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An interesting quirk in the new American Express sign-up rules we missed, and other updates

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There has been a lot to digest about the new American Express sign-up bonus rules in the last few days.  Apart from everything we have discussed so far – see here and here – there was something I missed.

For one group of people, getting a new American Express sign-up bonus just got easier.

These are people who currently have Amex Gold Business or Amex Platinum Business.

American Express Business Gold card

Why is life easier for Amex Business cardholders?

Under the old rules, all of the cards which offered Membership Rewards points (Green, Gold, Platinum, Gold Business, Platinum Business, Amex Rewards) were lumped together.  If you had one of these cards, you couldn’t get a bonus on another one until you had cancelled it and waited six months.

Under the new rules, this family has been broken up.  Instead, two new families have been created between the personal American Express cards and the small business American Express cards.

Let me explain what this means.  Under the old rules, if you had a Gold Business or Platinum Business Amex card, you were blocked from getting the sign-up bonus on a personal Gold, Green, Platinum or Amex Rewards card.

This is no longer the case:

The rule for personal Gold, personal Green and Amex Rewards now says “I understand I will not be eligible for the Welcome Bonus award if I hold or have held any personal American Express Card in the past 24 months”.  There is no mention of small business cards.

Similarly, the rule for personal Platinum now says “I understand I will not be eligible for any Welcome Bonus award if I hold or have held any personal Membership Rewards-enrolled American Express Cards in the past 24 months”.  There is no mention of small business cards.

Which means in plain English …..

This means that if you have Amex Gold Business or Amex Platinum Business, you can now apply for Preferred Rewards Gold, The (personal) Platinum Card or the Amex Rewards Credit Card.  The only caveat is whatever other personal Amex cards you have had in the last 24 months.

If you are an Amex Gold Business or Amex Platinum Business cardholder who has not held any personal Amex cards in the last 24 months, you can literally apply for any personal Amex card you want – immediately, with no need to close your Business card – and get the sign-up bonus.  None of the bonus rules on personal cards make any reference to Small Business cards.

Note that this method does not work in reverse.  The rules for applying for the Amex Business cards remain unchanged:

if you have had a personal Green, Gold, Platinum or Amex Rewards card, or a Gold Business or Platinum business card, in the previous six months then you CANNOT get a sign-up bonus on Gold Business or Platinum Business

if you have NOT had a personal Green, Gold, Platinum or Amex Rewards card, or a Gold Business or Platinum business card, in the previous six months then you CAN get a sign-up bonus on Gold Business or Platinum Business

You can learn more about Amex Gold Business in this HfP article.  You can learn more about Amex Platinum Business in this article.

You obviously need to meet the American Express definitions of having a qualifying small business before you can apply, but these are relatively generous.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 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

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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

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

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American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

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Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

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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.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Membership Rewards, American Express Platinum card

Comments (164)

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

  • s879 says:
    24 Mar24 March 11:55

    OT: Trying to use my BA 2 for 1 online. Seems straight forward. I want to two one way bookings in Business but from the same city. i.e. Lon-Dxb and Dxb- Lon for example. I just want to book the one-way online and book the return when I have more avios. Question is can I book the return one-way online too? Also, someone mentioned you get some taxes refunded once you book the return part if I understood correctly. How does that work? Sorry my first time doing this!

    • TGLoyalty says:
      24 Mar24 March 12:13

      You need to call to add the return using the voucher

    • Peter 64K says:
      24 Mar24 March 12:59

      If you call the helpline to get the return added they will adjust the fees (eventually, maybe months down the line!).
      You can book the return online and then ring to combine the flights into one with the voucher apparently, but the fees are not adjusted I believe.

      • s879 says:
        24 Mar24 March 13:25

        Thanks all

        • s879 says:
          24 Mar24 March 14:30

          Managed to book, thanks! Both kids (10 and 13) were charged same taxes in Club World) Aren’t they less for children? Remember something about APD not being charged for kids.

    • Matthew says:
      24 Mar24 March 14:47

      APD is charged in full in a ‘premium seat’ so the kids pay full APD. It’s only free or discounted in an economy seat for the kids I’m afraid.

  • Colin MacKinnon says:
    24 Mar24 March 12:15

    With business cards, is the amount personal or business?

    ie. Wife and I are directors. Can she get the biz Plat and then six months later refer me, and cancel. Then after six months I can refer her and then cancel. Rinse and repeat?

    • Polly says:
      24 Mar24 March 12:23

      Guess this is exactly what amex want to stop happening. But if you are. Big spender then it’s no loss to amex. However, you can’t hold other amex cards that would bar this activity.

  • the_real_a says:
    24 Mar24 March 12:43

    Presumably one could use an AMEX gift card to pay for the 241 taxes if all other avenues of holding a card have been exhausted. (?)

  • Hamza Jamil says:
    24 Mar24 March 13:08

    First post (be gentle): what about the impact on ICC. We travel frequently to the US/EU – I wonder if better to cancel the personal, and use the ICC for international costs?

    • Peter 64K says:
      24 Mar24 March 13:23

      I assume that’s an option as Rob had said that holding the ICC cards does not impact the UK ones.

    • Alan says:
      24 Mar24 March 18:24

      Just be aware it can be a bit of a pain/cost to pay of these cards – depends on what options you have for international payments open to you (Rob has grandfathered HSBC deal, I have to use Caxton, not found anyone else offering a decent deal)

  • Mark2 says:
    24 Mar24 March 14:30

    As I have said several times before, it would be very easy for Amex/BA to enforce the ‘use the card which earned the companion (241) voucher to pay the taxes etc. rule’.

    If BA are not already holding the BAPP card numbers against the vouchers, it would be a morning’s work for Amex to extract a list of all the outstanding vouchers with BAEC number, date issued and BAPP number and pass it across. On the payment page for the redemption using the voucher, the BAPP number would be pre-loaded and made read-only so just the expiry date and CVV number entered by the card holder. This would be a minor change to the three payment pages – online, Android, Apple and maybe CS agent as fourth.

    I say this as a holder of a 241 voucher who has cancelled the BAPP card knowing the risk.

    • Memesweeper says:
      24 Mar24 March 17:07

      A day’s work for Amex to run the report.

      About now till the heat death of the universe for BA to make the necessary corresponding IT changes…

      • Mark2 says:
        24 Mar24 March 17:46

        We all hope so, but people need to be aware of the risk.

      • BJ says:
        24 Mar24 March 18:25

        Probably, I had them pricing up offpeak dates at peak rates earlier today. Hope they fix that quick.

    • Alan says:
      24 Mar24 March 18:25

      Based on BA IT’s past record with payment page I expect this would (a) take them quite a significant time and (b) potentially lead to another data breach 😉

    • Simon says:
      24 Mar24 March 23:34

      Mark2 – Guessing you don’t work in IT for a large corporation.

  • Garyn says:
    24 Mar24 March 14:34

    Just called am ex to cancel BA card as I want to move to business card in 6 months and have been clearly told my 241 will also be cancelled as rule 15 T&C clearly state tax much be paid for using the BA Amex card. Is this correct? I don’t want to lose the voucher, and have read here that wasnt the case but they were very adamant I’d lose it??? Thanks

    • Rob says:
      24 Mar24 March 14:41

      They always tell you this. Have done for years. It is total nonsense. Challenge the agent, they should know the reality as opposed to what is on their script. No reader has ever lost a voucher.

      • Garyn says:
        24 Mar24 March 15:26

        Thanks for your reply Rob, I did challenge the agent she went away to check T&Cs and came back with a quote of rule 15 and that voucher would definitely be cancelled. Do they actually cancel the voucher or inform BA to?

        • Rob says:
          24 Mar24 March 15:54

          Which bit of ‘no-one has ever had a voucher cancelled, ever’ are you struggling with? 🙂

        • TGLoyalty says:
          24 Mar24 March 16:28

          Have have two sitting in my BA card right now which tells you that the reality is the voucher is fine after you cancel.

      • the_real_a says:
        24 Mar24 March 17:11

        You mean you want them to cancel the voucher?

      • Mark says:
        24 Mar24 March 18:49

        Hi Rob –
        I’m (99.9%) sure you’re right, but
        There is a difference between confidentially stating past Amex practise, and confidentially predicting future Amex policy!
        The sudden 6-month rule change must make folks nervous…

        • Mark says:
          24 Mar24 March 18:50

          That should have been “confidently”, of course !

        • Rob says:
          24 Mar24 March 20:47

          True, but the T&Cs have not changed. There is a version online dated 2009 which has this rule in it. It is not even clear if the FCA would consider it ‘fair and reasonable’.

          • Alan says:
            24 Mar24 March 21:59

            That’s quite helpful having it in from 2009, sounds like “custom and practice” would put consumers on a pretty firm footing then given they haven’t reversed any in the past decade!

  • Matthew says:
    24 Mar24 March 14:50

    Can one be referred and refer others for an Amex IDC or Euro equivalent? I used to have the IDC but cancelled it some time ago. Wondering whether to get the Plat version of that…

    Thanks

  • Matt says:
    24 Mar24 March 16:33

    Could someone please confirm that I can get a personal gold if I hold personal plat? There won’t be a sign up bonus obviously.
    What I’m trying to judge is whether the plat is working for me long term and i think it might come down to continued availability of (self) referral. Gold can become a card I keep for a full year (spending 15k).
    Thanks for help.

    • Shoestring says:
      24 Mar24 March 18:12

      the old rules said no, you can’t hold Gold & Plat at the same time – I don’t think Amex have published any changes in this respect but you could always phone them up to be certain

      Would probably be enough to cancel Plat and take out Gold the next day – I can definitely still go from my Gold charge card to Plat from one day to another.

      • Liam says:
        24 Mar24 March 19:13

        I have a Gold credit card and just got a Platinum card without a problem. Might be different if you still have the Gold charge card.

        • Matt says:
          24 Mar24 March 22:12

          Thanks both. I have plat but not gold currently. Looks like now the gold is a credit card it is possible to hold both. I’m thinking gold for spend, plat for referrals going forward.

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