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Great BA Amex / Amex Gold / Amazon offer: 500-1000 easy Avios or Membership Rewards points

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American Express and Amazon have launched a generous offer for many – but not all – British Airways American Express, Amex Gold and Amex Platinum cardholders.

It is limited to 20,000 people, so I strongly suggest you register as soon as possible.  To put this in perspective, HFP gets 25,000 unique visitors daily and the number of BA Amex cardholders, let alone Gold and Platinum, is well into six figures.

You will find this offer on the ‘Offers’ tab of your British Airways American Express / Amex Gold / Amex Platinum statement page online, or in the app.

There appear to be a couple of versions.  Both my wife and I have:

Get 500 Avios when you spend £25 at amazon.co.uk before 17th September using your BA Amex

However, a reader sent me:

Get 1,000 Avios when you spend £25 at amazon.co.uk before 17th September using your BA Amex

There is also:

Get 500 / 1,000 Membership Rewards points when you spend £25 at amazon.co.uk before 19th September using your Amex Gold / Platinum

It isn’t clear who gets what and you may have got nothing if you are very unlucky.

It is limited to the first 20,000 people to register.  The only rule is that “purchases made with Market Place Sellers, Amazon Prime or subscriptions to Amazon Prime” do not count.   Does this mean that if you are an Amazon Prime customer, like myself, it does not count? (it seems not – see below)  Or is it a typo, meaning that purchases via Prime Now do not count?  Or only purchases made using Prime next day delivery, which you can opt out from?

I did a test purchase on my own Amazon account for a £25 gift card.  I AM an Amazon Prime customer.  Within 2 minutes of making the purchase I got an email from American Express saying “Congratulations, you have earned 500 bonus Avios – if your transaction meets the offer terms”.  Assuming that it does, since Amex has picked up the transaction and has no idea what I bought, this means:

gift card purchases do count

even Amazon Prime customers still earn the bonus on gift cards

This offer should be a no-brainer for qualifying BA Amex / Amex Gold / Amex Platinum cardholders, especially if you have the 1,000 points version.  £25 is a ludicrously low purchase limit for earning 1,000 Avios or Membership Rewards points.

As I found, purchases of Amazon e-gift cards seem to count.  These can be bought online via this link and added to your personal Amazon account via this page.  The balance is used automatically on your next purchase.

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

Comments (407)

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

  • Alan says:
    7 Aug7 August 21:02

    1h later and chat still busy – boy I miss the secure email service!

    • Louise says:
      7 Aug7 August 21:06

      yep! i got through but it then froze me out!

      • the real harry1 says:
        7 Aug7 August 21:10

        same with me when past 10 mins log in

        • Louise says:
          7 Aug7 August 22:07

          yep, i logged back in when it did it again and the chat window automatically reopened!
          added to both plat & bapp 1000MR & Avios, Shash helped me

          • the real harry1 says:
            7 Aug7 August 22:20

            Shash & Sabrina – golden girls giving Amex a brilliant reputation for excellent customer service 🙂

            Puts the likes of BA to shame

    • Alan says:
      8 Aug8 August 07:55

      I managed to use the secure email service to cancel my Nectar Amex card last week. I know it said it wasn’t working but I thought I’d give it a go. Lo and behold I received a response saying my card had been cancelled.

      • Alan says:
        8 Aug8 August 08:08

        As there’s no option to create new messages did you just reply to an existing one? I tried that but had no reply after 3 days so braved online chat instead.

  • Brian W says:
    7 Aug7 August 22:22

    I’ve been trying since 6pm, always busy no matter how many times I hit refresh! Only finally got it to work now. 8 mins on chat and got it added to my BAPP for 1,000 Avios. I agree with all that the removal of the secure message service is a real loss.

    • the real harry1 says:
      7 Aug7 August 22:25

      good job you only earn £2.50 an hour 🙂

    • Alan says:
      7 Aug7 August 22:35

      Yep been showing busy for past 4h for me – checking intermittently whilst doing other stuff on the computer, but what a rubbish system.

      • JamesB says:
        7 Aug7 August 22:56

        It seems odd that they are not out of their 20,000 codes yet. It is odd too that some seem to be having more trouble getting through than others, I got through twice this evening with about 8 refreshes. Have you been using same device all night, if so then try another.

        • Alan says:
          7 Aug7 August 23:05

          Yes, same browser. I spoke to them a few days ago on it, no idea why it’s not playing ball tonight. Switched to Firefox – doesn’t even show the grey chat busy box. Tried Chrome incognito tab, still grey chat busy.

          • JamesB says:
            7 Aug7 August 23:14

            If this is on a tablet or laptop then try your phone. No logic to it but it worked for me easily on my phone but not on my tablet so worth a try.

          • Alan says:
            7 Aug7 August 23:22

            Just on my desktop – rarely do web browsing on my tablet.

            In fairness phone support team were good at sorting and I always prefer making FHR booking over the phone as they often call the property to negotiate things for you – just a bit poor on Amex’s part to not have their website a bit better coded!

          • Liz says:
            7 Aug7 August 23:15

            Hey Alan, I was out all day and only started trying about an hr ago – I have finally got connected to the chat queue – says it will be 15 min wait so keep trying !

          • Liz says:
            7 Aug7 August 23:16

            I am on internet explorer on my computer – couldn’t get the chat facility to appear on my iPad

        • Alan says:
          7 Aug7 August 23:15

          Got fed up in the end and just called – answered quickly – they think chat has been off for a couple of hours so it maybe should have been saying offline rather than busy?

          500 added manually, other 500 when I spend the £25.

          Also phoned as I wanted to make an FHR booking and the FHR website unfortunately doesn’t describe the room types at all!

          • AnneB says:
            7 Aug7 August 23:23

            I got through on my iPad but could only get the chat option to appear by requesting the desktop site – looked identical to me but but the magic button finally appeared! Offer then added to my BAPP by Adam. Was only about 10 minutes ago so they are still online.

      • Chris says:
        7 Aug7 August 23:48

        Shocking ‘system’ – but the secure messaging has been done away with for a few reasons, cost-cutting and also this move diminishes future claims, as the ‘written record’ is avoided. Note how the chat transcript does not offer a save conversation option? Also the delightful chat system is often ‘busy’ or ‘closed’ – again this deters problematic issues being raised against Amex. A shame for a once decent institution – but a lost of staff have been ‘let go’ and cost-cutting is prevalent.

  • RussellH says:
    7 Aug7 August 22:23

    Do you have to be certain that the £25 is charged in one transaction?

    I find Amazon often charge for each item separately, and I do not select the deliver as quickly as possible option

    • Lumma says:
      7 Aug7 August 23:13

      I first tried ordering 4 items for around £26 and I never got the redeemed email from Amex (trying to avoid them saying that I wasn’t allowed to buy a top up and get the points). So I cancelled the order and just bought the £25 top up and got the email straight away.

      Will keep the original order email handy if there’s any issue with getting the points from the top up

  • Ralphy says:
    8 Aug8 August 06:12

    I got the 1,000 Avios offer on my BAPP card, thanks Rob!

  • Tom says:
    8 Aug8 August 06:21

    Thanks for the Heads Up. I have received the 500 bonus MR points on Centurion, 500 bonus Avios on BA and my partner has 1,000 bonus Avios on BA. However, nothing on the Gold card! I wonder what the eligibility is…

  • HayMow says:
    8 Aug8 August 06:22

    Nothing on either of my BAPP cards (primary & 2ndary holder). Will give chat a go

    • HayMow says:
      8 Aug8 August 06:58

      Quick online chat with Vikas just now – got the 1k offer added to my BAPP, husband’s supplementary to my card and my supplementary to husband’s BAPP. He has to contact Amex to register his own card (so that may not happen!) but that seems only reasonable security-wise. .. Also asked him to raise the ambiguous Offer Terms with management so maybe that will get clarified in the T&Cs in due course (or not). Thanks Rob for flagging it and guys for your input – I’d never have thought to ask for it to be added. …. Think I may wait to see how you all get on with the gift card spend before deciding what to buy! 🙂

  • Wivus says:
    8 Aug8 August 06:43

    Morning, Was busy last night so tried Chat this morning. Got the offer put on two cards no problem at all.

  • filipino_chino says:
    8 Aug8 August 06:52

    I saved the 500 promo to my gold card yesterday, but then i requested the upgrade to platinum (20k upgrade bonus when i spend 1k – my online account only shows platinum & my BA card – do you think it i will still get my promo on my gold card?

    Or should i just call Amex?

    • JamesB says:
      8 Aug8 August 07:50

      When you upgrade a card your online offers can sometimes disappear for a short time but they them usuallyvreappear, including the offersvyou saved. You might want to use live chat to get your bonus increased to 1000 as many others have successfully done this.

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

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