Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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.


earns points from credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2025 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 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

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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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:

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up 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 Pro Visa

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

Capital on Tap Visa

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

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

Comments (406)

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

  • Rob says:

    1000 on my Platinum
    Nothing on BA
    Nothing on other of my wife’s cards

  • Scott says:

    1,000 on my Gold, nothing on BAPP.

    O/T, but related, if anyone has the £10 credit for £50 spend at Ticketmaster, I asked on live chat if the spend had to be made in a single transaction (there are two events I wish to buy through Ticketmaster totalling over £50, but Ticketmaster doesn’t seem to allow both to be processed together.) The Amex rep was insistent that it had to be a single transaction, even though the T&Cs don’t explicitly state that. Eventually after explaining my predicament, they added a note to my account, and if I get in touch again after making the two qualifying transactions they will manually credit.

  • Adrian says:

    1000 on my BAPP, not on supplementary or gold cards. Thanks Rob.

  • melonfarmer says:

    The Amazon offer appeared on my free BA Exec card for 500 Avios.

  • Tom says:

    OT, and apologies if this has been explained before. I’ve got a BA premium plus Amex. My partner has the free BA Amex. Can I refer her to the Premium card for the 9000 intro bonus air miles?

    • Scott says:

      Yes, her holding a supplementary card on your account has no bearing on her eligibility for a welcome bonus for getting her own account.

      • Scott says:

        Sorry, misread your question, ignore last response. No, she cannot get a welcome bonus on the premium card until 6 months have elapsed from her holding any other card in the same family (i.e. the free BA Amex.)

        • Tom says:

          Thanks – her card is her own, not supplementary. I recall that she wouldn’t get the 25,000 bonus for the £3k spend given that she has a card in use already but would I get the 9000 bonus for the referral?

      • AVM says:

        That is if she has a supp card. If she has her own card then no bonus.

    • Rob says:

      Possibly. She won’t get a bonus but you might.

      • Tom says:

        Thanks – looking at the T&C’s it’s not clear that I wouldn’t get the referral bonus like it’s clear that she wouldn’t get the 25k avios. Seems like it might be a reasonable way of adding 9000 airmails to the household account if she upgrades her card, which she is looking to do anyway.

        • Polly says:

          Tom, you might want only one of you holding a BAPP or BACC at a time.. Refer each other before cancelling. That way you both get both the referral and spend bonus within one year. On both types of cards. If you diary it in for 10 mth changeover. Might be an idea to get the gold or plat instead so that the miles via MRs are rolling in.

          BTW even if you refer her from the blue BACC card you will still nab 9k avios once she choses the black BAPP card. Once she is approved you should cancel out.

          When did either of you have a plat or gold card? Get Rob to refer her for one or the other. So whilst one of you has the BAPP or BACC, the other one has the plat or gold…ideal pattern. Some people here are getting gold card PRG, getting the 15k bonus MRs at end of the year 15k spend too, then Upgrading to Plat for another 20k bonus. Useful plan. Hope this doesn’t confuse even further!

          • Tom says:

            Hi Polly,

            As you can tell we’re still newbies to this so learning all the time(!), so trying to work out how to extract easy avios. In summary I got the free BA Amex back in March. I got the 4k bonus for the spend, referred my other half and got another 4k. She then got her bonus for her qualifying spend. All good so far.

            I was using the free card essentially as a debit card and clearing each month so then realised I was half way to the companion voucher so changed to the BAPP a couple of weeks ago. Cleary no bonus for me as this was an upgrade. I was then thinking that I could refer her for the 9k referral bonus. I then planning to hit the £10k spend, get the flight voucher and cancel the card.

            Next steps be, wait 6 months and then get my other half to refer me for the welcome bonus again on the BAPP?

            Neither of us have the plat or the gold card, can I hold one of these as well as the BAPP?

          • Genghis says:

            The Gold/Plat cards, BA cards and SPG cards are discrete products – i.e. having one does not impact the other. So yes you can have the Gold/Plat card as well as the BAPP. I don’t bother with the BA Blue – 4k avios isn’t worth the effort. Go for the BAPP every time. The rule for sign up bonuses is that you cannot have held a card earning the same reward currency in the last six months.

          • Tom says:

            Thanks, Gengis.

            So having the Gold / Plat as well as the BAPP is ok as the generates membership rewards as opposed to straight BA Avios (even though MR can be transferred to BA)?

          • Rob says:

            Yes

          • Tom says:

            Thanks Rob / Genghis / Polly. Do you think my plan would be ok if it looked like this;

            1. Refer other half to BAPP to get 9k avios.
            2. I hit the £10k spend on the BAPP, get the voucher, cancel the card.
            3. Take out the Gold AE, spend £3k, trigger the 20k MR.
            4. Wait a further 3 months, other half refers me for the BAPP, she gets 9k, I get 25k (or whatever the bonus is) for the qualifying spend.
            5. She hits her companion voucher spend with the BAPP, cancels card.
            6. I refer her for the Gold AE, start again….

          • Genghis says:

            @Tom. Perhaps get a pen and paper out and plan what you should do, taking into account how much you guys spend. Max points come from referrals. There are two types of churning, the quick sign up and refer method and then repeat in 6 months’ time or the ‘to and fro’ every 6 months method. Work out which one works best for you.

          • Genghis says:

            @Tom bearing in mind that the Amex 241 is only valuable if you have a use for it. We earned 3 last year but now don’t have a need for that many.

          • Tom says:

            Thanks Genghis. We fly quite a bit, so probably would be able to use a voucher or two each year (we tend to do two long haul hols pa). Best to sit down and get a pen out like you say!

  • Anna says:

    1,000 on BAPP and 2 x Gold. We never normally get these offers! Thanks 🙂

  • Anna says:

    Though it does say not valid made on orders with Amazon Prime. Does this mean you have to create a new account if you are a Prime member as any gift card purchases are automatically linked to your Prime account?

  • n says:

    Not on my Plat originally but Live Chat added the 1k offer to my account.

    how nice of them

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