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New BA Amex offer – get 3,000 bonus Avios for £300 of British Airways spend on your card

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A good new offer should be showing on your British Airways or British Airways Premium Plus American Express card.

If you spend £300 or more at ba.com between registration and 16th February, you will receive 3,000 bonus Avios.

For clarity, this bonus comes from American Express, not British Airways.  The bonus Avios will be added to the ‘pending Avios’ showing on your online American Express statement and will be transferred over as part of the monthly sweep into your British Airways Executive Club account.

British Airways American Express card

The offer is limited to the first 50,000 people to register.  This is quite a large number, clearly, but there are a lot of cards out there and I imagine BA or Amex will do an email over the next few days.  I recommend you register now, just in case.

I don’t know if the offer itself is targeted or if all BA Amex cardholders have it.

You need to visit the American Express website here, log in and navigate to the statement page for your British Airways American Express card.  The promotion should show under the ‘Offers’ tab at the bottom of the screeen.  It should also be possible to register via the ‘Offers’ section of the American Express app.

1000 Avios with £100 British Airways American Express spending

Here is the small print – don’t get caught out:

Your transaction needs to be made at ba.com.  There is no mention of transactions booked via the call centre counting.

You can only earn the bonus once although supplementary cards would be OK if the deal appeared on the ‘Offers’ page for that card.

Your qualifying spend needs to be in Pounds.  If you book a flight which starts outside the UK, it is likely that it will not be priced in Sterling and so will not qualify for the bonus.

Your payment must be made directly with your American Express card.  You cannot use an aggregator such as PayPal, which recharges a transaction to your BA Amex.  You CAN use Apple Pay or similar.

Whilst not mentioned in the small print, historically this has been a cumulative offer so the £300 does not need to be spent in a single transaction.  This makes sense, because if you buy multiple tickets from British Airways in one booking, each person is charged individually to your American Express statement.

For clarity, if you buy Avios via this page of ba.com, it will NOT trigger the bonus.  ‘Buy Avios’ transactions are handled by an intermediary called points.com, and it is points.com that appears on your credit card statement.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – March 2023 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Successfully apply for either of the Barclaycard Avios credit cards by 2nd April 2023 and you will be entered into a free draw to win ONE MILLION AVIOS! Full details are on the application forms here (free) and here (paid). This competition is exclusive to Head for Points readers. T&C apply.

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

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

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher for spending £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.

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

30,000 points and unbeatable travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 points bonus 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:

Until 30th March 2023, the sign up bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased to 120,000 Membership Rewards points – click here. The bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased to 60,000 Membership Rewards points – click here. T&C apply, see the application forms for details.

American Express Business Platinum

Crazy 120,000 points bonus (to 30th March) and a £200 Amex Travel credit every year Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

60,000 points sign-up bonus (to 30th March) and free for a year Read our full review

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

Get a 10,000 points bonus plus an extra 500 points for our readers 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 on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback credit card

1% cashback (3% for 3 months if you apply by 31st March) and no annual fee Read our full review

Category

British Airways American Express, British Airways and Avios

Comments (164)

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

  • Anthony Charles says:
    21 Jan21 January 14:05

    Ive signed up for the offer
    On 2 separate cards / other is my wifes
    I owe £560 on a upcoming trip with BA
    Will pay £300 off on 1 card
    Trying to think how I can top the £260 up to £300 to pay with the other card
    Without buying something unnecessary like seat ?
    I seem to have all the hotels I need too
    Any suggestions appreciated?

    • Grant says:
      21 Jan21 January 14:11

      Car hire? You could probably cancel it too prior to the trip (once the Avois had transferred to BAEC) if you wanted to be very cheeky

      • Tony says:
        21 Jan21 January 14:32

        I think it says in the T&C they can recall the points
        So I dont know if that would work

        • Anna says:
          21 Jan21 January 19:59

          They will claw back the points if you get a refund on a BAPP. We got an £88 refund for a flight which was cancelled by BA and the avios were deducted as soon as the refund hit!

    • Peter K says:
      21 Jan21 January 14:27

      Spending an unnecessary £40 to get 3000 avios is basically costing you 1.33p a point. Think carefully if that is value for money for you.
      Maybe if you don’t get anything, think of it as spending 3000 avios to save £40.

      • Tony says:
        21 Jan21 January 14:34

        I agree Peter
        That’s why I said I don’t want to buy anything unnecessary
        Just wondering if anyone could think of something on the site that was worth the buy

    • WaynedP says:
      21 Jan21 January 14:55

      In the past I’ve added on pre-paid airport to hotel transfer with BA Holiday, and even booked a cheap room at a hotel airport on the night before flying out of Heathrow to allow my OH and me to start our holiday one night earlier (with a whole day to leisurely get to the Airport Hotel) and have a nice hotel breakfast and short shuttle hop to Airport terminal.
      I haven’t tried using the Airportr service yet, so don’t know whether this would qualify as a ba.com spend or not, but if so, it might also be worth considering.

      • Tony says:
        21 Jan21 January 18:41

        I got custom flight and pre flight hotel
        booked
        I booked a lot of airport airport hotels already
        I shouldn’t be so organized 😳

  • MattB says:
    21 Jan21 January 14:23

    OT – I booked a BA holiday flight plus car package (which I’ll be paying off with this offer) I have no desire to actually pick up the car now at any point of the holiday, so am I OK to just do nothing or should I let BA know?

    I won’t be able to pick it up drive round the clock and drop it off on arrival as I plan to have a few drinks in F to celebrate my 40th.

  • Colin JE says:
    21 Jan21 January 14:26

    Aaargh, just spent 400 quid on Sunday with BA for some tickets in April for EDI to BRU with car hire. Had we seen this even yesterday I would have cancelled and rebooked. (Not a criticism Rob). One of those instances where it pays not to think too far ahead perhaps.

    • Charlieface says:
      21 Jan21 January 14:31

      Pays to look at the comments, it was there…

    • marcw says:
      21 Jan21 January 14:32

      You can also read other UK blogs that published it earlier. The best thing you can do, every day, open your browser and check what’s new. The same again in the evenings. This way you remain updated 100%.

  • Gavin says:
    21 Jan21 January 14:37

    O/T and with apologies: How predictable are the Eurostar sales?

    January’s sale covered tickets STP to Paris, 21 January to 1 April 2020. I’m looking to travel mid July (in six months) and can’t decide whether to take some decidedly average prices now – or wait for a sale period to get them at £29.

  • Nick says:
    21 Jan21 January 14:39

    Re cash advance fees on revolut. If revolut reverse the transaction and send it back to virgin money- would virgin remove their cash advance fee?

    • Simon says:
      21 Jan21 January 15:41

      My experience of retrospectively reversing transactions on Curve is that the cash advance fee is not automatically removed but interest payments are. Presumably if you contacted Virgin they should remove it.

      • jc says:
        21 Jan21 January 22:18

        Correct – by default the fee (and the report to the credit reference agencies) remains – but there’s no harm in asking Virgin if they are willing to remove those.

  • faulty85 says:
    21 Jan21 January 15:19

    O/T sorry no bits! I wondered if anyone one could confirm. I read in a previous article retailers fees are capped at 0.3% for the BA Amex premium. Is this still the case? I am having a disagreement with a business who are trying to claim they are going to have to pay 4% fees.

    • BS says:
      21 Jan21 January 16:02

      The interchange fee is capped at 0.3%. This is the fee charged by Amex to the card payment provider. The fee charged by the card payment provider to the business can (and will) be higher. Especially as the provider may not differentiate between co-brand Amex and Amex Amex cards (which have no fee), it is easily believable the payment provider is charging 4% to the business for taking Amex.

      • Bs says:
        21 Jan21 January 16:03

        Typo – Amex Amex cards have no fee cap

      • faulty85 says:
        21 Jan21 January 16:32

        I’m totally confused by it all. Thanks for the comments though.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          21 Jan21 January 17:20

          Interchange fees are only a small part of the fee that businesses (merchants) are charged for their card terminals. The merchants are charged processing fee’s by their own bank plus terminal fees, risk adjustments etc

          The 0.3% interchange fee is the amount the card issuer can charge the merchants bank account for making the transaction.

          The larger the business the closer they get to to the card interchange fee but I doubt any are actually just paying the 0.3%.

        • Peter K says:
          21 Jan21 January 17:25

          Maybe view it a bit like phone line rental fees for your broadband.
          BT can charge a certain fee per month to internet providers (let’s say £14.99 a month). The internet providers may well charge more than that per month to the consumer (eg EE may charge £17.99 a month, Post Office internet may charge £18.99 a month).

          Likewise, the card issuer (Amex here) may only be able to charge 0.3% for co-brand cards, but the payment processor may charge more.

          Amex cards that are not linked to another brand (eg the Amex gold card) are not included in the interchange cap.

  • Dave says:
    21 Jan21 January 16:08

    OT – Business Gold. Can anyone confirm is there is an unofficial bonus for adding the first supplementary cardholder to a Gold business card, as there is with the Gold personal? I’m guessing probably not, but helpful to know. Thanks.

    • Roberto says:
      21 Jan21 January 23:02

      3000MR for each and every card.

      • Vinz says:
        22 Jan22 January 00:33

        Only for the first 5 supplementary cards. Up until 13th January you could’ve added and earned 3,000 each card up to 99 supplementary cards.

  • Chelseafi says:
    21 Jan21 January 16:54

    O/T Priority Pass lounges in T3 on a Thursday in Feb around 3pm how busy do they get from experience? My son who has PP and 3 mates travelling, so £40 charge for the 4 is that correct too? Thanks

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