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Hit your Amex card sign-up bonus by buying ‘no fee’ Amex gift cards

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I have written before about the new range of American Express gift cards.  They were not, to be honest, fantastic value.

However, they are now looking VERY INTERESTING if you have an American Express spending target to hit on a new credit card.  If you don’t have an Amex card with a spend target to hit, this might be a good time to apply for one!

Here is the official site for Amex gift cards.

Amex Gift Card

And here is the special offer that is running until the end of the year:

For Gift Cards purchased online between 16 September and 31 December 2013, no Purchase Fee or Delivery Fee will be charged. Other fees, limits and restrictions apply. To participate in the promotion order your Gift Cards at gift.americanexpress.co.uk and enter the code GCNF1 where prompted at the point of purchase. Then click on Redeem to process the order. This offer is only applicable to online purchases. You may not purchase more than five (5) Gift Cards in one transaction. The offer is available in the UK only.

What this means is that you do not pay the ‘per card’ purchase fee or postage.  You are effectively buying Amex gift cards for face value.  The standard purchase fee on a £100 gift card is £4.45, so this is a substantial saving.

Amex accepts Amex (doh!) plus Visa and MasterCard for the purchase of these cards.  The transfer almost certainly goes through as a ‘purchase’ rather than a cash advance, because Amex would need to disclose it otherwise.

You will only start paying a fee after 12 months.  If there still a balance on the card after 12 months, you will pay a £1.50 monthly fee.  It is highly unlikely you won’t have spent the balance by then, though.

The most obvious use of this promotion is to basically bring forward spending on your Amex card, in order to hit a time-limited sign-up bonus on a new credit card.  If you would struggle to spend £2,000 in three months to get the 20,000 point (=20,000 Avios) Amex Gold bonus, for example, you can simply buy the difference in Amex gift cards.

The cards can be used for normal spending at almost everywhere that accepts Amex cards.  If you end up with a small residual balance of a few pounds, the easy way to cash it out is to buy an Amazon gift certificate (via the Head for Points affiliate link if you like!) and add it to your Amazon account as a credit against future purchases.

It also seems that Amex will ‘cash out’ the spare balance on your gift card.  Note that they will NOT cash out to your original payment card, only by cheque or by a bank transfer.  What a disaster 🙂  Cashing out your balance is free as per the rules:

You may also request the “Redemption” of the Gift Card Balance free of charge. “Redemption” is a payment made by us, American Express, to you, as the Cardholder, of an amount equivalent to the Gift Card Balance. The conditions for Redemption are the following:

  • During the term of this Agreement. During the term of this Agreement, that is, from the date of purchase of the Gift Card until the ‘valid thru’ date, you may request Redemption of the whole or part of the Gift Card Balance by calling American Express Customer Service.
  • Within the 6 years from the ‘valid thru’ date. Following the ‘valid thru’ date and within a period of six (6) years thereafter, you may request Redemption of the whole Gift Card Balance by calling American Express Customer Service.
  • No Redemption after 6 Years. We reserve the right to refuse a Redemption request made more than six (6) years after the ‘valid thru’ date.

Any Redemption is subject to our completing and being satisfied with the outcome of applicable anti-money laundering, fraud and other illegal activity checks (“Successful Redemption”). We will only process your Redemption via cheque or bank transfer to a UK bank account, at our option. This process could take up to thirty (30) working days.

Note that Amex gift cards can only be used in the UK.  There is also no mention of the ability to use them in ATM’s, so you should assume that you cannot do this.

Despite these restrictions, though, this is a very interesting offer indeed.

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 Membership Rewards

Comments (68)

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

  • AviosNewbie says:
    25 Sep25 September 07:37

    This is great! but it is limited to £500, right? A max of 5 X £100 gift cards because there’s a limit of 5 cards per household, and I couldn’t find a card with more than £100 value on the website.

    • Simon says:
      25 Sep25 September 07:53

      The T&C’s say the 5 limit is per transaction

      Limitation on purchase amount You may not purchase more than five (5) Gift Cards in one transaction.

  • Tom H says:
    25 Sep25 September 07:52

    Limit is 5 gift cards per transaction isn’t it?

    • Rob says:
      25 Sep25 September 08:15

      Per transaction. Not per person, for ever! So, yes, you are capped at £500 per order but no reason why you can’t do multiple orders.

  • John says:
    25 Sep25 September 07:57

    Is it worth buying these to hit the £2000 (edited) threshold for the gold card?

    • Rob says:
      25 Sep25 September 08:17

      If you think you will struggle to hit the £2,000 within 3 months, buying a few hundred pounds of these guarantees you go over the threshold. You can spend them later at your leisure.

      • Trevor says:
        25 Sep25 September 14:48

        Spend them? How tedious compared to using your normal cards. Redeem them and pay off your cards!

      • John says:
        25 Sep25 September 15:00

        My comment was edited, I was asking whether it’s worth it to buy these to hit the £15000 threshold for 7500 MR points.

        • Brendan says:
          25 Sep25 September 15:45

          Probably better off applying for a BAPP and hitting the 10k for a 241 if you’re going to spend that big

          • John says:
            25 Sep25 September 20:20

            Generally I would agree but I may not convert all my MR to avios, and paying £150 for the 241 is not worth it for my wife and I at this stage.

          • Simon says:
            28 Sep28 September 23:46

            The 241 isn’t going to be useful for everyone, depending on your circumstances.

            I found a peg of 37 3V cards today in Tesco to bring me closer to the 15k Gold card target, if I get close I’ll be putting in an order for a few of these to get me over the threshold.

          • Trevor says:
            25 Sep25 September 23:11

            I agree, John. I find the BAPP 2-4-1 a little over-rated, certainly if you are going to redeem in economy. Slightly OT, but the BAPP article is closed for comments and I would like to make others aware… £10k spent could let you hit numerous other bonus targets on multiple other cards that could well add up to more than the benefit of a 2-4-1 and give a lot more flexibility.

            Let’s say you get the BAPP now and spend £3k to earn the 19k Avios on offer. If you then spend a further £7k, you eventually get the 2-4-1, and if redeemed on an economy long-haul at 50k Avios (assuming you have the outstanding 31k Avios already), you’ve effectively earned another 50k Avios from that £7k spend, but as a voucher, it expires sooner and has restrictions, plus you need to spend the £10k within a year to even achieve it. Ignoring that for now, you’ve totalled 69k Avios from £10k spend (ignoring points generated from normal spend).

            Alternatively, get the Amex Plat now, spend £2k and earn 35k MR. Then refer your partner, earn another 18k MR from the referral, earn a further 35k off £2k spend again, and in total you have 88k MR, transferable to 88k Avios (ignoring MR generated from normal spend and the possibility of a transfer bonus). Now you’ve totalled 88k Avios off only £4k spend, so still have £6k to play with to generate more bonuses, like maybe a hotel for when you take that flight. Also, you can spend any or all of the 88k Avios as you please and don’t have a 12 month restriction to earn it or a 24 month restriction to use it on a single trip. Finally, you only need an initial pot of 22k Avios, the outstanding amount necessary for 2 people to make the 50k long haul redemption. I did all this within the last year, except the Plat offered 50k MR, so end result, I netted 127k bonus – a difference of far more than an economy redemption on a 2-4-1 voucher is worth.

            Note that if you plan to redeem the 2-4-1 in business of first, then the value of the voucher changes dramatically, so have a plan – know what you are earning and why.

          • Alan says:
            26 Sep26 September 08:20

            I think that’s key – I’d only ever redeem in economy with Reward Flight Saver – given the high taxes and fees it’s just not worth it for long haul economy, either as a single or 241 redemption.

        • Rob says:
          25 Sep25 September 15:52

          Sorry John, I misunderstood your comment. I thought you meant £1500 for the sign-up bonus, which I changed to £2000. Apologies.

          I’d only value 7,500 MR at £75, so I very much doubt it is worth the trouble given that you’d need to do 15 orders of 5 x £100 cards and then take the risk that Amex would not refund them.

  • Waribai says:
    25 Sep25 September 08:06

    Obvious question possibly. But any idea of how much you need to spend before cashing out the residual balance?

  • wilfred47 says:
    25 Sep25 September 08:15

    does anyone know if these will work on ns&i for paying into isa or premium bonds?

    • Simon says:
      25 Sep25 September 08:55

      NS&I only take Visa and Mastercard debit cards so very unlikely these would be accepted.

  • Stripy says:
    25 Sep25 September 08:18

    Unless I’m missing something (highly likely), isn’t this a way to manufacture spend at zero cost? The T&Cs state that “you may request Redemption of the whole or part of the Gift Card Balance” which suggests that you don’t have to spend any of the gift card value before requesting a redemption. And if the redemption isn’t returned to the card but sent back to you by check (as noted in the blog) then the spend will stay on the car and earn miles/points. This seems too easy, what am I missing?

    • Stripy says:
      25 Sep25 September 08:21

      Just noticed that Amex will do an anti money laundering check on each redemption so that would probably raise flags if done on a regular basis. Not to mention it would get tedious!

    • Rob says:
      25 Sep25 September 09:12

      Nothing, apart from the anti-money laundering checks and the fact that Amex simply won’t let you get away with it for long! But for one or two £500 orders, I assume its OK.

  • Adam says:
    25 Sep25 September 09:00

    Let me get this straight.. you can buy one of these cards, with no fee, its not treated as cash, and then you can ask amex to send you the money back to your bank for no fee? – sounds perfect.. have I missed anything?

    • Rob says:
      25 Sep25 September 09:10

      That is how it reads to me, although I would recommend reading all the rules yourself before proceeding!

  • Max says:
    25 Sep25 September 10:54

    Sounds great!
    Can I purchase these gift cards using any credit card (e.g. AA Amex by MBNA)?
    and will Amex credit my bank account with the card balance for no fee?

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