Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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

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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.

Amex Gift Card

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.

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:

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 Gold card, American Express Platinum card, British Airways American Express, Marriott Bonvoy American Express

Comments (102)

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

  • Michael says:
    13 Feb13 February 11:03

    I have successfully cashed these out to my bank account. The phone call is long and painful (seemed like an overseas call centre), they initially wanted to refund to my original payment method, but I reminded him of the t’s and c’s and he then gladly refunded to my bank account. Took around 4 weeks for refund to go through. I doubt I will be doing it again. But then I don’t have any spend targets currently!

  • carpentr says:
    13 Feb13 February 11:12

    I had issues with Amex Travel recently. It took them over a month to charge my card for a flight. When I rang they just told me to wait as they ‘had a backlog’. It was a bit of a nuisance, as I was about to cancel the card.

    • Ant says:
      13 Feb13 February 13:41

      same here. I booked flight over a week ago and the charge still has not appeared on my account. I was hoping to cancel the card at the end of this month – but will have to wait for the refund.

      • Charlie says:
        13 Feb13 February 15:56

        I booked car rental (for August) in mid-January, and the charge has only just hit my account. So almost 4 weeks. No sign of the £100 rebate yet here.

  • Harris says:
    13 Feb13 February 14:19

    Can I buy a gift card and then call amex to have the amount credited to my bank current account? The T&C say 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.

  • Ed says:
    13 Feb13 February 14:25

    It says a max of 5 per order. Can you get around this by say making one order for 5 and then a separate order for another 5? I would be using the same amex card to buy both orders. Any experiences with this?

    • Michael says:
      14 Feb14 February 02:21

      I tried this. Got an email soon after saying my order was declined. This was all with same credit card (to hit spend bonus). Tried immediately after first order, then a few days later, still declined.

  • Hilly says:
    13 Feb13 February 16:35

    I did as Stuart suggests in his 9.55am post. Worked a treat so thank you Stuart. Was on the phone about half an hour (in work time, oops). 5x£100 credit to current account will take 3 weeks they said.
    BTW Raffles, love HFP, thank youuuuu

    • Pug106 says:
      13 Feb13 February 17:00

      Hilly – did you buy them and then ring up to get them paid into you bank a/c all on the same day pls?

      If I do this, I’d have to make sure the money was back in bank a/c before Amex bill is due to be paid – so want to check I’m doing it right! TIA.

      • Pug106 says:
        13 Feb13 February 17:09

        Ignore first sentence. Just done a dummy run and see that they get posted to you – thought maybe you got emailed codes. Apologies for being dim, this is my first “toe in the water” exercise in reaching an Amex spend.

        • Stuart says:
          14 Feb14 February 08:34

          No codes emailed, they send physical cards which you then activate at home (very quick and easy).

          I suppose you could do this within one statement period but you would need to make the order the day your statement switched over, activate the cards as soon as they arrive (which can take about a week after ordering) and call up for the redemption to bank (which can take up to three weeks). It would be very tight and require everything work right on time. I’m not sure I’d recommend it on that timeframe but maybe other people have experience with this.

  • TimS says:
    14 Feb14 February 07:35

    Not that easy. Banks and shops are not obliged to accept them.

    Even if they do it can be a lot of hassle for the minimal reward, unlike the Olympic 50ps.

  • Scott Nelson says:
    14 Feb14 February 08:09

    Nice!,do banks accept this coin?

    • TimS says:
      14 Feb14 February 08:13

      Some do, some don’t but they are not legally obliged to.

      If they do it is usually only after a lot of pursuading on your part. Not worth it in my personal opinion.

  • RuanH says:
    14 Feb14 February 08:20

    Hi,

    Are the Amex gift cards accepted in Sainsbury’s?

    Cheers

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

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