Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get £15 cashback or 1,500 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.

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.

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

Comments (96)

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

  • wiggers says:

    D’oh! I booked my flights to India yesterday!

  • Pieretto says:

    Just added the offer (1500 Avios) to my free BA card with no issues.

  • Chris says:

    A lot of moaning here.

    Having just come off shop small (which was not targeted and open to all) which gave potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds of statement credits.

    Then £200 off a £600 travel spend.

    I had £5 off when buying £10 at the Post Office (half price stamps).

    20% (effectively) Hilton stays.

    I used a £10 off £50 at GAP recently.

    Last year I got 30% off spend at Harrods.

    The list goes on and on.

    • Chris says:

      Sorry hundreds OR thousands!

    • Adam says:

      Has anyone received the earn 50% bonus HH points when transferring MR points to HH? Done our transfer two weeks ago but no bonus posted as yet!

      • John says:

        No but it does say 6-8 weeks

      • Doug M says:

        No, hoping it doesn’t take too long. I need the points a booking ASAP.

      • Tracy says:

        No, base transfer points received to my hilton a/c on 7th dec, bonus points should hopefully post soon

  • Dickie H says:

    O/T query but BAPP related. I have the standard BA Amex and my card year ends soon – in 2 days’ time in fact! Having spent over £10k, but not £20k this year, my questions are: (1) is it too late to pay the £195 fee today and expect the 2-4-1 to be activated in time; and (2) when would I be stung for the next £195 fee – in 2 days’ time (i.e. beginning of the next card year), or in 12 month’s time? Thanks for any advice! My New Year’s resolution is to plan better in 2018, making good use of the excellent advice from Rob and others on this site!

    • Louise says:

      You have time – apply online for BAPP and you should be upgraded.

      You won’t be charged 190 twice. Only once. You could cancel in a few weeks and get the fee refunded!

      • Dickie H says:

        Thanks Louise! Well, my aim is to actually keep it next year and enjoy the higher Avios earning rate at least until I’ve earned enough for another 2-4-1. But I didn’t want to get hit for two card fees in quick succession! My New Year’s Resolution is to be more organised in 2018!

        • Louise says:

          I did the same thing myself Dickie, although I cancelled the card as not going to use another 2 for 1 for a while!

  • IP says:

    Not got the offer on premium plus a/c. Spoke to Amex who said the 20000 must have gone…..seems unlikely to me. oh well.

  • Rob says:

    Just tried to trigger this by booking 2 x CE to Stockholm (Avios) as separate one-way trips.

    Outbound was 4 x £25 tax as you expect, so £100 triggered. On the way back, using a different Amex, the tax is only 4 x £20 due to low Swedish airport taxes, so I only got to £80. No point adding a £20 charity donation to earn 1500 Avios back and the best ‘cash and Avios’ mix was also poor value.

    Obviously I am better off having saved £20 anyway but bizarrely I feel cheated! I am hoping the £100 is cumulative so I can put another RFS redemption through before 31/1.

    • Brian says:

      Doesn’t it say that it’s valid only for flights departing the UK?

  • Mr(s) Entitled says:

    OT: I already have HH Gold status but it expires this year (Mar 18). If I apply for the Plat card and then pursue membership through that will it be extended or is my request null and void because I am already a member?

    I’ve booked the Waldorf in Rome starting 6/4 so I want to try and secure status and I’d rather not be submitting my application via Plat on 1/4 should it not be processed in time.

    Thanks in advance

  • Steve says:

    BAPP & the £15 offer appears to have saved ‘ok’ to my card; booking some flights idc (although may wait until after Jan 13th) so will test it then.

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.