Hit your credit card sign-up bonus by buying fee-free American Express gift cards

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

However, they are now looking VERY INTERESTING if you have a spending target to hit on a new credit card. And if you don’t have a 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.

American Express is currently offering gift cards with NO purchase fee and NO delivery fee. You can buy up to five cards per order which means a maximum of (5 x £100 gift cards) £500 you can spend at a time.

You need to use promotional code VAL1 to get the purchase fee and postage deducted.

The offer runs until 31st March.  You can find full details on the cardmemberoffers.co.uk website here.

Without the fees, you are effectively buying Amex gift cards for face value. The standard fee plus postage on a £100 gift card is £3.95 so this is a substantial saving.

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

The most obvious use of this promotion is to bring forward spending in order to hit a time-limited sign-up bonus on a new credit card.  If you recently took out a new card to boost your Avios collection before the devaluation on April 28th, this is a good way of getting the points in your account faster.

The cards can be used for normal spending at almost everywhere in the UK 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 and add it to your Amazon account as a credit against future purchases.  Amex will also refund the balance of a gift card by cheque or bank transfer if you make a formal request.

Note that Amex gift cards can only be used in the UK. They can be used for physical and online transactions but you cannot use them to obtain cash from an ATM. You need to use up the balance on the card within 12 months otherwise a £1.50 monthly fee will kick in.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – September 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 26th September 2024, sign up for FREE Barclaycard Avios Mastercard and you will receive a sign-up bonus of 10,000 Avios. This is double the usual bonus! You only need to spend £1,000 within 90 days. Our full review is here. Click here to 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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased to up to 80,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 80,000 Avios. You will receive 8 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased to up to 40,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 40,000 Avios. You will receive 4 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. The card is FREE for your first year. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

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.