Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Exclusive Billhop discount for HfP readers – pay (almost) any bill with your Amex card

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Back in September we first wrote about Billhop, a Swedish company that lets you pay almost ANY bill with a credit or charge card – including American Express cards.

You can probably imagine how this situation could be useful in your points collecting ….

If you were interested in the Billhop concept but didn’t give it a go yet, Billhop has offered Head for Points readers an exclusive discount on their transaction charge.

About Billhop

Billhop was founded in Stockholm in 2012 – where it has proven very popular with the frequent flyer community – and launched in the UK earlier this year with plans to extend further in Europe.

The company is fully regulated in Sweden (which, under EU passporting rules, means they are regulated here as well).  In any event, your money is fully protected because all payments are handled by an established bank.  Billhop never has access to your funds, apart from the fee.

The most interesting part about Billhop is that you can pay almost any bill or invoice with any Amex, Visa or Mastercard card, have it treated as a purchase and earn reward points.

More importantly to HfP readers, payments made via Billhop will also count towards spend targets on American Express cards, either for a sign-up bonus or a spending bonus such as the British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher.

Registration with Billhop is freesee here – so you have nothing to lose by signing up and seeing how it works.

The only major exception is that you cannot use Billhop to pay instalments on loans, mortgages or credit card bills, ie anything paid to a financial services business.  Tax paments to HMRC are OK.

Payments to private individuals are not permitted unless you are invoicing for a service – see below for more on this.

Too good to be true?

If this sounds too good to be true, there is a catch – the service is not free.  There is a 2.95% charge on every payment you make, i.e. if you pay a bill of £100, you will pay £102.95 in total.

As you will see below, there is currently a special discounted fee available to Head for Points readers.

This means that, unless you also want the cashflow benefits of putting your bills onto a credit or charge card, this is an expensive way of earning miles or points.  It is something that you may find useful if you are struggling to hit the ‘£2000 spend in 90 days for 20000 bonus points’ target on a new American Express Gold card for example.

Remember that if you run your own business and are paying company expenses, the Billhop fee is fully tax deductible.

How it works

If you’ve never used Billhop before, you need to create an online account on the Billhop website here.

Once you are signed up, you can pay almost any bill using any credit or charge card.

I explained the whole process of signing up and transferring money in this article.

In the example I transferred money into Rob’s account as neither one of us had any bills to pay at that time.  Billhop has, however, changed its rules when it comes to paying a private person.  You can now only send money to an individual if there is an invoice provided for a service rendered – so it would be OK if I was teaching his kids German and sent him a bill afterwards.

Exclusive HfP offer

For a short period Billhop is offering Head for Points readers a discount on their transaction fee. Instead of 2.95% you will only pay 2.25%.

This offer is for both existing and new customers.  We didn’t want anyone who signed up after our earlier article to lose out.

Existing customers can enter the promo code H4P2017 under ‘Settings’ whilst new customers can enter the same promo code in the registration process under the ‘How did you find out about Billhop’ section.

This offer is valid until 14th January 2018.

You can sign up for Billhop, and find out more about how they operate, on their website here.


earns points from credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – July 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 Credit Card

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card

30,000 Avios and the famous annual Companion Voucher voucher 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

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:

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

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 0.8 Avios per £1 Read our full review

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

Comments (63)

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

  • Prins Polo says:

    Not sure what the business model is – 3% fee (or even 2.25% hfp special) is such a bad deal given that most cards these days earn around 1 mile/point per £1 spent (so effectively 1%).

    Cheaper to just buy miles outright and for spending targets that need to be hit quickly, buy a fully refundable flexible BA ticket 12 months out.

    • Mr Dee says:

      Agree can’t see it lasting that long especially with people who will exploit things.

  • Lera says:

    I guess that some hfp readers were affected by BA’s cancellation of flights last Sunday, so the answer to that question would be useful for many: BA has cancelled my flight from Munich to Heathrow on Sunday 10/12 with practically no notice. They just sent me an sms 30 minutes before the flight informing me about this. I was then rebooked onto another flight for yesterday (11/12) but disruption to my plans was already caused despite the fact that they have arranged for accommodation for the night of 10/12. Am I eligible for 250 EUR compensation under EU261 regulation? I also checked at departure board in Munich and it seemed that some Lufthansa and EasyJet flights did depart with no issues.

    • the real harry1 says:

      just because other airlines managed to keep to timetable does not mean BA won’t claim disruption was caused by bad weather = no compo

      duty of care means you can claim food, drink (no alcohol), hotel, comms until re-routed

    • roberto says:

      To answer your question…
      Triggering multiple sign up bonuses and or amex 241 tickets.

      Its simple to get a new card a month for a couple , spending the mimimum and cancelling – rinse and repeat gets you 250,000 avios a year quite easily..

      Small Billhop costs are just collateral damage in the greater scheme of things.

      • jtz says:

        Which cards would this be as most have a 6 month wait?
        Thanks

        • the real harry1 says:

          Roberto means staggering different new cards/ renewals so that you meet the 6 month ‘out’ requirement, get the referrals & open 1 new card a month

          you could just about do it with 3 different cards though 4 would be more comfortable

          I think there are other ways to make 250K sign-up Avios without churning quite so hard

  • edd says:

    I’ve just moved into a rental and was wondering about paying by Billhop to hit a spend target. Can you see when the payment actually does arrive with the recipient, as opposed to just leave own account?

    • Ian says:

      Yes you can. They will also email you when the payment is delivered

    • Anna says:

      Yes – each transaction shows various dates, e.g. “pending” and “arrived”. While the payment is pending it shows the estimated arrival date, which is generally accurate.

    • Polly says:

      That is definitely the best way to use Billhop,,otherwise the fee is too high. We did that few months ago to get our 241 target, final few 100 £, had already bought plenty of tesco and waitrose GC anyway.
      Actually, l think they could have reduced it to 2% as it’s such a short offer time.

  • Myer says:

    2.25% you must be crazy!

  • Peter K says:

    I used Billhop to pay some bills to trigger 35k bonus on amex platinum then cancel before the first statement landed thus saving me the fee. Possibly the billhop fee negated what I saved but it meant I churned faster for next time!

    • Prins Polo says:

      But you can similarly just buy a refundable ticket and later refund it (also once you closed the card – the refund will go to the bank account).

      • Anna says:

        I’m going to have to try that at some point. Terrified of buying the wrong ticket though and not being able to get the money back!

        • Mr Dee says:

          I would tread carefully with refundable tickets as Amex can still be refunded to even if cancelled months later

  • Graham Walsh says:

    Similar topic, anyone with 3 Mobile and changed the value of their DD to say £1 and pay the balance by card so that you still receive the £5 DD discount per month?

    • Andrew says:

      Not sure you’re able to change the value of your DD but you can certainly pay your bill by card provided you’re not close to the DD date and still get the discount. Your DD may still come out at the same amount leaving you in credit which will then be used by the next bill.

    • Myer says:

      A Direct Debit is demanded by the supplier you cannot vary it as the customer, with a Standing Order you are in control and can if you wish alter the monthly payment

  • Anna says:

    Interestingly, two Billhop payments I made yesterday seem to have gone through on my BAPP already. Very efficient but also annoying as I was aiming for them to go through after my anniversary date tomorrow!

  • JohnFT says:

    Does using Billhop and Amex give protection Under section 75 of the new Consumer Credit Act?

    • the real harry1 says:

      no – direct payments on [most] Amex cards are not covered by S75 in any case as it is a charge card (not a credit card)

      Amex offer chargeback service for disputed charges (same as Visa/ MC will offer chargeback if not covered by S75)

      I personally doubt if Amex would dream of allowing chargeback when the payment goes thru Billhop first, as they have simply paid Billhop correctly & there can logically be no dispute there – but I could be wrong

      maybe Billhop offer chargeback themselves? (same as Curve)

      • the real harry1 says:

        reading the Billhop T&Cs, it appears they do not offer any chargeback service plus you are not covered under S75 on the card you link to

        therefore you should think carefully when choosing your payment method

        eg paying (say) a high council, tax or utility bill on Billhop is highly unlikely to cause any issues

        but buying (say) a used car via Billhop would be rather stupid

        honing in on airlines – we clearly don’t know who’s going bump next after Monarch & Air Berlin

        my money would be on Alitalia or the likes of TUI (ie smaller travel cos) – and Norwegian has very shaky financials – with all these you’d be prudent to get S75 protection

        • Cate says:

          ‘Norwegian has very shaky financials – with all these you’d be prudent to get S75’

          *blink*

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