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Update on earning Avios from Amex Currency Exchange

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote this piece on Avios dropping their relationship with Travelex and jumping into a metaphorical bed with American Express Currency Exchange.

A reader has been in touch to tell me about his experience with ACE at Heathrow.  As I recommend, he had pre-booked his currency online beforehand to get the best rate.

The two interesting things to note, which I didn’t mention in my original piece, are:

  • He was allowed to give his BAA WorldPoints card for swiping, so he double-dipped with both Avios and WorldPoints on the same transaction
  • He was told by ACE staff that if he paid with his Amex card he would earn 1 bonus Membership Rewards point per £1 spent.  At the time, our reader thought that this was some special bonus promotion deal Amex was running.  However, now that the transaction has posted, it seems that he has earned the 1 point per £1 because Amex treated the transaction as a purchase, not as a cash advance.

Now, I would want to see some more people try this before making any firm statements.  However, if Amex Currency Exchange at Heathrow is treating paying for pre-booked currency as a purchase and not a cash advance, this opens up a lot of interesting options – including a quick way for people to hit their £2,000 spend target to trigger the Amex Gold and Amex Platinum sign-up bonuses.

HFP-Barclaycard-Avios-Card

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2022)

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

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

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher for spending £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 UK’s most valuable card perk – the 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 £12,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points.

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

30,000 points and unbeatable travel 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

10,500 points bonus – the most generous Avios Visa for a limited company 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 a £200 Amex Travel credit every year 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.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (14)

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

  • Andrew says:
    19 Oct19 October 08:23

    I assume you can’t buy sterling?

    • Andrew says:
      19 Oct19 October 08:27

      You can indeed! Avios are excluded, but sounds like you could earn MR, hit min spend and get worldpoints.

      • Raffles says:
        19 Oct19 October 09:36

        Sterling Travellers Cheques would be your friend here. But I wouldn’t jump on this until we have more evidence. I am at LHR on Monday so I may take one for the team and order currency for my flight to, erm, Manchester.

  • Gus says:
    19 Oct19 October 09:45

    Wonder if this would apply to non-Amex issued Amex’s i.e. the mbna M&M Card. MR wouldn’t obviously be included (although the miles might), but I’d be keen to know whether a currency transaction would be treated as a purchase on that too.

    • Raffles says:
      19 Oct19 October 10:33

      My gut feeling is no, but you never know. Let’s see what happens with my test purchase on Monday.

  • Alan says:
    19 Oct19 October 12:45

    Very surprised at this – I picked some currency up in Edinburgh (so no Worldpoints now available), she took my Avios number OK but said if I’d paid with Amex (rather than my current account debit card) then it would be treated as a cash advance. This certainly seems a very unusual move by Amex based on how this sort of transaction is usually treated and I’d be very wary of spending large sums this way!

  • Jan says:
    19 Oct19 October 14:18

    It could be collected with every AmEx, couldn’t it? I know, there would be foreign currency transaction fee, but it does not neccessarily have to be a UK card? Or am I wrong?

    • Raffles says:
      19 Oct19 October 16:08

      If they are processing it as a purchase, then any Amex would be OK. If it is going through as cash advances and the points are actually from some sort of Amex promo, then it will only work on UK Amex-issued Amex cards. I will know more early next week when I’ve tried it myself.

  • David F says:
    19 Oct19 October 21:10

    Will look forward to hearing the experience of Raffles next week. Thanks for the post

  • pazza2000 says:
    22 Oct22 October 08:16

    Look forward to hearing the answer to this also. I do not hold a MR card, although would much prefer to stick this on my BA Amex over a debit card.

  • Percy Pig says:
    23 Oct23 October 12:30

    Any update on this? Very interested to know. I just checked my AMEX plat T&Cs and there is no mention of how foreign currency purchases are treated.

    • Raffles says:
      23 Oct23 October 15:19

      I picked up some currency yesterday. It hit my Amex last night and LOOKS like a purchase, not a cash advance. Won’t be sure until tonight or tomorrow night, when the MR points (if its a purchase) will hit. However, there is one interesting thing. When you order, it says you can only use your Amex if you have ‘Express Cash’ activated, which I don’t think I do, but it still let me use my Plat Amex anyway. Perhaps if you have Express Cash activated (which allows you to use your Amex in an ATM) then it is charged as a cash withdrawal, and if you don’t, it is forced to put it through as a purchase.

      • Percy Pig says:
        23 Oct23 October 15:59

        How very interesting. Thanks for doing the experiment! Look forward to hearing how many MR you get 😀

        If it goes through as a purchase that could also be very useful for hitting the £2k spend on my wife’s card…

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

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