Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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

Comments (164)

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

  • Benilyn says:

    OT: Just got a message from our fave CC top up app telling me using them for points / cash advance is against the rules and if I keep doing it they will close account.

    • memesweeper says:

      Would that be R*****t or M****e?

    • Anna says:

      Just use Curve for cash withdrawals then? At least until they decide otherwise!

    • DANi says:

      Me2….. Hey ho…

      • Phil G says:

        Got the same Monday, when I got in touch wrt virgin top-up cash advance fee in turned out my account was locked even though original message only threatened a suspension if I continued. (I hadn’t). Took a while on chat to get it unlocked. Much discussion on where the funds had been transferred and why

  • Scottydoggiom says:

    Ive read about people ‘self referring’ Amex cards to get the bonus
    To do this, do you need to use different person email addresses to get it to work ?
    Im thinking of referring from Amex Platinum to BAPP , for context

  • Boi says:

    OT: is Hilton barclaycard still ok with Revolut? I have used the card but can’t see charge. Wonder if it will come with statement
    Also has anyone actually used virgin this week with no charge?

    • Boi says:

      to answer my own question: transaction of 16/01-no fee but fee from that of 19/01. Strangely they have same MCC code of 7851. no idea why one attracted a fee and the other didnt

      • Grant says:

        Are you sure 7851 isn’t the last few digits of your Revoult card? I can’t find an MCC of 7851

        • TGLoyalty says:

          That isn’t the MCC is it thought that was just a reference.

          Mine always says Revolut*8944* on my Lloyd’s and Revolut*3674* on my Hilton.

          Neither are my Revolut card or account numbers but do seem to be the same reference on those two cards perhaps a number Revolut knows the issuer by?

        • jc says:

          The number after “Revolut” in the merchant name is an arbitrary ID that Revolut assigns. It is not the MCC.

    • Secret Squirrel says:

      Charges being applied today from what I’ve read on HH Barclaycard.

  • Martin C says:

    Hi, has this offer of 3,000 avios expired already as I can’t see it when logging into my Amex account?

    • ThinkSquare says:

      It appears from previous comments that not everybody got the offer

    • Secret Squirrel says:

      No, finishes in mid Feb. Did you save the offer to your account as I think the max limit has been used already.

  • Claire says:

    OT – I’m having a blonde moment here. Going to NY next month, both got BAPP cards – I can’t for the life of me remember if that card includes travel insurance or not or if we need to get it from elsewhere?

    • Rob says:

      It contains ‘lite’ insurance but nowhere near what you need for a US trip.

  • ThinkSquare says:

    So if I book a £300 Hilton hotel via ba.com, (a) will it trigger this bonus, and (b) will I get my Hilton points and HHonors status benefits?

  • Sam says:

    Hi all, will the 3,000 points be earned on eligible bookings made via the BA app, rather than BA.com itself?

  • Kirsty says:

    Not shown on either of my cards as an Offer

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

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