£25 Amex cashback with London Restaurant Festival – and how to maximise it

The London Restaurant Festival is back, running from October 8th to October 27th.

American Express is again sponsoring the festival, and is offering £25 cashback on your statement when you make 2 x £25 purchases as participating restaurants.

You need to register your card in advance at this site. It seems that only Amex-issued cards are accepted, not MBNA or Lloyds cards.

You might think that you won’t get much for £25 at any of the participating restaurants – although a few pubs seem to be included, and I am pretty sure that Amex won’t know the difference between food and beer spend.

If you want to take full advantage of it, this is probably the best way to approach it:

If you and your partner each have an Amex card, you should both register for the offer and split your bill as long as each payment is over £25.

If you were very aggressive, you could ask to pay the bill over three or four cards, even for just two people. (A cash tip may help here!). Keep each payment over £25.

You could even ask to split the bill and then pay both bills with the same card! That would trigger the £25 statement credit immediately. However, if you do this I would make two unequal payments. Amex may think it is an error if two identical charges are made on the same card within a minute of each other.

Gift vouchers are another potential opportunity.  D&D, the ex-Conran restaurant group, sells vouchers in its outlets.  They even do £25 vouchers!  You could purchase a number of £25 vouchers in separate transactions (two per Amex card) and then use them in one go for a half-price meal.  If you being really tight / smart, you could wait until the Evening Standard £15-£25 D&D meal promotion comes around again and spend the vouchers then.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – March 2023 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Successfully apply for either of the Barclaycard Avios credit cards by 2nd April 2023 and you will be entered into a free draw to win ONE MILLION AVIOS! Full details are on the application forms here (free) and here (paid). This competition is exclusive to Head for Points readers. T&C apply.

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

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.

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:

Until 30th March 2023, the sign up bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased to 120,000 Membership Rewards points – click here. The bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased to 60,000 Membership Rewards points – click here. T&C apply, see the application forms for details.

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.