Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Excellent new Hilton and United Airlines Amex cashback deals launched

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Two of our favourite American Express cashback offers are back. Both are better than ever as the travel market starts to weaken for the first time in 18 months.

As usual, you need to check the offers tab of the American Express app or website for EACH card you own. You should also check supplementary cards. You need to click ‘Save to Card’ to complete your registration. The offer will disappear when the registration target is hit.

Offer 1 – Hilton

The new Hilton offer has two variants depending on where you find it.

On Membership Rewards cards, it is:

  • spend £200 cumulatively by 22nd December, receive 9,000 Membership Rewards points

On other cards it is less generous:

  • spend £200 cumulatively by 22nd December, receive £50 cashback

The first version is startlingly good. 9,000 Membership Rewards points would convert to 9,000 Avios. I average 1.2p per Avios redeemed, so I’m getting (assuming I converted them to £108-worth of Avios) 54% back on my £200.

This is before I factor in the Hilton Honors points I’d receive from the stay on top.

Even in the very worse case scenario – you convert 9,000 Membership Rewards points to 9,000 Avios and convert them into 12,000 Nectar points – you’d be getting £60 of value back on your £200 spend. If you take the ‘finger in the air’ 1p per Avios valuation (£90) you’re getting 45% back.

The list of participating hotels is here. Don’t miss the five new openings which are randomly stuck on the end of the last page!

It covers selected Hilton properties in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

Don’t forget the current Hilton Honors promotion

This offer will stack with the new Hilton Honors bonus points promotion.

Hilton Honors is offering double or triple base points, depending on the city you are staying in, on every stay between 6th September and 31st December.

You can find full details in our article here. You need to click here to register.

United Airlines Premium Plus

Offer 2 – United Airlines

With good timing, given that we’ve just run a six part review series on United Airlines, a cashback offer is back.

This is quite rare – neither my wife or I have it across all of our combined cards, and only 15,000 registrations will be accepted – but it is out there.

You will receive £350 cashback when you spend £700 with United Airlines by 26th October.

Flights must depart from the UK. This is easy for Amex to verify since, for flight purchases, it receives full details of the route and ticket class as you will have seen from your card statements.

United has 23 flights a day from London Heathrow to San Francisco, LA, Denver, Houston, Chicago, Washington DC, Newark and Boston.

During the upcoming winter season (end of October to the end of March) the only regional route operating is Edinburgh to New York Newark.

Our review of United Airlines Premium Plus (premium economy) is here, and see the image above.

Our review of United Airlines Polaris business class is here.


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:

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

Comments (94)

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

  • Tomasz says:

    Hi Rob,
    The £700 spend on United, does it have to be on a single transaction? Or can it be a cumulative? for example two bookings coming at more then £700 on two transaction?

  • Julie Bissett says:

    Hi Rob,
    I’m in a qualifying Hilton and was planning to pay at checkout but they have charged my Amex card already. Will I still receive the 9000 points?
    Thanks

  • Alex says:

    I had this offer on four of my Amex cards, we did this last year to SFO when the offer was £250 off, but the ticket for premium was £802 per person. I didn’t think that was too bad considering.

    However, this time around I have been looking and if you use google flights to get the grid some of the Premium Economy tickets are ridiculous. They are DOUBLE the price of Business Class, what’s going on?

  • mhuk01 says:

    Does the Hilton offer work for booking before 22nd Dec for a stay early in 2024? Will it have charged the card? I’m guessing so but want to confirm.

    • Rob says:

      Hilton often doesn’t bother charging the card in advance (more work) but if you call they usually will.

      • mhuk01 says:

        Ok I’ll do that – presumably it will still go through as Hilton over the phone and trigger the promotion..

      • Idkanythingsmh says:

        The offer for 9000 MR says in-store only, how does that work? Can you not book in advance online? Also it doesn’t specify what qualifies as the £200 spend? Does it include the stay itself or just the amenities at the hotel?

        • Rob says:

          Pay in advance is fine with Hilton but clearly not if you need to split payment.

          Any old rubbish on the bill is fine 🙂

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

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