Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get £15 cashback or 1500 Avios with a £100 British Airways flight purchase via Amex

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

British Airways and American Express have launched a new cashback or points deal which appears generous, especially as it can be combined with the current sale deals.

Remember that there are Club Europe seats on offer for as low as £140 return in the January sale as I covered here.  Long-haul BA sale deals are discussed here.

The offer only appears to be added to British Airways American Express cards, either free or Premium Plus, although it is worth checking any other cards you have.

There are two variants:

£15 cashback when you spend £100+ at ba.com by 30th January.  My wife has this version.

1,500 Avios – added to your BA Amex balance and transferred to BA with your normal Avios for card spending – when you spend £100+ at ba.com by 30th January.  I have this version.

Both offers state that they are valid for the first 20,000 people to save them to their card.  You can do this from the ‘Offers’ tab of your online BA Amex statement page, assuming you have the offer.  It isn’t clear if this is 20,000 users across both deals or per deal.

To avoid missing out, you should go to the Amex website here NOW and save the offer.  Do read the Terms & Conditions before booking.

Remember that the offer will almost certainly pay out on redemption bookings as long as the taxes are over £100.  I imagine that it will also trigger if you pay £100 towards any BA Holidays package you have booked.

It will NOT work if you buy £100 of Avios via ba.com. This is because ‘buy Avios’ transactions are purchased by points.com and you will see their name on your Amex statement.

The BA credit card surcharge is now 1% of the booking cost.  This will fall to nothing on 13th January when the law bans such surcharges.  That said, the base Avios received on your British Airways American Express card will offset the fee so the bonus Avios or cashback is still a genuine ‘extra’.

PS.  Here’s a little tip if you are close to £100 but not quite there.

It seems, at least on the version I was served yesterday, that the new BA website no longer allows you to make a small charitable donation to Flying Start or to offset your CO2 emissions.  This is annoying because it would have been a way of rounding up ticket sales which were just short of £100 – eg £96 – to trigger the cashback or bonus Avios.

However, you can still access the old British Airways website by starting your flight search here.  Use this website and you can add a charitable donation of 50p, £2.50 or £5.50 during the payment process.


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 (96)

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

  • Stu R says:

    Despite having spent £18K on my card since Sept, no offer for me. It almost feels like the more you spend, the less they need to target you to spend. Also feeling unloved ….

  • Anne says:

    Mildly OT – has anyone used the Amex Plat £200 off £600 spend at Amex Travel yet? Hoping to find out if multiple transactions adding up to £600 will trigger it or if it needs to be a single transaction.

    • Cat says:

      +1
      The flights I’m looking at are £593, but I need to spend another £93 on internal flights afterwards, but not within the same alliance (so can’t do it n on one ticket). Does anyone know yet if multiple transactions will trigger it?
      Thanks!

    • adey says:

      Tim_T above has.

      I’m trying to spend my £400 off £1000 version and was nearly caught out until I read Rob’s warning about the transaction being paid directly to Amex Travel (e.g. hotels where you pay at hotel won’t count).

      • Tim_t says:

        Mine was in a single transaction >> 3 tickets of 750quid each, so I don’t know if it’s cumulative unfortunately, sorry

  • John Pagani says:

    Happy New Year to HFP! Quick question, Does this offer include Highlife shop purchases?

  • Sonicjim says:

    Anyone know if buying Avios via ba.com will trigger the reward?

    • Lewis King says:

      I don’t believe it will as they are processed by points.com(?)

      • the real harry1 says:

        correct – no good for ‘naked’ points purchase

        but will work when you buy a reward flight and opt to ‘buy’ points ie Avios + Money option – as that is processed by BA, same as paying for any flights normally

        that’s how I’m getting 20,000 Avios @ 0.725p/ point next week

  • Coume says:

    Is there a way to get notified of the new Amex rewards being published? Or do you just have to check the app on a daily basis?

  • Neil says:

    I’m sick of not getting any offers on my gold card anymore. I used to get lots and have spoken with Amex about it to no avail. I think it’s yime to cancel the card and just us my IHG premium or Virgin Atlantic ones. I’m not paying £140 a year when I can earn more points on another card.

  • David says:

    Slightly OT – but Amex offers related. The latest Hilton offer (£50 off £250 check out transaction) is working for multiple transactions on advance bookings, rather than as per the T’s&C’s.

    This isn’t unusual of course, but I know people often wonder.

  • EvilDoctorK says:

    I have the 1500 point flavour , but when I try to save to card I get – “Sorry, we are unable to save this Offer to your Card. Please try again later.”

    Anyone else ?

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

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.