Has ‘£5 back on a £20 Amazon purchase’ appeared on your American Express accounts?

American Express and Amazon have launched another of their occasional offers.  And it is a generous one.

If you are targeted, you will receive £5 cashback on your next £20+ purchase on Amazon made with your American Express card.

To see if you are targeted, you need to log into your online American Express account and look at the offers tab for EACH card you have.  You should also look under any supplementary cards which you have registered.

If you see the Amazon offer, click ‘Save To Card’.  The offer is “only” valid for the first 74,000 people who save it.

We have the offer on:

• my Platinum
• my wife’s supplementary Platinum
• my wife’s Gold

I do not have it on:

• my BA Premium Plus
• my Starwood Amex
• my wife’s Starwood Amex (which now has no offers at all)
• my wife’s BA Premium Plus

…. which means £15 of free money for us.

Here are the official rules, but it may not work this way in practice:

• Offer intended for UK Cardmembers only.
• Offer only available online
• Offer only applies to spend made in Great British Pound (GBP) on the Card to which the offer is saved, including an American Express Card loaded into a mobile payment wallet.
• Offer does not apply to spend on other Cards you might hold and is not valid for transactions made using Payment Aggregators.
• Only one £5 statement credit per UK Card.
• Rewarded credit may be reversed if qualifying transaction is refunded or cancelled.
• Offer only available to the first 74,000 Cardmembers who save the offer to their Card.
• Credit should appear on your billing statement within 5 days from qualifying spend but may take up to 90 days from 9 December 2018.
• Offer not valid on orders paid on finance.
• Offer is only intended for the targeted recipient of this offer.
• Spend must be billed to your Card account by 9 December 2018 to be eligible for this offer. If Amazon does not charge your Card during this period, e.g. because of a delay in dispatching your goods, you may not be eligible for this offer.
• Offer not valid on purchases made with Amazon Prime or subscriptions to Amazon Prime.
• Offer only valid on orders delivered to the UK.

I am unsure about the ‘not valid on purchases made with Amazon Prime’ rule.  I don’t know how American Express can tell the difference.  That said, for 100% security you may want to have it delivered normally instead.

Do gift card purchases work?

The easiest way of triggering the bonus should be to purchase a £20 e-gift card, emailed to yourself and then applied to your account.

It should also work if you top-up your Amazon account with £20 of credit.  Topping up your account means that you end up with a £20 balance at Amazon and, next time you buy something, the £20 is used first before your credit card is charged for the balance.

I ordered a £20 e-gift card for myself and it appeared to work.  I got an immediate confirmation from American Express that I had triggered the offer ‘if your transaction meets the offer terms’.  I should know in a few days if the £5 credit will be applied and will report back.

You can buy an e-gift card for yourself, or top up your balance, via this page.

The Amazon home page is here.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 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 Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

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 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. 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

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 Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 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