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My Amex Travel 5,000 bonus points have posted …. for £8.25 spend

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If you read this article from a few days ago, I am pleased to say that the promotion is working exactly as planned.

The deal is that Amex Platinum cardholders can get 5,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for making ANY booking on the Amex Travel website.  A similar offer to Amex Preferred Rewards Gold cardholders is offering 2,500 points.

Well, I booked my £8.25 dorm room in Thailand a couple of days ago and my statement now show:

10/01/2013

Amex Travel Brighton  £8.25

Base points:  8

Bonus points:  5,016

Total points:  5,024

Unlike the Mr Porter, travel insurance and FX promotions, these points are posting immediately – so one less thing to remember to chase up!

The cheapest verified room I’ve heard of is £5.21 …. there was a £4 claim on the site but I haven’t been sent a link to that one!

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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Membership Rewards, American Express Platinum card

Comments (41)

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

  • Sam says:
    16 Jan16 January 11:33

    Does anyone know the opt-in code for the gold card redemption, i’ve tried the same code for Platinum albeit on the goldcard specific page and no luck.

  • Paul says:
    16 Jan16 January 12:50

    I assume the points still stand even if you don’t actually stay at the hotel/dorm?

    • Raffles says:
      16 Jan16 January 13:49

      Yes, don’t worry about that

      • Paul says:
        16 Jan16 January 14:17

        Cheers Raffles.

        The link above to the offer didn’t work for me. Customer Services team say that a number of people have called in and that he would put a note on my account to have it credit me by end of Feb.

  • Richard says:
    16 Jan16 January 12:55

    Has anyone has their Amex FX payment bonus yet….? Or the ‘Rock Insurance’ travel insurance bonus?

    Is it time for me to chase them…?

    • Paul says:
      16 Jan16 January 13:01

      I sent AmEx a message via the website just before Christmas re the FX payment bonus. The response I got was that it would be posted within 90 days of the promotion finishing (which from memory was the end of December). It hasn’t been posted in my MR account yet.

  • mchristie2MC says:
    17 Jan17 January 16:21

    I’ve booked 3* in Turkey in May for £3.82

    TOTAL AMOUNT
    Package Price £3.82
    Tax £0.00
    Payments Received £3.82
    Price includes: All air taxes and estimated other taxes, fees

    Had to email customer services and they said was issue with link and to go ahead with booking and MR points would be credited to my account in 4-6 weeks.

    Result.

  • whiskerxx says:
    17 Jan17 January 20:15

    Amex have just advised me that the offer was targetted at 40,000 members who actively use their BA Executive Club or Virgin Frequent Flyer accounts

  • JPG says:
    18 Jan18 January 20:31

    Just wondering…I recently referred my wife for the gold card using my own one and I got the 12k MR point bonus for doing so. Mine has just passed the year mark, so I’ve been charged the £125 fee and intend to cancel it when I get given the 7,500 MR point bonus for £15k spend in the last year. I have received the above mailing for 2500 MR points bonus on Amex Travel bookings and I’m thinking about booking a cheap room like some others have done, but since the points would take 4-6 weeks to post that’s potentially another 2 months I’d need to keep my account open just to get the bonus – and a loss of around £20 in fees I won’t get back when I cancel in 2 months’ time.

    I’d welcome any advice on whether it would be worth making such a booking and hanging on for the points or cancelling as soon as I get my 7.5k MR point bonus (where the “60 days” will be in just over a month’s time).

    Thanks.

    • Raffles says:
      18 Jan18 January 21:18

      The points are instant – they go on alongside the transaction (for once). I’ve already got mine.

      • JPG says:
        18 Jan18 January 21:21

        Hi Raffles,

        Do you mean the 7.5k bonus MR points or the 2.5k for the Amex Travel purchase?

        • Raffles says:
          18 Jan18 January 21:30

          The 2.5k for Amex Travel. Remember too that, assuming your account is currently clear, you can pay off the hotel room bill online without waiting for your statement to turn up, so that won’t delay your card closure.

          • JPG says:
            18 Jan18 January 21:34

            Thanks! I will make the purchase then and cancel my gold card as soon as my 7.5k bonus points hit (after calling Amex to transfer all my points to my wife’s MR account) as I want her to refer me back again to get a new gold card myself (fee free for year 1) as soon as 6 months are up. Could you foresee any issues with us both getting another set of bonus MR points for doing that?

            Thanks in advance…

          • Raffles says:
            19 Jan19 January 09:42

            No issue in theory, but I would give it a bit more than 6 months. 7, 7.5 perhaps. The card does not cancel officially until you have cleared your last bill and Amex is sure there are no transactions coming down the pipes. You also need to ensure that the MR account is closed, in case they work off the date that was shut.

  • JPG says:
    19 Jan19 January 13:17

    Thanks. Will chase up the 7.5k points from Amex now then, so I can close my a/c ASAP. Good advice, I love this blog!

  • Papy Pihi says:
    21 Jan21 January 20:09

    Worked out even better for me: I had booked a return SN flight to BRU via Amex Travel the day before receiving the mail, registered as soon as I got it, and two days later the 5000 points had been posted onto my MR account! 🙂
    So, in effect it’s even better than the £8.25 deal, as I had to book the flights on Amex travel anyway 🙂

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