Two new American Express deals – 1,000 Avios on £500 BA spend and £300 off Qatar Airways

Two new American Express cashback flight offers have appeared which are worth a look.

As usual, you need to see if you are targetted for these promotions by looking at the ‘Offers’ tab online or in the Amex app for each American Express card you hold.

You must click ‘Save to Card’ to activate the offer.

A British Airways deal

First is a British Airways deal which is only available to British Airways Premium Plus American Express (EDIT: and apparently BA Amex) cardholders.

You can find our British Airways Premium Plus American Express review here and our free British Airways American Express review here.

You will receive 1,000 Avios when you spend £500 at ba.com by 28th February. It is valid up to FIVE times.

I’m not sure BA has thought this through. When you book flights at ba.com, each ticket is charged separately to your credit card. This means that, if you book 4 x £500 tickets for your family, it should – in theory – trigger 4 x 1,000 Avios. Was this the plan?

There are no rules about booking certain ticket classes. All flights must depart from the UK.

I imagine that Avios redemption taxes and charges will trigger the bonus IF each ticket has charges of £500+. The offer is NOT cumulative and, as BA will split out individual tickets on your statement, you are unlikely to get anything if you book two tickets with taxes and charges of £350.

Here’s the weird bit. The rules say:

Phone & Mobile transactions are excluded from this Offer.

What does this mean? Are bookings via the BA app blocked? Or does it mean you can’t use Apple Pay? I mean …. if you go onto your mobile browser to visit ba.com, BA will treat the purchase in exactly the same way as a purchase on a desktop browswer. It’s all very odd.

Whilst, officially, payments to BA Holidays are not part of this deal, I suspect that they will trigger the bonus. If you are paying off a BA Holidays package in instalments you may want to break each down into £500 chunks.

A Qatar Airways deal

Second up is Qatar Airways.

You will receive £300 cashback when you spend £2,000 on Qatar Airways flights by 10th March 2023. For obvious reasons you probably won’t find this on BA Amex cards.

There are a couple of points to note:

• cumulative spend counts – this is good news if you book tickets for multiple people if they end up being charged separately to your statement, or if you book more than one flight for yourself

• there is no restriction on travel classes

• you must depart from the UK

I would guess that if you book Avios redemptions via qatarairways.com then it would also trigger the cashback if the taxes and charges were above £2,000.

However, you are trading off the fact that cancellations, changes etc to the ticket would need to be done via Qatar Airways and not British Airways – which may not be as simple – and you need to move your Avios across to Qatar Airways (instructions here).

If you want to look at the current Qatar Airways sale deals, the offers page is here.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – January 2025 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 Mastercard

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

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 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.

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 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:

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up 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 Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios 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 when you spend at least £2,000 per month.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

Get 1% cashback when you spend at least £2,000 per month* Read our full review