Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Which energy suppliers let you pay your bill with an American Express card?

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

Gas and electricity is a substantial monthly outlay for most people, but it is rare that you find a way of putting the cost of gas and electricity onto an American Express card.

This is unfortunate, as it would make a major dint into the spend you need to trigger a sign-up bonus or your annual British Airways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher.

There IS a way to pay via credit card, however, and it works with many of the newer suppliers. You are unlikely to get very far with any of the legacy utility companies, unfortunately.

pay gas electricity with american express

How to pay your energy bill with an American Express card

Whilst most energy suppliers will prefer to set up a monthly or quarterly direct debit to keep costs down, many will let you top up your account at any time.

This can often be done using an American Express (or other credit) card.

Doing a top-up does NOT mean that your next Direct Debit payment is not taken.  Energy companies will try to charge you a flat monthly figure throughout the year even though your usage is higher in Winter. This means you build up a balance during the Summer and it unwinds during the Winter.  Making a top up payment simply increases this balance.

Some suppliers do, however, let you reduce your monthly direct debit, although it may depend on how much of a buffer you have in your account.

Your money should be safe if you do top up.   Whilst a lot of small energy companies have gone bust recently, Ofgem has a system in place to ensure whoever takes over your account honours outstanding credit balances.  If this failed – which seems unlikely – you would still have protection via your payment card.

Using American Express with Octopus Energy

Back in 2021, when we last ran this article, a number of suppliers allowed you to top up your account using a credit card. Unfortunately the recent energy crisis has wiped out virtually all of these start-ups, leaving just one major supplier, Octopus, accepting payment cards such as American Express.

One added benefit with Octopus is that its standing charges are 4% lower than the Energy Price Guarantee which most other suppliers are charging. Octopus has proven itself a reliable supplier and is now the UK’s fifth largest, having absorbed other companies such as Bulb Energy and Avro Energy. I’ve been using Octopus for over four years now and have always been extremely satisfied with their service and price.

(If you are an ex-Bulb customer, you can still top up your balance with an American Express card via the Bulb website. I’m not sure about Avro Energy.)

To top-up your account, click on ‘Make a one-off payment’ in your account:

Octopus Energy pay Amex card

Once done you are taken to a payment page. As you can see, inputting the first four digits of your Amex card show that it is working:

Octopus Energy Amex card payment

You can reduce your direct debit to as low as £1 per month in your online account to avoid overpaying.

Octopus supplies 100% renewable electricity and also offers a £50 refer a friend sign-up bonus when you sign up via my link.

You can also sign up via the Virgin Red app, which offers you 7,400 Virgin Points for a dual fuel switch and 3,700 Virgin Points for a single fuel. If you are not a Virgin Red member, you will need to register – free – here.

This works for other providers too

According to recent comments on HfP, a number of other energy suppliers let you pay via American Express. No-one on the HfP team has any experience of these suppliers, however.

These include:

  • Outfox the Market
  • geuk

Please post any other options in the comments.

These are smaller players in the energy market but, as mentioned above, you should be protected in case the company goes bust by both Ofegem and your payment card under Section 75 coverage.

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

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:

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 Platinum card, British Airways and Avios, Marriott Bonvoy American Express

Comments (106)

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

  • Michael C says:
    19 Mar19 March 08:49

    Do I necessarily need a smart meter if I move to Octopus, or is that only if I want to use the tracker tariff?

    • Thegasman says:
      19 Mar19 March 09:07

      You only need smart metre for the Time of Use tariffs. Don’t get why you wouldn’t have one though as they work out significantly cheaper with minimal effort.

    • Andrew. says:
      19 Mar19 March 09:56

      Smart Meters are good.

      Loving their energy challenges, great motivation to hit the gym for a 60-90 minutes.

    • @mkcol says:
      19 Mar19 March 12:07

      No, you don’t need a smart meter but if you want one they’ll install it free of charge.

  • lumma says:
    19 Mar19 March 09:15

    I can’t believe that Outfox the Market is still operating. They were an absolute nightmare to deal with when they started messing around with variable direct debits (pay more in winter, less in summer) and making it hard to leave

  • Peter K says:
    19 Mar19 March 09:19

    A word of warning:
    I was an Avro customer when they went bust and Octopus took over. It took 11 months to get the refund of the large account credit I had built up. Octopus were very poor with this and stopped replying to my emails at one point.
    So make sure you can do without the large balance you are building up in case things do go wrong.

    • Andrew. says:
      19 Mar19 March 09:52

      Who held the credit that you were trying to recover though?

      Can’t really blame Octopus if they hadn’t received the money from the protected scheme.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      19 Mar19 March 11:16

      It’s not octopus who administer the credit swaps as supplier of last resort

    • Peter K says:
      19 Mar19 March 12:26

      The warning was more that you need to be aware your funds may be tied up for a long time if your company goes bust rather than against Octopus,l.

      Having said that, only after multiple chasing emails, and sending irrefutable proof of my previous credit balance, photos of my energy meter the day before and after Avro went out of business etc did they pay up.

  • BA-Flyer says:
    19 Mar19 March 10:03

    I have a complaint with Octopus at the moment. They refused to send a credit balance to my bank account and insisted it had to go back to the original source. They sent the refund to a prepaid visa which I originally used 13 months earlier, and which expired the next day. Per the terms of the prepaid card, any unused funds are sacrificed when the card expires.

    • Harrier25 says:
      19 Mar19 March 11:11

      There is no complaint here. They are just refunding to the original payment source which is a regulatory requirement, not that all companies follow this procedure.

      • BA-Flyer says:
        19 Mar19 March 15:47

        Absolute nonsense. There is no legal requirement for a company to trawl back through the last two years of payment methods. They collect a direct debit from my bank each month; no reason why a refund couldn’t have gone there.

        • John says:
          19 Mar19 March 19:16

          Octopus policy is to only refund by bank transfer up to the total amount ever paid by DD.

          Although they only told me this after they had already refunded 3x the total amount I had ever paid by DD and I complained about a refund going to card, when their website said clicking the link would request a refund by bank transfer.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      19 Mar19 March 14:06

      Why ask for the refund then 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️

      Literally how the vast majority of companies operate

  • Lady London says:
    19 Mar19 March 10:06

    How can an energy supplier refuse to lower your direct debit?

    Mine tried to increase my direct debit by a monster amount. They were trying to get me to pay price increases they feared (for themselves) or planned (for me) ahead of time.

    I told them they could have 15% which turned out to be correct averaged over the year.

    They still were trying to get the higher amount, asking all sorts of privacy-invading questions about what electrical appliances I use (they have 12 years solid of usage records). In the end I just said “If you don’t want to direct debit the amount I am suggesting then stop the direct debit and send me a bill each month and I’ll just pay it instead.

    At that point they agreed to the fair amount of direct debit and it has been accurate since.

    Bandits.

  • Matarredonda says:
    19 Mar19 March 10:28

    Do any providers accept the monthly recurring credit card?

    • Reney says:
      19 Mar19 March 12:32

      No exactly the answer you are looking for, I am with Scottish Power and I just pay my bill monthly using a Mastercard, never bothered to set up a DD.

  • RussellH says:
    19 Mar19 March 11:49

    I had two Octopus a/cs for different houses between July 2021 and Feb 2022. The original one was actually a Coop Energy a/c which was sort of white-labelled Octopus, but operated through the Octopus website. The second was genuine Octopus originally; on request they switched it to the equivalent Coop Tarif, but never added my Coop no. to the account

    So, I would not say that I am dissatisfied with Octopus, but their CS does leave a lot to be desired. I now NEVER e-mail them, as the e-mailed answers a) take ages to come through and b) seldom, if ever address the point of the e-mail. eg. if I asked about tarif A, the e-mail people insisted on telling me about tarif B. Now I ALWAYS phone and usually (though not always) get a straight answer immediately. I would guess that in Amex terms, e-mail is like the Phillipines, while phone is like Brighton

    Comparing Octopus CS overall with that of credit card companies often mentioned here, Octopus’ telephone CS in my experience is far, far better than Barclaycard’s, but not up to the exemplary standard I have had this year from Creation, whom I have had to phone three times this year, and each time the process was exactly as it should be: prompt answering, apologies where due, staff recognising the problem before I had fully explained, given me a full explanation of what had gone wrong, promises that the matters would be set right within a specified, short time that proved 100% accurate.

  • RussellH says:
    19 Mar19 March 12:00

    One thing that does not seem to have been mentioned here is Octopus’s “Savings Sessions”. Sign up for the scheme and they ask you to reduce your electricity usage for 60 or 90 minutes during a specified peak period – if you do you get a useful, if not huge rebate. They say that as of the end of last February, Octopus customers together have reduced their peak demand by 1 628 227 kWh. You need a Smart meter for it to work, but we had that anyway to get paid for electricity exported from our Solar PV set up.

    • Thegasman says:
      19 Mar19 March 12:53

      I’ve made £250 from the saving sessions so they can be very profitable if you do it right.

      • RussellH says:
        19 Mar19 March 17:15

        Gosh!

        Given that they compare your usage between what you normally use and what you actually use during a saving session, you must be normally using a lot of electricity to save that much. That is more than we pay for the most expensive three months in a year – Dec+Jan+Feb.

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.

NEW: Sign-up bonuses boosted to 3,000 and 18,000 points

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!