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Get £5 back on a £10 purchase via American Express ‘Shop Small’

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Shop Small is back!  If you have an American Express credit or charge card (unless it is a Lloyds Avios one), you can make big savings on your Christmas shopping from tomorrow (Saturday) until 16th December with ‘Shop Small’.

American Express is the major UK sponsor of a scheme called ‘Shop Small’, designed to encourage you to shop in local independent stores instead of major chains.

Starting on Saturday and running until 16th December, you will receive £5 cashback on EVERY transaction you make for £10 or more at a participating ‘Shop Small’ business.

American Express Amex Shop Small

There are very few rules apart from the fact that you can only get one £5 cashback per shop per card. You can, of course, register multiple American Express cards if you have more than one.

It is a simple process:

You MUST register your credit or charge card before making a ‘Shop Small’ purchase

You can register British Airways, Harrods, Costco, Starwood, Gold, Platinum, Platinum Cashback, Amex Rewards and Green American Express cards by going to the American Express website, logging in and looking under ‘My Offers’ on the statement page.

Note that Corporate and pre-paid Amex cards do not qualify.  Lloyds Avios Rewards cards are also now blocked.

You can register supplementary cards (an additional card held by your partner on the same account) as long as it has a different card number to your main card and has its own separate Amex log-in.

Find participating small shops

The main Shop Small site is amexshopsmall.co.uk which contains a link to an interactive map where you can find participating shops in your area.  You will also often see a Shop Small sticker in a shop window.

Beware that this map, in previous years, has not been accurate. Often in a good way (some shops not featured give the credit) and often in a bad way (shops on the map are closed or don’t even accept Amex).  Your best option is to use your Amex whenever you can during the Shop Small period and see what hits.

It is worth noting that it is not just sellers of ‘things’ who are taking part. You will find cafes and even the occasional pub taking part!

Make a qualifying purchase of £10 or more

You can make one purchase per registered card per shop that is taking part in ‘Shop Small’.

You should receive an email or phone notification soon after making your purchase, although you shouldn’t panic if you don’t.

A £5 credit for every £10 purchase will be added onto your credit card statement within a few days.

For clarity …. this promotion is fully funded by American Express as part of its campaign to encourage more small shops to accept the card.  It is not funded by the shop so you shouldn’t feel guilty about taking part.

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You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

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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.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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Earning miles and points from small business cards

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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.

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Category

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

Comments (243)

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

  • Chris says:
    1 Dec1 December 18:22

    I know one like that.
    Buy pint for £4.90 (it is London), pay £10 on Amex and get £5.10 change. Then £5 credit from Amex.

  • GRIMZ says:
    1 Dec1 December 21:24

    A small amount of pubs! I have a lot of pubs in my area that take Amex, its easy to get a good night out for very little.expense especially with 13 cards registered.
    13 x £10 gift cards from my Butcher, 13 x £10 gift cards from my golf shop and 13 x £10 at the restaurant.
    Ask about buying £10 gift cards at the places you eat, drink and shop.

    • Shoestring says:
      2 Dec2 December 07:20

      Never thought to ask about that at our butchers! Anybody heading down to Cornwall during Shop Small, maybe take time to pull off the A30 and check out this place http://www.philipwarrenbutchers.co.uk (about 2 mins off the A30).

      Absolutely excellent quality & range in the big Launceston shop on the industrial estate, hugely popular locally & they have about 15 butchers busy jointing whole carcasses etc.

  • Doogie says:
    1 Dec1 December 23:34

    Just back from a lovely dinner at my favourite restaurant, Number 16 in Glasgow. Explained about the offer to the owner (he hadn’t heard of it despite being on the map) and he was happy to split our bill and tip across 7 cards without contactless – it wasn’t till I got home that I remembered i had an 8th card I’d forgotten to take out tonight!

    • Genghis says:
      2 Dec2 December 07:37

      Nice. We found No16 last year and then in March flew to GLA and stayed one night just to return.

      • Doogie says:
        2 Dec2 December 08:47

        Excellent, it’s well worth visiting Glasgow for! 🙂

        • Shoestring says:
          2 Dec2 December 09:11

          I see The Ubiquitous Chip is on the Amex map as well – I used to be a very frequent customer as it was our company’s unofficial eatery – ie evening discussions with the boss, team get-togethers, a favourite place to take visitors. Brilliant eatery in the West End (Glasgow) http://www.ubiquitouschip.co.uk

        • Nathan says:
          2 Dec2 December 11:05

          Glasgow is well worth a visit for any foodie, especially seafood-ies, Cafe Gandolfi and a lobster and posh chips place out near where the lawyers hang out that I can’t remember the name of. Ubiquitous Chip for the wine list certainly, although I thought the food went through a quite ordinary phase a while back, haven’t returned in recent times as No. 16 is fab 👍

  • C says:
    2 Dec2 December 07:45

    Went to a place on the map yesterday and paid with pin on 2 cards, but no email yet for either of us. Does this mean it hasn’t worked or should it show up in a few days? Hoping to hit up a few more places this week!

    Also used my wilko offer (got the snail straight away) but had to return the item so it never credited. Will I be safe using this offer again do you think?

    • Shoestring says:
      2 Dec2 December 07:55

      Did you pay contactless or stick in the card?

      No instant success email can be a worrying indication of no success – but this is not always the case. You basically have to waitup to 5 days to see if the statement credit has been applied.

      • C says:
        2 Dec2 December 08:04

        Put both cards in the machine and used pin having read the comments on here. I will give it a few days and see but would feel better if I’d have had an email!

        • Shoestring says:
          2 Dec2 December 08:09

          tbh then that would usually indicate no success is the likely outcome, not to worry if it turns out that way, if you have time you’d phone/ chat customer services & get them to manually apply the credits.

          Ie sounds like the map could be wrong (happens a lot).

    • Lottietiger says:
      2 Dec2 December 09:01

      For some reason all of mine went into spam so worth a look, I was worrying that zero had credited and for some reason thought ill have a look in spam and had 8 shop small e mails sitting there.

    • Alan says:
      2 Dec2 December 09:56

      Amex emails seem to be all over the shop just now. I received one saying to redeem my Amex offer before it expires, but I already redeemed it (and received the cash!) weeks ago!

      • RussellH says:
        2 Dec2 December 13:37

        Yes, Amex e-mails can be a complete mess. The worst seem to be the ones about MR points transfers, which always include HTML and style info in the supposedly plain text part!

        • Alan says:
          2 Dec2 December 13:44

          Was on the phone to them today and mentioned this – not expecting much but thought I may as well say! Also pointed out a few others that I’d triggered weeks ago but had now expired and nothing showing, they’re going to make sure both apply. Also highlighted again the bug in the app (on Android at least) that only shows bonus points rather than base earning MR/Avios – previously sent in screenshots and it’s with their tech team.

    • Rich says:
      2 Dec2 December 14:36

      Most places will refund to a different card, or for store credit, if you ‘forget’ the card you paid with.

  • Chris says:
    2 Dec2 December 08:24

    Anyone thinking you’ll get manual credits from Amex, prepare your expectations.

    Last year I had around £300 of missing shop small credits – they gave me 5 of them as apparently that’s the limit for manual adjustment. And that’s on a Platinum account btw.

    • Shoestring says:
      2 Dec2 December 08:29

      They very grudgingly gave me mine (3) LY but sternly warned me that I must not ask for another manual credit adjustment for the next 6 months!

      • xcalx says:
        2 Dec2 December 13:12

        Plat + 5 supps last year didn’t work at one place. Agent told us each of the supps had to ring in to get the credit. Only took 1 call in previous years. They really made us jump through hoops last year. Not doing as many this year even though we sit on 16 Amex cards.

    • Louise says:
      2 Dec2 December 08:39

      Yes as I experienced, they said have to wait 90 days for them to appear and then query it

  • Graham Walsh says:
    2 Dec2 December 09:36

    There is a good cafe round here, it’s on the map, but they haven’t taken any card payments for about a year. Maybe they got fed up with card transactions!! Big sign in the window Cash only. Big queues there all the time. Handy that they are next door a Lloyds Bank with cashpoint.

  • jtz says:
    2 Dec2 December 09:58

    2 oyster stops on the shops crawl map said they don’t take amex for oyster and apparently no shops do!

    • ahop says:
      2 Dec2 December 12:40

      I have struggled to find any this year yet. Last year I managed a few hundred quid….

    • Genghis says:
      2 Dec2 December 13:14

      Empiricallly from yesterday, about 40% were “cash only”

  • Ari Gel says:
    2 Dec2 December 11:54

    Any idea how to register an additional card without having a separate AMEX online account?

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

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