Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get a refund to your American Express card? Here’s how it impacts your vouchers and bonuses

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

A recent email from a reader reminded me that you may not be familiar with how American Express treats refunds when you have a spend target to hit.

The answer is simple:  all American Express spend targets are based on NET spend, not GROSS spend.  Your spending is adjusted for refunds, irrespective of when the original transaction took place.

How does American Express deal with refunds

The “irrespective of when the original transaction took place” bit is important. Here is an example.

My British Airways American Express Premium Plus membership year runs to late May.  I need to spend £10,000 between late May 2022 and late May 2023 to receive my next 2-4-1 Avios companion voucher.

Let’s assume that I am about to receive a £2,000 refund from British Airways for a flight booked in April 2022. Because it was booked in my previous card year, it counted towards my 2021/22 companion voucher.

When this refund turns up, it counts against my target spend for the current year.  This means that I will need to spend £12,000 this year – not £10,000 – in order to trigger my 2-4-1 voucher.

It makes no difference that the original purchase took place in my old membership year.  Amex deducts the £2,000 from my gross spending in this membership year so, to hit £10,000 of net spend, I now need to hit £12,000 of gross spend.

More obviously, the refund would also count against my £10,000 total spending if the original purchase has taken place in my current membership year.

The identical situation applies if you are working towards any other American Express spend bonuses:

  • Any sign-up bonus on any American Express card (see below)
How does American Express handle refunds

What happens if you trigger an Amex sign-up bonus and then receive a refund?

This is a situation which can create additional problems, unfortunately.

Amex will remove your sign-up bonus if a refund is received which takes your net spending during the (usually three months) bonus period below the bonus threshold.

There are two scenarios here:

  • if you are still inside your three month bonus period, you can get the bonus returned by doing additional spending which takes you back over the net spend target
  • if you are OUTSIDE your three month bonus period – which can easily happen if you cancel a flight a few months after booking it – you’re stuck. Amex will remove your sign-up bonus and you have no way of getting it back.

This can cause your points balance to become negative. This is very likely in the case of British Airways or Marriott Bonvoy American Express cards, where your sign up bonus has already been transferred. American Express cannot pull back points from British Airways or Marriott. You can easily end up with a points balance of ‘minus 20,000’ in your American Express account which will take a number of years to whittle down to zero through fresh spending.

If a Membership Rewards points bonus is removed, it is likely that the points will still be sitting in your American Express account unless you transferred them to a partner. This means that you won’t drop into a negative balance.

British Airways American Express 2-4-1 companion vouchers are treated differently

This situation does not apply to 2-4-1 vouchers on British Airways American Express cards. If you have triggered your voucher for the current card year and subsequently receive a refund, the voucher is NOT removed from your BA account.

Does this apply to other card issuers too?

I don’t know, unfortunately.  It will vary on a case by case basis, but you should assume any award is based on net spend and not gross spend.

This would include:

  • A free night for spending £10,000 in a year on the IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard (no longer available to new applicants)

PS. This article (clicks) looks at all of the most valuable UK credit card sign up bonuses.

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

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.

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

15,000 bonus points 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:

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

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

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

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 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 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, British Airways American Express, Marriott Bonvoy American Express

Comments (51)

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

  • points_worrier says:
    6 Jan6 January 05:49

    Exceptions (as it is clearly a geeky article!):
    – Amex offers credits (spend £100 get £20 back). These credits do not reduce your points or spend. You get the full amount (£100) as points.
    – When you close your account, and spend after the close date does not get awarded or deducted any points. This is true for refunds. EG: So on your last month: Spend £3k on day 1, close on day 10, refund of £3k on day 20. You will get awarded 3k points on day 30, the statement date, and have a zero balance.

    • lumma says:
      6 Jan6 January 09:44

      Thanks. Your first point answers the question I was going to ask.

  • NFH says:
    6 Jan6 January 07:01

    I believe that rebates from Amex offers, for example Shop Small, the Platinum 2 x £150 annual dining credit and 2 x £50 Harvey Nichols rebates, do not count as refunds with respect to points or Avios earning.

    • Alex G says:
      6 Jan6 January 07:29

      While we are being geeky, if you use a spreadsheet to track your Amex spending, it’s worth noting that transactions of less than £1 do not count towards spending targets.

      I discovered this when trying to work out why my tracker was a few pounds different to Amex’s.

      • AJA says:
        6 Jan6 January 07:56

        What are you buying on your Amex card that costs below £1? I didn’t know you could pay for things less than £1 via Amex, I always thought there was a minimum spend below which retailers would not accept a credit card.

        • NFH says:
          6 Jan6 January 08:06

          Amex charges merchants a percentage fee, not a fixed fee or minimum fee. Therefore Amex’s fees do not discourage merchants from accepting Amex for small amounts.

          A typical scenario where you might pay a few pence by Amex is where you decide that you need a bag after buying an item in a shop. Most UK shops are legally obliged to charge you for a plastic bag, and will accept a card, not least as most people don’t carry around small change any more.

        • DaveJ says:
          6 Jan6 January 08:15

          Eg a packet of chewing gum from the Sainsbury’s local near the tube station.

          There’s no minimum spend.

        • Paul says:
          6 Jan6 January 08:56

          Are you living in the 90s? Granted with inflation there’s fewer options but no dramas walking into Sainsbury’s for a chocolate bar or pint of milk and paying with a card these days.

        • Andrew. says:
          6 Jan6 January 09:15

          No card issuer dictates a minimum spend.

          Loads of public loos are now “tap” access using a card for 20p or so nowadays.

        • John says:
          6 Jan6 January 09:30

          If your Sainsbury’s shopping comes to £10.01 you can put a £10 note in the self-checkout and pay 1p by card, including Amex, if you wish.

          Many years ago when I had nothing better to do waiting around London train stations, I used to top up my Oyster with the BAPP for 35p at a time, earning 1 avios on each transaction.

          • lumma says:
            6 Jan6 January 09:47

            If you can find a self checkout that takes cash these days that is.

        • Jonathan says:
          6 Jan6 January 10:03

          What’s weird is that the BA cards are one of the very few where Amex rounds up or down to nearest whole pound for the purpose of calculating how many Avios points you get on the odd pence for a transaction.

          A 50pence transaction using BAPP earns 2 Avios points, Amex treats the transaction like you’ve spent £1, then because you haven’t earned Avios to a whole number, it then rounds up as well. However if you do the same transaction value using a Amex MR card for instance (nearly all other Amex card’s included, so I won’t bother listing them all, plus I cbb) you earn 0 points when you spend under £1.
          This sort of thing can be rather frustrating that you can easily lose out on thousands of points per year, for those who have large volumes of transactions going through their card.

          It’s something that’s always half baffled me is to why Amex picks and chooses which of their cards round up or down for rewards earning, and why most of their cards simply round down

          • Genghis says:
            6 Jan6 January 10:27

            A 50p transaction on BAPP only earns 1 avios.
            From experience, the transaction amount is multiplied by 1.5 and then rounded up or down.
            So 34p transaction = = 0.51 avios, rounded up to 1.
            A 50p transaction = 0.75 avios, rounded up to 1.

          • Jonathan says:
            6 Jan6 January 11:59

            Someone will need to a load of transactions in (ultra) low values then look overly thoroughly to see how many Avios gets awarded when using BAPP for these types of transactions.

            Genghis, maybe I’ve not got it entirely correct, but if I’ve always worked out that a purchase of 50p-99p is treated like you’ve spent £1 (for the purpose of collecting Avios, spend towards the 241 voucher we’ll ignore for this) using BAPP. It’s also buried on Amex’s website that if you end up earning not a full number of Avios in a single transaction, so spending any odd number in whole pounds, because you you’ll have a spare 0.5 Avios, they just round it up again to make the nearest whole number.

            It gets very complicated to say the least I know, but any purchase of 1p-49p will not earn anything at all, because Amex will round up or down to the nearest whole pound, 49p is closer to £0 than £1, whereas 50p is closer to golden number to rounding up, since it’s closer to £1 than £0.

            If anyone really wants to read, then follow this link to the full t&c(s) of BAPP, you’ll need to head to page 14 where Amex have explained, although without many specifics. https://icm.aexp-static.com/Internet/internationalcardshop/en_gb/pdf/ba-premium-plus-credit-card/BAPremiumPlusTCs.pdf

            It can get very hard to figure out, I know since BAPP earns 1.5 Avios per £1 spent instead of an easy number like 2 Avios, and when do spending like this on the Virgin Atlantic cards for instance, it’ll round up all eligible card transactions for the statement month, then calculate how many points from there you’ve earned, the Amex (and Sainsbury’s Bank and Tesco Bank) approach to calculating how many points you earn on a per transaction basis can be rather annoying and hard to get your head around at times, but it’s how they’ve chosen to do things

            Again, it’d require a lot of (ultra) low value transactions too see just how many Avios you get when spending less than £1 using BAPP

        • Alex G says:
          6 Jan6 January 10:39

          “What are you buying on your Amex card that costs below £1?”

          Now TV subscription at a discounted rate of 99p after I tried to cancel.

  • Pointless says:
    6 Jan6 January 07:08

    These points have been raised before and are completely logical. In the example given about 10k for the 2 4 1 and then a refund of 2k after the voucher issued…… it means you got your voucher for 8k, not 10k so its right and proper that you owe 2k and hence will need 12k for the next one.
    It is the constant search for loopholes and trying to exploit them, the not playing by the spirit of the loyalty programme, that leads to the constant devaluation of Avios (etc). Now that they are practically worthless in monetary terms and the ability to trade them for worthwhile seats/ routes the whole programme is becoming rather pointless other than cashing in for Nectar points!!
    Have a think about it…..

    • Paul says:
      6 Jan6 January 08:58

      Not necessarily true though, you could have had excess spend the previous year (ie needed 10k but spent 30k) so the refund if applied then wouldn’t have made a difference but yet you now need to make it up in your following year in this hypothetical example.

  • Pedro says:
    6 Jan6 January 07:35

    If you end up with a large negative balance, just cancel the card and resign up a few months later.
    I had that on my BAPP a couple of years ago, after the BA quadruple Avios/book jersey flights deal. Getting cash refunds to my BA Amex put me into a massive negative Avios balance. When all the refunds were in, I cancelled it and signed back up a few months later without issue.

    • Jonathan says:
      6 Jan6 January 08:34

      That’s not the ideal way of points collecting, I can understand why you’ll try so hard to get all the points you can get, but you also run the risk of being rejected when you apply again for the credit card

      A little OT here, but it is often mentioned about Amex getting really funny with people who spend around £9K on BA Blue card, then try and upgrade to BAPP to spend the additional amount required to pick up the BAPP (not BA Blue) 241 voucher

      • Adam says:
        6 Jan6 January 09:12

        This is what I was thinking of doing as I don’t want to trigger my voucher until July so I can use it for summer Europe flights… is it possible to do that?

        • Jonathan says:
          6 Jan6 January 09:17

          I’m sure someone could easily provide a link to an article Rob wrote about many months ago, and you should be able to find some chat about it without too much issue in the forum

      • lumma says:
        6 Jan6 January 09:51

        I think AMEX are happy for you to do that as long as you keep the BAPP for a reasonable amount of time. It’s the people who spend £10k, upgrade to get the voucher then ask to downgrade back to the free card to get most of the fee refunded that they’re trying to stop.

      • Pedro says:
        6 Jan6 January 15:36

        To be honest I didn’t know where the refunds would end up. For the last cancelled flight I paid using a debit card and voucher. But the end refund was sent all the way back to the original payment method – the BAPP.
        It was a month or 2 after the original amex Avios had posted, so it wasn’t intentional. But I wasn’t gonna spend on it for a couple of years and not get any Avios!

  • Shane says:
    6 Jan6 January 08:03

    Somewhat of-topic, but I can confirm that for those holding both personal and business Amex Platinum cards, Amex is happy to merge the Reward Point balances, so that on both accounts you will see the merged total. This means that if you have both cards and are contemplating closing one of the accounts, you’re not forced to remit the Reward Points on that account to an airline etc. to avoid losing them.

  • Rich_A says:
    6 Jan6 January 08:37

    Is it till the case that the Amex bonuses are ‘tied’ to the transaction that triggered them?

    And if the transaction that triggers your 20k happens to be refunded for any reason, the bonus is taken away.

  • L Allen says:
    6 Jan6 January 08:38

    I’m surprised that some people didn’t realise refunds affect spend targets. A refund is, after all, a spend that subsequently didn’t happen. It would be illogical to back date it to the original transaction date and so applying it on the date it is received is perfectly sensible. It sounds to me like there’s an expectation of having your cake and eating it.

  • Adam says:
    6 Jan6 January 09:10

    I’m in a predicament… So.. I’m £600 away from hitting the free 241 voucher spend, but don’t want to until next July, so I can use the voucher for summer ’24. Can I upgrade my amex to a premium, which will trigger the premium 241 voucher, and then downgrade a few days later, and keep the voucher?!

    • lumma says:
      6 Jan6 January 09:57

      Technically yes, but this is the behaviour that AMEX is apparently trying to stop. Maybe worth it to pay the fee for a few months before asking to downgrade?

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.

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

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

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

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? SPECIAL OFFER TO 12TH MAY EARN POINTS WORTH 30,000 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

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!