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Get £75 off a £300 Amex Travel spend – but flights are excluded

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American Express has brought back the ‘£75 cashback on a £300 spend at Amex Travel’ offer that it ran last autumn.

Whilst a good offer, there is one nasty bit of small print which you can VERY easily miss because it is tucked away as the fifth bullet point in the T&C. Flight bookings do not count.

On the upside, one improvement from last year is that cumulative spend is OK.

Get £75 off a £300 Amex Travel spend

You MUST register for the offer before making a booking. You may, or may not, find it under the ‘Offers’ tab of your American Express card.

Here are the key things to note:

  • It’s restricted to 20,000 registrations, which is the same as last year but still a small number – register quickly if you are targeted for it
  • It does not seem to appear on co-brand travel cards (British Airways, Marriott), presumably due to conflicts with the co-brand partner
  • It only appears to be on primary cards, not supplementary cards
  • Cumulative spend is OK – you do NOT need to spend £300 in one transaction
  • You have until 16th December to make your booking and there are no restrictions on when the hotel stay or car hire actually takes place
  • Only pre-paid bookings count, unsurprisingly
  • Only hotel and car hire transactions count, not flights
  • As usual, hotel bookings via Amex Travel will be ineligible for status benefits or loyalty points, so the deal is best used for independent hotels or those where you have no interest in points

The inability to book flights is disappointing, as is the low number of registrations allowed, but the fact that you have until 16th December to book means that those who can register should be able to find a way of using it.

The best use is probably for booking an independent hotel, or a hotel in a chain where you have no status and/or do not collect points. Even then, double check that there is no ‘member rate’ available for a direct booking which would be a better deal than the Amex Travel rate.

The sweet spot is (for Platinum) Fine Hotels & Resorts pre-paid bookings and (for Gold and Platinum) The Hotel Collection pre-paid bookings. These offer added benefits which usually mean Amex beats any direct booking rate.


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In 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:

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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 – 30,000 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

80,000 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

Comments (50)

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

  • executiveclubber says:

    No sign of this on my Plat 🙁

  • tony says:

    As usual, hotel bookings via Amex Travel will be ineligible for status benefits…

    Perhaps worth clarifying that AMEX Travel bookings made on a “pay on departure” rate will however still collect perks & points, although will obviously exempt you from this offer…

  • Sine says:

    Will this stack with the 200 annual cash back?

  • Eli gold says:

    Not on my platinum or gold cards

  • PG says:

    “You have until 16th December to make your booking and there are no restrictions on when the flight, hotel stay or car hire actually takes place”

    Might want to remove flight from here

  • dannyrado says:

    This is on none of my families three accounts. Poor form Amex.

  • G says:

    Not on my card which is unusual

  • Travel Strong says:

    Amex Travel is an absolute nightmare to deal with. I’ve had the misfortune of needing to contact them last year (for a simple cancellation of a flexible booking) and currently having zero success contacting them about the £400 travel credit that has not been applied (voucher incorrectly shows against an old cancelled card, so no credit has arrived against a £600+ non-refundable booking).

    You can’t call anyone. Live chat is only available sometimes. When you get through on chat, the level of understanding is nil. The Amex card team will not be able to help and refer you to the ineffective amex travel team.

    I will never use them again, even for sizeable travel credits – because you can’t trust them.
    The definition of ‘you couldn’t pay me to use them’.

    • Mr. AC says:

      Interesting. I recently booked a car rental via Amex Travel (had some issue with Hertz website and wanted to make sure I’d get the Amex Platinum rate) – I was able to do it over the phone, and the experience was very good. The agent called the location on my behalf to sort out some questions re: cross border fees, called and e-mailed me back, etc.

    • LLLL says:

      Completely agree. I was abroad recently and wanted to cancel a hotel a few days before the booking date. I was still a few hours before the cancellation deadline.

      Wouldn’t allow me to cancel on the website because it was within X number of days of the stay (even though before the allowed cancellation time). The website said to use live chat… Which was closed and didn’t re-open until the cancellation deadline had passed.

      Generic customer service were just rude and unhelpful – told me to call, even though I was abroad trying to enjoy my holiday. Finally managed to call and took over half hour to get it sorted. They had to ‘contact the hotel for permission to cancel’ which delayed things and put me on hold for around 20mins. Needless to say, I was angry at this point as I couldn’t care what the hotel said – my Amex booking had a clear cancellation date and time which I was a few hour before.

      It really soured my experience. This was using the Platinum card on a FHR booking. It was another nail in the coffin of the Platinum for me.

      • John says:

        Similar experience trying to cancel a FHR booking at a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel recently. The cancel button disappeared from Amex travel website at T-3 days I believe. Had I not been able to get through on chat — which is only available intermittently — it could have cost me 1.5k for being unable to cancel in time.

      • Andrew says:

        Same experience with Amex Travel. An absolute dumpster fire of customer service.

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