Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Up to 50,000 – yes 50,000 – free Membership Rewards points for Amex Platinum holders

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

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

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:

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.

  • Pol says:

    I’ve spent on one of my but still no points.

  • Andy says:

    Is there any reason why the supplementary cards would not be auto-approved? I’ve been referred, which is a bit worrying.

    • Andy says:

      Sorry, just seen the posts above – ignore me

    • Rob says:

      Yes, Amex wants to be 100% certain that these people actually exist

      • Andy says:

        Thanks. The people are all real and at the proper addresses – we actually want them to use the cards! I’ve read the comments above from other readers though and it seems that it is not uncommon for the application for the supp cards to be referred. I’ll just cross my fingers and keep an eye out for the postman.

        • @mkcol says:

          I was referred too despite being an existing AMEX cardholder. I found out I was approved as my Priority Pass card arrived in the post a couple of days later – the referrer has yet to be officially told I’m approved though!

  • RT says:

    How long do the points take to post to your account once your sup card holders have been approved?

  • Gill says:

    I added my daughter and boyfriend but used the link on the account which doesn’t show the offer. I rang AMEX to make sure that the points would get added or to cancel the applications so that I could do them again from the proper link.
    The AMEX person had never heard of the offer and couldn’t see it so he went to ask and was told that HFP is the only place showing this offer (I didn’t tell him where I saw it), AMEX has pulled it for the moment but it should be up on the site soon but he didn’t know how soon. He said that I will get the points though and gave me reference numbers for the applications.

  • Pommyboi says:

    I’m amazed how fast they upgraded my Gold card to Platinum, I applied for the upgrade at the start of the week and this morning recieved the card. Thats pretty good service, now I just need to apply for the 5 supplimentary cards. I only hope there is enough Avios availability to get some good flights over the next few years!

    Thanks for these tips Raffles.

  • Mark L says:

    I have a Gold card with my wife as a supplementary. If I upgrade to Platinum what happens to that supplementary? Does it get carried over automatically (not what I want to happen!) or does it get deactivated and I then reapply for a new supplementary for my wife using the link above?

    Thanks,
    Mark

    • Pol says:

      When I upgraded it upgraded my husband’s automatically, I didn’t realise this is what happened and added him as a supplementry in the upgrade process. He ended up with two plat cards and two priority pass cards and I was charged the £170 fee. I phoned and they cancelled the extra card and refunded the fee.

      • Mark L says:

        Thanks. So maybe best to cancel the supp card first then before upgrading? Then reapply for the supp from the link above…..

  • Scott Nelson says:

    Spoke to customer service today. They said it take up to 10 days for supplementary cards to be approved. If they’re not approved you’ll get a phone call.

    • Alan says:

      Received the first supplementary card I applied for – was sent to my address as others have noted. Anyone received the bonus points yet? Do we need to activate the card?

  • Iain2014 says:

    Amex offered me 5,000 points to add a supplementary gold card. Apparently they only review the electrical roll not a full credit check. The points are credited on approval.

    Anyone else offered this?

    • Pol says:

      How did they offer you that? Phone, email? Would love that offer as I’m still in my first year of gold so still getting bonus supermarket points.

    • Matthew says:

      I just got offered this. Little leaflet arrived in the post today. 5000pts for adding supplementary card holder to my PRG card.

      • Rob says:

        This is targeted it seems – there is no mention when you apply that you will get the extra points.

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.