Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get £15 cashback or 1,500 Avios with a £100 British Airways flight purchase via Amex

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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.

BA Premium Plus American Express card BAPP

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.

best travel rewards credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – December 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

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 14th January 2025, the sign-up bonus on ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is increased to 30,000 Membership Rewards points. This converts into 30,000 Avios. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 14th January 2025, the sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card from American Express is increased to 80,000 Membership Rewards points. This converts into 80,000 Avios! The spend requirement is changed to £10,000 in six months for this offer. Click here to apply.

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

Huge 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 Business Rewards Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) and NO FX fees 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

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 when you spend at least £2,000 per month.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

Get 1% cashback when you spend at least £2,000 per month* Read our full review

Category

British Airways American Express, British Airways and Avios

Comments (96)

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

  • JamesB says:
    4 Jan4 January 07:45

    Are you sure you cannot make the charity donation on the new site? I booked flights to Florence last month and added a small donation like I always do. I’m virtually certain it was the new site unless it diverted during the booking process.

    • the real harry1 says:
      4 Jan4 January 07:50

      I had the charitable donation option 2 days ago & didn’t pursposely navigate to the old site either

      but I’ll take the info @ face value, probably it was luck of the draw as regards search engine

    • Rob says:
      4 Jan4 January 08:14

      You couldn’t yesterday, although it is possible BA is still serving up different pages as a trial.

  • Anna says:
    4 Jan4 January 07:50

    I need a hire car in Washington DC in August but BA are quoting nearly £300 for the car I want versus £180 with Budget! Need to think of something else for my spend.

    • Liz says:
      4 Jan4 January 08:33

      Driving in Washington is crazy! There will be a one way fee if you are dropping it off in a different state.

      • Anna says:
        4 Jan4 January 11:26

        The driving will be in Virginia only!

        • Liz says:
          4 Jan4 January 16:08

          We only drove in to Washington from Richmond and drove straight to the hotel which was a nightmare – took the car out to Gettysburg next day and rather than pay a 2nd night of expensive parking fees took the car back to Avis at Union Station early – absolute total chaos driving around the station – couldn’t find the Avis place because it is up a ramp at the side of the Station with no signs – had to ask a policeman while we were stuck in traffic.

          Budget may hit you with a one way fee at the end of the trip. This happened to a friend of mine at the end of a Canadian Rockies trip so check all the fees carefully. Avis charge them upfront.

        • Anna says:
          4 Jan4 January 16:23

          We’re collecting at Dulles and leaving at Ronald Reagan – I will check the small print for fees! I’ve booked a Hampton Inn a few miles outside DC which has free parking and breakfast as the city hotels charge a fortune for both. We’ll probably get the train into DC a couple of times for sightseeing. Hoping to go to Gettysburg as well ????.

        • Liz says:
          4 Jan4 January 19:13

          Gettysburg absolutely worth a visit – we spent most of the day there.

  • MrsR says:
    4 Jan4 January 08:16

    It must be targeted because I don’t have this offer in any of my cards (BA, PlatAmEx, or SPG).

    I really hate having to log in and opt in to offers. I wish they ran like Chase (US) cards where the offers change and land on the card in bulk after a single “activate” click.

    • Carl says:
      4 Jan4 January 08:32

      Not on any of mine either.

    • Andrew says:
      4 Jan4 January 08:44

      Sadly, also don’t have this offer.

      Would be quite handy for booking flights for next Christmas!

      • wyvern says:
        4 Jan4 January 10:35

        Not on mine – but I have spend £600 at Amex Travel get £200 back on the Plat Charge Card – and spend – and spend £200 get £50 back on Plat Credit Card.

  • Chris L says:
    4 Jan4 January 08:17

    Does anyone know if this will work for seat selections? I’m flying CW back from SFO and am unfortunately I don’t have BA status so they want to charge me at least £85/seat (I’m travelling with my wife) for the privilege.

    On that note, does anyone have any seat recommendations. It’s the Super High J 747. Is the upper deck best?

    • Nicola walton says:
      4 Jan4 January 08:37

      Off topic but just seen my Club Accor has been downgraded to Gold!

    • Matt says:
      4 Jan4 January 09:16

      Hi Chris – we’ve flown back from SFO CW a number of times on the 747. Upper deck is definitely the best – quiet, spacious and more attentive service due to the small amount of seats in the cabin. 64A and 64B are the best seats – 64A has lots of space around it so feels fantastic.

      • Chris L says:
        4 Jan4 January 10:26

        Thanks Matt, unfortunately there aren’t any pairs of seats together on the upper deck any more 🙁 do you have any advice on lower deck seats? Should we go for a middle pair or go for 2 at the side?

        • Ross says:
          4 Jan4 January 11:24

          Hi Chris,

          My wife and I flew to Jo’burg recently in Club World. I’m pretty sure it was the 747 (I fly a lot and they merge into one!). We flew out in the 2 in the middle, which was nice to be side by side. We had the final row in CW, so we both had aisle exits. On the return the only option together was the side. I had the aisle seat (wife had the window) but as we were not in the final row, the passenger in the row in front of me had to exit over my legs. As it was a night flight and said passenger was shorter, they struggled to vault over my legs and woke me a number of times (night flight). Equally, my wife had to step over a set of sleeping legs too.

  • Optimus Prime says:
    4 Jan4 January 08:38

    Neither my wife nor myself have this offer 🙁

  • Neil says:
    4 Jan4 January 08:44

    Damn it, the offer is there on my wife’s BAPP (I’m currently in-between cards, waiting for 6 months), and I have a large BA holiday balance to pay off so could easily pay £100.

    However, she only has £70 to go to trigger her 2-4-1 voucher, and I want to wait a couple more months before I trigger that as I won’t need it until late 2019 at the earliest.

    So, I can either get £15 or 1500 Avios, but reduce the life of my 2-4-1, or miss out.

    • mark2 says:
      4 Jan4 January 10:56

      Having been careless about when a 241 was triggered, I strongly advise you to forgo the £15/1500. I ended up with a voucher that expires three months before we want to go, so had to get another by spending £10,000 in ten weeks.

      • Neil says:
        4 Jan4 January 11:20

        Yeah I’ve already decided not to save the offer. As nice as 1500 Avios for free is, I’d rather hang on. I’ll have more than enough Avios for my next planned redemption without needing this.

      • LB says:
        4 Jan4 January 11:57

        Crikey…I struggle to spend that in one year, on one card.

  • wetboy1uk says:
    4 Jan4 January 09:05

    I don’t have this offer either. A bit disappointing. If the offer is restricted to 20,000 I don’t see why amex don’t apply it to all cards – it would make no difference to them as the offer can only be claimed 20,000 times.

    • Chuckstar says:
      4 Jan4 January 12:38

      Because they know that of the 20,000 who register only x % will convert to sales… saving them £ … they are smart

      • Lumma says:
        4 Jan4 January 15:18

        Don’t these offers cost the company it’s for money rather than amex themselves? Other than shop small. That’s why you often don’t get the offers on a card if you’ve used that company recently.

        Although I suppose it could be that BA for example pay Amex £200,000 up front for them to run the offer, so £10 per offer saved, so it would be in Amex’s interest if they weren’t all used.

        • Rob says:
          4 Jan4 January 15:35

          As BA Amex cardholders are very likely to spend money on BA, I get a feeling this is a sneaky way to quietly boost sale without dropping headline prices.

          Also …. do you reckon BA will treat the £15 as a discount? No, they will treat it as a marketing expense and book the flight at a sale price of £100. This flatters REVPAR and other key stats which the City looks at.

  • BugAlugs says:
    4 Jan4 January 09:10

    I seem to have missed out on all the most recent BA related offers and the last hilton offer. *soft sobbing*

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