Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Got a British Airways Amex? New spend bonus launched on Monday

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

American Express has launched a new spend bonus for British Airways American Express Premium Plus and free British Airways American Express cardholders.

It is surprisingly generous, possibly more generous than it needs to be, which is odd but I’m not complaining – especially as I have a hotel bill to pay this week.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus spend bonus

The following has appeared on my British Airways Premium Plus card – click to enlarge.

It is limited to the first 60,000 people to register.

As you can see, I get 10,000 bonus Avios for spending £5,000 by 30th November:

British Airways American Express bonus offer

This is such a decent deal that it is worth paying the 3% foreign exchange commission to settle my hotel bill bill this week. As long as I cap the amount at £5,000, I will be paying £150 in fees to bank 17,500 Avios in total which is fine by me.

(Obviously it would make more sense to do the spending in the UK and not pay any FX fees. However, as per our other article today, I have a similar offer on my Business Platinum card that will keep me busy until mid November once I get home.)

Looking at reader comments, there do not seem to be alternative versions of this offer. It is either ‘10,000 Avios for spending £5,000’ or nothing if you have Premium Plus.

The free BA Amex offer does have different versions

On the free British Airways American Express there are reports of:

  • ‘1,500 Avios for spending £1,000’
  • ‘2,000 Avios for spending £2,000’

….. and that’s it. There are also quite a few reports of people getting nothing, so don’t get your hopes up.

Remember that you need to opt in to these offers via the ‘Offers’ tab on your BA Amex statement page in the app or Amex website. Spending does not count towards your target until you opt in.

For clarity, spending on supplementary cards does not count. Neither does PayPal spend recharged to your Amex.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – September 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.

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

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

SPECIAL OFFER: The sign-up bonus on the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard is doubled to 30,000 Virgin Points if you apply by 2nd October. You receive 15,000 Virgin Points with your first purchase and a further 15,000 points if you spend £3,000 within 90 days. Apply here.

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 a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

30,000 bonus points (SPECIAL OFFER TO 2ND OCTOBER) 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:

American Express Business Platinum

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

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and free for a year 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 and no annual fee Read our full review

Category

British Airways American Express

Comments (183)

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

  • Greenpen says:
    23 Aug23 August 12:35

    I downgraded to the free card in August 2020. They cut my limit by a third immediately and for several months I never received any offers.

    I do get them now and my Avios one is 1500 Avios for £1000 spend. I now spend little on my Amex having transferred my spend to a cash back card. However, for this bonus I will probably participate.

  • Ian says:
    23 Aug23 August 13:13

    I am guessing that spend on any supplementary cards will not count.

    We have it on both our primary cards. So need to spend 10k.

    I have of course just spent 8k on my platinum card on Friday 😂

    • Number9 says:
      23 Aug23 August 14:51

      You guess wrong… you’ll get points spent on supp cards.

      • Andrew says:
        23 Aug23 August 15:10

        You guessed right – spend on supps won’t count as it’s only on the primary card, like all offers are. This is not like the welcome bonus spend which is for the account.

      • VerdantBacon says:
        23 Aug23 August 17:44

        You get points on supp, you do not get offer progress on supp.

        Offers are per card.

  • Ian says:
    23 Aug23 August 13:32

    I wish Marriott would charge my card now for an October stay as I also have a 5000 Avios for spending £200!

    Don’t really want to book a non cancellable rate however! 😂

    • Chrisasaurus says:
      23 Aug23 August 13:37

      Phone them and they will but it does complicate things if you cancel

    • WaynedP says:
      23 Aug23 August 13:39

      If it’s the same offer I have, then it expires 31 August.

      I would double check if I were you, and call hotel to request pre-stay billing if your offer expiry date is also 31 August.

      I’ve successfully done this in the past. Just be clear you don’t want a pre-authorisation amount, but rather an actual pre-billing transaction.

      I wouldn’t trust a “pending” pre-auth to trigger the offer myself.

    • Totally confused says:
      23 Aug23 August 14:11

      I called and paid for my sept stay last week and still got free cancellation. Helped I booked it over phone too though. Got notification yesterday from Amex that it had triggered.

  • Dave says:
    23 Aug23 August 13:33

    I spent almost £2K with BA at 1AM today (still pending) but only just saved the offer. Anyone know if this should still count towards the £5k spend?

    • Number9 says:
      23 Aug23 August 14:55

      Normally takes 2/3 days for BA spend to clear from pending so you may well be ok.

  • Sundar says:
    23 Aug23 August 14:37

    Will spend on a supplementary card be considered when offer is saved only on a main card ?

    • WaynedP says:
      23 Aug23 August 14:51

      Current received wisdom is “No”

    • Number9 says:
      23 Aug23 August 14:51

      Yes

      • Number9 says:
        23 Aug23 August 14:53

        @ Wayne really? whenever I’ve saved something similar spend on supp card has counted or maybe I got lucky. I won’t be contacting Amex to double check lol

        • WaynedP says:
          23 Aug23 August 16:51

          We’ll only know for sure once actual experience gets reported.

          As it stands, the strict interpretation of the T&Cs is that qualifying spend is card specific, to the targetted card onto which the offer is saved.

          The fact that Supplementary cards have received their own duplicate offers in the past (which double up, but don’t benefit from shared spending across the two individual cards) means that anyone slightly risk averse will wisely be reluctant to assume that supp card spending will complement primary card saved offer.

          Amex might not purse a strict interpretation of the T&Cs, but that would be good luck, not an advertised benefit by my reading of it.

          If you’re brave enough to test and report, that would be great, but you’d only know whether it works or not once you’ve committed to the full £5,000 spend which is too much too soon for me.

    • Number9 says:
      23 Aug23 August 14:54

      Adding an additional1 Card to your Account lets you share the benefits and convenience of your American Express® Card with family or friends. You’ll share one Account, all rewards earned from additional Card spend will go into your primary Account and your additional Cardmembers will have access to some of the benefits you love, like Amex Offers.

      • stevenhp1987 says:
        23 Aug23 August 14:58

        Amex Offers are generally for the individual card though and not the whole account.

        Supplementary cards have their own offers.

        I wouldn’t expect this to include supplementary cards.

        • Andrew says:
          23 Aug23 August 15:12

          That’s right – Number9 is mistaken here, it’s an offer for that card, not for that account.

          • CarpalTravel says:
            23 Aug23 August 16:13

            Anyone remember a while back where Rob invited suggestions for how Amex could improve their offers, offering? Clearer (and perhaps accurate) T&C’s and offer “progress” trackers, where applicable, would definitely help us all here!

          • Number9 says:
            23 Aug23 August 17:26

            Learn something new every day my mistake.

      • VerdantBacon says:
        23 Aug23 August 17:46

        If you spent £100 on main card and £100 on supp for the £200 Hilton offer, you would not trigger that offer on either card.

        This looks to be the same sort of thing as it’s an offer. Definitely not worth risking to see if it’s any different.

  • Tracy says:
    23 Aug23 August 15:01

    10k for £5k spend for me on BAPP, nothing on supp card.

  • Lee says:
    23 Aug23 August 16:07

    One harder task is knowing how much we have spent on the cards!

    • CarpalTravel says:
      23 Aug23 August 16:15

      I paid off my card today (early) for exactly that, inc. pending charges, to make that easy.

    • mr_jetlag says:
      23 Aug23 August 16:30

      If you have the app, it’s on the Membership tab showing you your spend to the next target. If you’ve already hit your voucher targets then yes its harder.

  • Hugh says:
    23 Aug23 August 17:24

    I might be about to cancel a flight booked a while ago and get a significant refund. Is there any danger this will
    make my spend for the purposes of this offer go negative, meaning I need to spend more than £5k?

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 40,000 bonus Membership Rewards with the American Express Business Platinum Card

Amex Business Platinum

Get 20,000 bonus points and your first year free with American Express Gold

Amex Gold

Latest Forum Posts

Get 30,000 points with American Express Platinum

Amex Gold

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

GET £10 CASHBACK WHEN YOU SPEND £150 ON CURRENSEA

Currensea

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? Earn points worth 10,500 Avios with Capital On Tap

SPECIAL OFFER: Get 30,000 Virgin Points with a Virgin Atlantic Reward+ card!

VAA

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!