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Get 15,000 points when you pay an invoice using Bluechain with your Amex Business card

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Back in August we covered Bluechain, a company which allows you to pay invoices with a credit card.

Bluechain charges your credit card, adds a small fee and sends a bank transfer to the company to whom you owe money. Easy.

Even better, it works with American Express as well as Mastercard and Visa.

Amex is now offering a huge incentive of 15,000 Membership Rewards points to give it a try. You need to have American Express Business Platinum or American Express Business Gold to take part.

Get 15,000 points when you pay an invoice using Bluechain

What is Bluechain?

Bluechain is a B2B payments platform. It allows you to manage invoices and pay any of your suppliers with a credit card.

As well as maximising your reward points, it can also help with your cashflow because of the grace period given by your credit card to settle the bill.

How does Bluechain work?

You can use Bluechain to pay any registered UK business including sole traders. The system is very straightforward. To pay invoices you need to:

  • Add invoices – Simply add invoices manually or connect to your accounting software to automatically pull in all unpaid invoices.
  • Choose how you want to pay – With a debit or credit card, and whether you want to pay in full or split the payment into parts.
  • Choose when you want to pay – Pay now, on the due date or schedule for another date.

Bluechain takes payment from your card on the date selected, pays your invoice via a standard money transfer and automatically reconciles it in your accounting software.

If you are a sole trader, some HfP readers have found it easier – in terms of account verification – to open a Bluechain account as a private individual and not as a business. To do this, on the page where you are asked if you are a Sole Trader or Ltd Company, just click ‘Skip’ instead.

Get 15,000 points when you pay an invoice using Bluechain

What is the American Express offer?

It is very simple.

If you have American Express Business Platinum or Business Gold you should be able to opt-in to the Bluechain promotion via the ‘Offers’ tab of the website or app.

Once signed in, you will receive 15,000 bonus Membership Rewards points when you send £3,000+ by Bluechain.

You have until 12th February 2025 to do the spend.

Cumulative spend counts.

What does Bluechain cost?

Bluechain is free to join. You only pay when you make a payment through the platform.

The current payment fees are:

  • American Express 2.3%
  • Mastercard and Visa 2.5%

It will cost you (£3,000 x 2.3%) £69 to make a £3,000 payment with your Amex Business card. This should be tax deductible. In return, you will receive for your first £3,000 of transactions:

  • 3,000 base Membership Rewards points
  • 15,000 bonus Membership Rewards points
  • any bonus Membership Rewards points from hitting the monthly (Business Platinum) or quarterly (Business Gold) spending targets
Get 15,000 points when you pay an invoice using Bluechain

What sort of invoices can be paid via Bluechain?

Bluechain can be used to pay any registered UK business or sole trader, with the bonus of being able to pay companies, such as Google Ads, with a credit card when they no longer accept direct credit card payments.

The only notable exception is that Amex no longer accept payments to HMRC (even through Bluechain) although you can still pay HMRC with Visa or Mastercard on the platform.

Conclusion

This is a very generous offer by Bluechain to small business owners.

It is showing on your American Express Business card NOW for registration. (There is a limit to how many people can redeem the offer, so don’t hang around.)

You can find out more about Bluechain on its website here.

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Earning miles and points from small business cards

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British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Membership Rewards, American Express Platinum card

Comments (84)

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

  • AA says:
    13 Nov13 November 15:24

    Thanks all, that makes sense then. More use cases for it than I thought!

  • JRich says:
    13 Nov13 November 17:20

    Rob I added this to my Amex Gold business card. I’d love to upgrade it to the platinum and use it for the spend requirement. Any idea when one upgrades a card do the offers remain there? Or do they need to be added again? Thanks.

  • The Savage Squirrel says:
    13 Nov13 November 17:57

    Saved it. Natural monthly business spend on Amex doesn’t reach 10k for me, so if this does push me over that threshold it’s a double bonus and the maths (effective cost of MR purchase) becomes very favourable.

  • t0m says:
    13 Nov13 November 20:03

    Gutted that it isn’t on the BA Amex 🙁

  • byronlewis says:
    13 Nov13 November 21:31

    Thanks for this reminder – signed up for it within 1 minute of reading the article!! I’ve used Bluechain a few times since seeing it pushed here on HfP.

    I’m a sole trader, and it’s been successful (if a little clunky at times!) – also hit the £10k spend for the last 2 months on Amex Business Plat, and should reach it in December too so got a great stash of points!! Thanks again Rob, sterling work!

    • Rob says:
      13 Nov13 November 23:43

      It is a bit clunky. As it happens I had a chat with the company this afternoon and raised a few points. The company has clearly never sat someone at a computer and watched whilst they tried to sign themselves up and do a transfer.

      For eg, you’re not told before you start signing up that a passport or driving licence scan is required. You get part-way through and then realise you are stuck.

      I touched on the issue over the ‘Skip’ button if you want an individual account, which I wouldn’t have worked out myself if a reader hadn’t raised it in the comments after our August article.

      You think you can set up a payment anyway (to go after you’re verified) but whilst it pretends to let you do this, in reality you get random error messages which don’t even explain that the problem is that you’re not yet verified.

      The payment card I used did not automatically get saved under payment methods for future use.

      The 2FA codes they use contain letters which adds unnecessary complexity due to the need to capitalise them correctly. Etc etc.

      That said, it is a ‘clean’ interface and once you’re set up I think it will be straightforward.

      • Stephen says:
        14 Nov14 November 00:37

        Stephen here from the product team at Bluechain. I really appreciate your honest feedback. We’ve made several changes over the past year to smooth out the experience, but hearing about specific pain points like these is invaluable as we continue improving the platform. Simplifying the setup process, addressing communication gaps, and streamlining key journeys are all areas we’re focused on, as well as bringing more ways to upload bills in the first place. Thanks Rob and fellow commenters for sharing your experience — it’s feedback like this that helps us build a better product and I am excited to see where we can take it.

        • Howard says:
          14 Nov14 November 07:23

          I signed up a few weeks ago. I like this concept and we will use at some stage in the future

        • Polly says:
          21 Nov21 November 09:18

          Stephen, you guys were very helpful last week with our clunky set up. Even phoning us from chat to finalise card add on section. Great concept, so glad you are finally up and running.

  • Ian says:
    14 Nov14 November 06:29

    I will probably use Bluechain to pay HMRC via the Capital on tap card. Got Corporation Tax and VAT to pay.

    Unless an alternative route?

    • MikeHi says:
      14 Nov14 November 07:09

      I have the same issue, always want to earn points on any spend these days, regardless of size.
      But my upcoming HMRC bill and the 2.5% transaction fee would result in paying c.£150 which outweighs any points benifits I would gain.

    • Reney says:
      14 Nov14 November 07:27

      Do you need blue chain if you have capital on tap?

      • Ian says:
        14 Nov14 November 07:59

        Really don’t know. All a bit confused on charges etc.

      • Polly says:
        21 Nov21 November 09:13

        Only if you wanted the current 15k bonus MRs. Then add it. Any card works.
        We are only using for those insisting on bank transfers, which l detest. And if l need extra Amex points for those not accepting Amex. And those only accepting debit cards, which can be really annoying. So a service charge will get paid this time on bluechain, for a change.

  • rk says:
    14 Nov14 November 06:50

    Can Bluechain be used with Currensea (Hilton) to pay HMRC? To get around paying financial institutions with your Currensea card?

  • Gordon says:
    14 Nov14 November 07:54

    I make use of my BAPP and pay all my suppliers through it, only one does not accept it, which I am working on! Best trading year to date, and rising, due to new long term contracts, my purchases are now in three figures! BAEC account is looking healthy.
    Never had any issues from AMEX from this.

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

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