Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get 1,000 bonus Avios with Amex Currency Exchange this Christmas

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

UPDATE – JUNE 2025:  This is an old article, and the credit card information given is likely to be out of date.

To learn about current credit card bonuses, benefits, terms and interest rate information, take a look at our directory of the top UK travel credit card offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Credit Cards’ menu above.  Thank you.

Keep up to date with new UK credit card bonuses by signing up for our free daily or weekly newsletters.

With the Christmas travel period approaching, American Express Foreign Exchange Services is running a special bonus.

When you order foreign currency via the Amex Currency Exchange website you will receive 1,000 bonus Avios when you exchange over £600.  This is in addition to the standard 1 Avios per £1.

Remember that Amex no longer has any foreign exchange booths at Heathrow so this will only work for home delivery.  The only airport offering collection is Birmingham International.

There is an extra perk with using Amex for your foreign currency.

If you charge your purchase to an Amex-issued American Express card (BA, SPG, Nectar, Gold, Green, Platinum etc) it will be treated as a purchase.  This means that you will receive points for the credit card spend and it will count towards any Amex sign-up bonus.

Every time I write about this, someone rings Amex because this is the opposite of what Amex states in their rules and they do not believe me.  Amex tells the caller that I am wrong.  I am not.

You can only pay with your Amex card if it is set up to undertake cash transactions, eg cash withdrawals.  If your card is new then, for security reasons, American Express may not yet have activated this function on your card.  You are also limited to the amount shown on your statement as “Available cash limit” which is usually 20% of your credit limit.

Remember that Amex offers a poorer exchange rate via the Avios website above than it does at its main website so make sure that the Avios are worth the extra cost.  These are NOT free Avios.

The ‘1000 bonus Avios’ promotion runs until 18th December.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 70,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (June 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous 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

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card

30,000 Avios and the famous annual Companion Voucher voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express Credit Card

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card

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

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn points worth 0.8 Avios per £1 on the FREE standard card and 1 Avios per £1 on the Pro card. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 0.8 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business Card

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

The American Express Business Platinum Card

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

The American Express Business Gold Card

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (52)

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

  • Simmo says:
    8 Dec8 December 14:24

    I have about a £600 cash limit on my card for some reason.
    £10K spending, but only £600ish for buying currency. I have to buy £600 worth then pay it off and spend again.

    • harry says:
      8 Dec8 December 14:47

      Credit £1000 to your card & your limit will increase et £1600 etc

      • Simmo says:
        8 Dec8 December 19:08

        Has this been tested to work?!
        If so can’t believe its something I’ve not thought of before! haha

        • harry says:
          8 Dec8 December 19:23

          Sure, people do it when they buy a high value item such as a car + phone call to warn them what you are doing

          • Sussex bantam says:
            8 Dec8 December 21:17

            They point blank refused to do it for me so don’t count on it !

  • Callum says:
    8 Dec8 December 14:38

    If it’s treated as a purchase (which I’m not doubting), why do cash transaction rules apply?

    The only way I can see that working is the transaction being correctly classified as a cash transaction then the system overriding it and changing it to a purchase. Which means someone has specifically programmed that so why would Amex hide it and refuse to accept it’s there? Unless it used to be an advertised perk and they just never changed the system when they withdrew it?

    • Rob says:
      8 Dec8 December 15:57

      Correct, this is how I think it works.

      The bottom line, I think, is that Amex is embarrassed to charge their own cardholders for buying FX from them so it gets overridden. If you ring Amex, to be fair, the call centre people just pull out the card T&Cs which lists ‘FX’ under the long list of transactions which are treated as cash. And, if you buy FX from anyone else, it is treated as cash.

  • harry says:
    8 Dec8 December 16:24

    Did the dummy £600 purchases on my currencies (exact match incl transfer) vs HIFX (incl £9 fee) and Amex is £15.18 worse for 1600 Avios.

    So not brilliant for me, if I needed MS, perfectly acceptable.

    • harry says:
      8 Dec8 December 19:43

      if it’s 2200 Avios, which seems more likely, it would be buying Avios @ 6.9p, not too bad

  • Ali says:
    10 Dec10 December 09:20

    Cheeky question, but is there any reason why you couldn’t buy Pound Stirling, get all the points etc and then just use that as cash / pay in bank account. The reason I am asking as I have a huge Tax bill to HMRC that I would love to worm through the AMEX BA card and get my free ticket as I want to fly the family to New Zealand next year in business and this would help a massive amount.

    Do you think this will work or must you buy foreign money?

  • elt says:
    13 Dec13 December 23:00

    O/T
    but linked to above question.
    Is there any way tax payment can be made with benefit of getting avios ?
    I think there’s a 1.5% charge for using a credit card, which obv I dont want to pay!
    Thanks

    • Charlie says:
      14 Dec14 December 01:04

      You could try the Tesco Bank debit card. 1 clubcard point per £8 spent, that should convert into 2.5 avios.

    • Rob says:
      14 Dec14 December 08:11

      No, not worth it given the fee except in exceptional circumstances eg to hit the spend target for the Lloyds card upgrade voucher.

  • Adam says:
    16 Dec16 December 14:54

    Can anyone who has done this recently confirm it does indeed go through as a purchase, rather than cash advance? Looking to do this today

    • Rob says:
      16 Dec16 December 15:49

      No one has told me it doesn’t and I reckon at least a couple of readers a day must do this ….

      • Genghis says:
        21 Dec21 December 07:51

        It tracked as a purchase for me. Ordered just over £600 of EUR on 10 Dec. Base avios points posted today to BAEC but still awaiting the 1,000 bonus. The Ts&Cs do state the bonus will take longer to arrive, however.

  • Gavin says:
    17 Dec17 December 09:45

    Ordered 600 quid of USD on Tuesday. Just checking statement now, shows as a usual purchase (certainly nothing to differentiate as a cash advance)

    Not seen the MR points post yet though

  • aj1788 says:
    22 Dec22 December 15:41

    Unfortunately I missed this by 45 mins ! My flight is on Christmas eve and today is 22 December. Orders for next day delivery have to be made by 14:00 the day before. If I place an order now there would be a home delivery for 24 Dec which wont work for me.

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 50,000 bonus points (worth 50,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Special offer: Get 30,000 bonus Hilton Honors points until 14th August 2025

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? Get the only free credit card with points which convert to Avios

Get points worth 20,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold

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.

Got it!