.

  • pointsarb says:

    Thanks Raffles. Just to confirm that if you did the gold to plat upgrade you end up with 35k mr points rather than just 30k going straight to plat with your link. Presumably you can’t double dip and get 20k (gold) + 35k plat via the upgrade method? Is that correct? I think I know the answer but thought I’d ask the expert just in case there is a mr lottery here!

    Cheers!

    • Rob says:

      There are only four options:

      If you apply for Plat directly via the link in the article you get 30,000 points.

      If you email me for a ‘refer a friend’ link for Plat and use that you will get 35,000 points.

      If you apply directly for Gold you will get 20,000 points plus 15,000 when you upgrade to Plat, so 35,000 points.

      If you email me for a ‘refer a friend’ link for Gold you will get 22,000 points plus 15,000 when you upgrade to Plat, so 37,000 points.

      However, I do not recommend (4) over (2) (or 3 over 1) because you are taking a risk on getting everything done and dusted by February 28th, including spending the £2000 required to trigger the Gold bonus. It is also adds an element of risk as Amex may well pull this bonus before the end of February if it gets too popular. The 15k ‘upgrade to Platinum’ bonus may disappear at the year-end. I wouldn’t try to be over-clever on this one.

      • pointsarb says:

        Thanks Raffles. Happy for you to refer me to Plat but can I still subsequently get the 10k pp for the supp cards if we did this? Or is that deal only via the link in your article?

        Also, you referred me to plat about a year ago and I got the card and subsequently cancelled a few months later. So I was thinking if you referred me again (and I did the same thing!) we might both end up on the amex radar so best you don’t refer me this time?! If you see no problems referring again however, I’m happy to be referred.

        Cheers

        • Rob says:

          I can bounce the referral onto a friend. The supplementary bonus is only valid via the link in the article so you do NOT apply for supplementary cards during your initial upgrade application for Platinum.

  • Mike says:

    This sounds almost too good to be true. I’d like to nominate 3 friends, have the cards sent to me, and then cut the cards up! Is there any conceivable way that this could disadvantage the people I nominate? Can it affect their credit score? Are they likely to be swamped with unwanted AMEX mail?

    • Rob says:

      Credit reports include links to people ‘associated’ with you. This is normally your partner but could include anyone who put down as a supplementary cardholder (and vice versa) – I’m not sure.

      • RIccati says:

        No, Ruffles, having a supplementary cardholder DOES NOT create a financial link on credit report. One has to have a joint current account or mortgage for that.

        When applying for supplementary cards AMEX does Identification Generic Check, not a credit search per se. It appears among Previous Searches on report for that person but does not affect anything.

  • Imbruce says:

    I have just spoken to Amex they have said that they have dropped the merchant fees in line
    with Visa & Mastercard so if you are shopping and the store does not take Amex, then let them know about the merchant fee changes.

  • Paul G says:

    I currently have a gold card. I have recently sent a referral link to a couple of friends. If I upgrade now to a Platinum card to get my 15K upgrade bonus plus my 50K for supplementary cards, will my gold card referral bonus follow me and be applied?

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