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

18,000 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.

  • Abz says:

    Hi,

    I took out a gold card last month and have triggered the 20k membership bonus.

    If I upgraded to platinum, am I right in thinking I would get the 15k bonus and potentially 50k for 5 supplementary cards?

    Could I then potentially downgrade my card back to the gold once I have triggered the bonus plus supplementary MR points without penalty?

    • Rob says:

      Yes, no reason why not. However, you will be paying £125 pa immediately on Gold, you do not go back to a free 1st year.

      • Abz says:

        Thanks.

        And presumably I would lose the 2x spend on groceries/fuel etc?

        Might be a better idea to sign up the wife and just cancel the platinum once we have received the points.

      • Dev says:

        In a similar note…I have just completed my 1 year free with the amex Gold and am awaiting my 7500 MR points bonus. The iriginal plan was to pay the £125 and bank the points before cancelling the card for pro rata refund. However the supplementary card bonus appears to have shakes things up. Once I paid the £125 and bank the points, i can upgrade to the platinum card to bank another 15k bonus and then add the four members of my family thus giving me 55k points. Does the upgrade mean that I will have to fork out another £450 on top of the £125 for the gold card. £575 for charge cards in 1 year is getting silly.

  • Oates says:

    Question though – if you already have a Gold and upgrade to Plat presumably the following happens:

    Upgrade to Plat via Amex website
    Pay £450 Plat Fee Immediately on first bill
    Receive Pro-Rata Gold refund (if you have had it >1year)
    Receive 15,000 upgrade bonus and 50,000 for 5 additional supplementaries bonus

    This is where it becomes unclear to me:

    Bank MR points above.
    Call to downgrade to Gold.
    Pay £125 Gold Fee.
    ****Do you now receive a pro-rata refund on the £450 you paid at the beginning of your upgrade for Plat?****

    • RT says:

      Yes.

    • Rob says:

      Yes, you would get a pro-rata Plat refund.

      • Oates says:

        Thanks guys – do you also know if the cards are sent to me or to the supplementary cardholders address?

      • CPEX says:

        I hope I haven’t missed this but I’m a bit unclear on the £170 supplementary card fee. I can see the first supp card is free, then they start charging for each additional card…when do they charge for this? And when you cancel them do they refund pro rata?
        Thanks

        • CPEX says:

          One more question:
          It appears the supplementary cards can be any colour. Only the platinum ones cost £170. Would supplementary cards which are green or gold (and appear to be free) attract the 10,000 MR bonus?

          • TimS says:

            Yes, the supp Gold/Green cards would still attract the 10k bonus. That’s essentially the core topic of the original article!

          • CPEX says:

            I should really be hanging my head in shame but too impressed by this deal! Thanks for the info

    • Pommyboi says:

      This sounds like a good plan we have 2 gold cards both about to hit the £2000 spend and get us bonus points, upgrading to Platinum and requesting additional cards seems easier than hitting another spend target.

  • Nick says:

    A quick question for Platinum card holders: do you actually use it? It looks like a pretty average card for ongoing spend. I’ve got a Lloyds Avios (first 6 months), BAPP and Gold (first year). I could upgrade my gold (and probably will), but I imagine it will mean I move most of my spending to Lloyds initially, and then to my BAPP. I currently use the gold for most spending because I average well over 2MR per £1, but as far as I can tell the return on the plat card is actually worse?! Seems odd.

    • Rob says:

      Most people don’t use it, I don’t. I keep it in my desk and just use the benefits.

      • Nick says:

        Thanks. One would assume that Amex wouldn’t be too happy about this, but perhaps the fact that you pay a £450 fee means they don’t really care what you spend on it.

        I’m a little bit uneasy about converting my gold card (or more likely signing the wife up) for platinum, just to rinse the benefits and cancel the card because I imagine it’s the sort of thing that would irritate amex, and I want to keep a decent relationship with them. However, we each put a few grand across our other amex cards each month so maybe they won’t be too concerned about it.

    • Mike says:

      I spend on it right now, but only because I’m ‘between’ other cards (or otherwise when I have a spend bonus or statement credit for doing so). It’s definitely not a good spending card if you can get e.g. the BA card. I don’t know whether or not that’s deliberate – maybe to get another lot of fees from the good spending cards.

      • Alan says:

        I’ve always found it surprising quite how rubbish the earning rate is on it. I don’t know if Amex expect the ‘premium’ customers using the card not to be looking at good value? I only use it when I’ve got a double MR promo applied to it, something I’ve thankfully managed for quite some time! I’m still happy with the overall benefits received for the money though but would use it much more if they offered PRG levels of MR earning!

  • JB says:

    Does anyone know if you can get a supplementary card for yourself (main account holder)?

    I already have the Platinum AC card; I just want a green card for myself to use at a few places where I want to keep a low profile. I was planning on doing this anyway, but if this is possible I would rather do it before they yank the 10k points deal. (although of course, the 10k points may not be awarded for getting a card for yourself)

  • Rob says:

    Apologies for my question. I don’t mean to spam but do not know where else to ask. Does anybody use ‘paid to shop’? I created an account a fortnight ago but am unable to access the Tesco clubcard forum page. Nor am I allowed to post in the forums and the administrator is not answering my messages….can anybody help?

    • TimS says:

      I had a similar issue a couple of months ago when I tried to register.

      And I’m still waiting…

    • Rob says:

      I use it but have no influence over how it runs, sorry!

    • Mark2 says:

      I believe that it was hacked a few weeks ago and had to be rebuilt, but it seems to be running reasonably.

    • squills says:

      It is run in an idiosyncratic way and is a site where new members are not made welcome, bans for nothing much are common (and if you don’t post anything worthwhile your a/c may get peremptorily cancelled with no appeal 😉 )

      Yes: a long delay in approving new members is normal, not that they are checking anything. They’re just inefficient amateurs. The site IS of value thanks wholly to its members but the owners do not seem to realise that.

      • Rob says:

        But that is fundamentally the point, given that it is only a forum. It is 100% reliant on the members to function and they carry all the value. Remember that PTS itself was a break-away from another long-forgotten site a decade ago.

        It is hard to monetise such sites though, simply because it is an audience that is focussed on getting a deal at minimal expense. Having a fixed readership also means that you don’t click on the ads – it tends to be newcomers who do that because they are being shown stuff they haven’t seen before.

  • bacx says:

    I have just cancelled my amex gold card 1 month ago. My partner still has amex gold

    1) Can my partner refer me to amex gold again, and get 9000 bonus points? I know I won’t get the 22,000 points again on spending 2000 pounds as it needs to be at least six months after you have cancelled your last Amex membership rewards card.

    2) Can I then upgrade to Platinum and get the extra 15,000 points after spending 1000 pounds?

  • Matthew says:

    I’m in two minds what to do at the moment, as my 7500 pts bonus for hitting £15k annual spend is due in March and I had the extra 5000pts email recently so will hit that too but all will be too late for the supp card offer if I upgrade to plat, unless I forgo the extra 12,500 pts I’m due!

    Decisions decisions…..

    • Simmo says:

      Email or Ring AMEX.

      I asked them if I could receive both and they said they would manually add the 7,500 MR bonus once I hit the £15K spend allowing me to then apply for the plat for another 15,000 MR

      • Matthew says:

        Great, thanks for the info, will buzz them and ask 🙂

        • Matthew says:

          Just phoned AMEX and they have manually added the 7500 points on for me (instead of waiting for gold card anniversary) so I can upgrade to plat now to advantage of the next offer. Very helpful lady on the phone 🙂

  • mike says:

    As Andrew asked earlier on can I apply for one person i.e. my wife 4 supplementary cards?

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