Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Update on the Amex / Amazon deal – points showing, gift cards OK, Prime OK, so jump in

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There was a huge response to my article on Monday about the fantastic new Amazon offer from American Express.

It is available for many – but not all – British Airways American Express, Amex Gold and Amex Platinum cardholders.

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 are a few versions.  You will hopefully see some combination of:

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

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 so I recommend you sign up immediately.  You have until 19th September to make a purchase and have it post to your Amex account.

There was some confusion over the wording of the offer.  It said “purchases made with Market Place Sellers, Amazon Prime or subscriptions to Amazon Prime” do not count.  Secondary terms and conditions also implied that gift cards would not count, even though American Express has no idea what you bought.

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”.

The 500 bonus Avios have now posted to my account.  See below (click to enlarge):

Amex Amazon screenshot

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 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

15,000 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:

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

Comments (169)

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

  • John says:

    Is 400 comments the record for an HFP article?

    • The Original Nick. says:

      I would of thought 3v Cards or Curve would of had the record. Rob can clarify.

  • Flying Dutchman says:

    So I purchased two items in on order yesterday for the total value of £26.
    It came through on the credit card as two separate transactions of £13. No points. Could it be that a single item needs to be at least £25 to ensure you getting the points?

    • Anna says:

      Yes. I tried with a £10 and £15 voucher, no joy, but it did work with a £25 voucher. If you’re quick enough you can cancel the smaller purchase.

    • GK says:

      Same thing happened to me, will see what points post, then can always buy another £25 gift card

      • Graeme Kingshott says:

        The points credited today for the ‘split’ transaction.

  • Lee says:

    sadly still not any of my six cards which makes these repeated articles annoying 🙁

    • Boi says:

      Go on chat….if one agent declines chat again to a different one. That’s what I did yesterday and it has now been applied to all my 4 cards-originally only got it on 1 card, Added without hassle to the other 2, had to chat twice for the 4th card-I started a new chat immediately after one advisor said no!

    • R says:

      I had that, but used the chat function to ask for it and got it on all 5 cards !!

    • Alex H says:

      +1

  • Nigel Walsh says:

    So my offer was not there yesterday. I jumped onto a chat session with Amex. They added it immediately.

    I then made a gift card purchase and I’m now waiting to see if it worked. Will check again tomorrow.

  • Adey says:

    Another data point:

    It is available to Amex Centurion cards. I received the 500pt offer to my main card but none of my additional cards.

    Yesterday, I bought £25 of Panko breadcrumbs (no, really, you should try them) using Prime delivery at 09:28 and received, without prompting, a confirmation email from Amex re. the offer at 13:29.

    Adey

  • Simon Cross says:

    Does this work for Lloyd’s Avios Amex cards?

  • Paul says:

    I purchased an Amazon gift card for £25 yesterday – Amazon confirmed. But no email confirmation from BA Amex so not sure whether I will get the points or not

    • Polly says:

      Paula, you will get the points. We got no Amex email X 3, but points x3 cards had posted last last night. We bought Amazon GCs. And we are prime.

  • ee says:

    Has anyone recently been able to link their Amex to Amazon to pay with points? The linking won’t work for me and Amazon and Amex send me round in circles. I want to do this to trigger the £15 off £25 offer.

    • Polly says:

      Me too, have always been afraid to do it in case l screw up with the points, but it’s a handy discount. We have one plat so could use it if someone out there could help please…

    • Wivus says:

      Is your card an Amex points earner or Avios? I do not think it works with BAPP for example.

      • ee says:

        My card is a Gold charge with me as primary account holder.

        • Wivus says:

          We registered a Gold and Platinum yesterday both ok. Persevere I suppose

          • Ben says:

            I had trouble with it aswell, the only thing that worked for me was buying books as they are directly sold from Amazon. Depends what you’re buying I guess.

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

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