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

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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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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.

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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

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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

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Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

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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

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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

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, British Airways and Avios, Marriott Bonvoy

Comments (160)

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

  • Andy says:
    10 Oct10 October 14:51

    OT – I’m considering getting the Amex Platinum card. Usually when I get an Amex card I apply for a supplementary card for my wife at the same time. However I think I read here (but maybe wrong) that the optimum strategy is to apply for the card, then apply for the supplementary card once you get the platinum card as there is an additional bonus for adding the card? Or am I totally wrong?

    • BJ says:
      10 Oct10 October 15:19

      Yes, wait until you have your card first and then apply later from within your account. You should get 5k bonus but it’s not guaranteed.

  • jonathan brown says:
    10 Oct10 October 15:04

    Has anyone bought a £100 Selfridges giftcard and been given the £30 rebate?

  • Peter K says:
    10 Oct10 October 16:54

    Hi Rob,

    Tried to apply for the Amazon business account for Mrs K via the HfP link but need to verify the business. I have been asked for the following:

    1) One of the following official documents containing the business name :

    — Excerpt of the trade registry where your business is registered
    — Official document that contains your valid/active VAT
    — Business licence
    — Professional licence
    AND
    2) A document from your business confirming employment for [OWNER]. If possible, print it on company letterhead.

    This seems to rule out non-limited companies or those who are not VAT registered. Have I missed something here as it seems to rule out many smaller/new businesses as we cannot provide either.

    • Rob says:
      10 Oct10 October 17:52

      The document thing is a pain, we get asked for this occasionally but HFP has no headed paper as we never write to anyone!

  • James says:
    10 Oct10 October 16:57

    Three Parts. 1st more time sensitive 🙂

    I have Amex Plat.
    My Brother has my Plat supplementary card (and Premium Pass etc…)

    Can I refer him from my Amex Plat for an Amex GC for the bonus MR for myself & him ? OR will that not work because he is a supplementary on my Plat (I notice that Rob’s wife (Anika) has his supplementary Plat. and her own GC)).
    If not, Can my mother (who jhas the Amex GC already and is about to cancel to avoid the 2nd year fee kicking oin at the end of the month) ?
    He has never held an Amex in his own name.

    Related – but not as crucial – which other Amex’s could I refer my Mother & Father to now (they will both have help an Amex GC in thge past 6 months). (Nopt the Amex Plat as they won’t get enough benefit from it – they used to have the (then) excellent Natwest Black card until they made a few changes to it 🙁
    They would definitely take up the Amex Plat if the travel insurance covered them (they are over 70).

    Thirdly, I’m pretty sure I know this ius a negative but…….if you pay for another supplementary Platinum card (not the free one), what benefits does that card holder get ? Premium Plus lounge access ?

    Cheers.

    • Doogie says:
      10 Oct10 October 17:08

      >>Can I refer him from my Amex Plat for an Amex GC for the bonus MR for myself & him ?
      Yes – supplementary doesn’t count as a card in his name. 18k for you, 22k for him.

    • Alan says:
      10 Oct10 October 17:14

      1 – no issue, but Anika isn’t Rob’s wife 😉
      2 – the Amex ICC Dollar or Euro cards also have higher age limit for insurance

  • James says:
    10 Oct10 October 17:02

    Sorry – some terrible typos in there !

  • James says:
    10 Oct10 October 17:24

    Probably an extra fee for Amex transactions and sadly with them now passing MCC information through to the underlying card there will be a big loss to a certain cheeky MS 🙁

    • Mr dee says:
      11 Oct11 October 00:06

      Manufactured spend is dead to an extent now that cards are reporting spend/payments to credit files

    • James says:
      13 Oct13 October 22:47

      “spend/payments to credit files” what do you mean by that ? Credit files ??

  • Shoestring says:
    10 Oct10 October 17:37

    O/T just paid 12 months vehicle tax, on Amex no probs.

    22 YO 4×4 got thru the MOT this morning on re-test – just needed to tighten up the parking brake (handbrake). Halfords definitely not out to find things wrong on purpose, as some say.

    MOT was completely free of charge – well, 40p as I had to buy a cheap light bulb – from Halfords – promotion is still going but ends Sunday for Halfords purchases (any purchase will do) – you can redeem to get your free MOT any time until Oct 31st 2019 so I should get 2 MOTs in per car. Got a few codes lined up. Re-test was meant to be £15 but service with a smile etc and the nice guy waived the fee, helps to be pleasant yourself.

  • BJ says:
    10 Oct10 October 20:21

    OT: £25 on a FairFX prepaid MC for £5.95. Issues with what we post on here, don’t want to cause HFP any issues so you need to do some simple searching to find out how. If it is ok to post I am sure Rob will.

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

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