Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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.


earns points from credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 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 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

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 – 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 (84)

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

  • William Avery says:

    Has the offer gone already as I couldn’t see any offer on the sign up page?

  • David Cumming says:

    I had the offer available to me at 8.30

    However, in a new first…. my surname was deemed inappropriate, so i had to put an ‘s’ on the end.

  • Paul says:

    Is it better to use Bluechain or Buy Avios when they are on offer?

    • Rob says:

      1. Are you writing off the fee for tax?
      2. What is your marginal tax rate?
      3. Can you use the charge to trigger a sign-up or annual spend bonus you’d otherwise not get?
      4. How late do you leave it before paying your card bill?
      5. What is the interest rate you’re getting on the money you will use to settle your card bill?
      6. What is your marginal tax rate on interest income?

      • Paul says:

        All Fees would be written off against tax. a spend of £3k would cost £69 but how many Avios can you buy for £69 generally. Appreciate your help Rob

        • Rob says:

          You need to answer all 6 questions!

          Finnair will sell you Avios for 0.9p this week.

  • xcalx says:

    I had the offer on Business Plat at 0915 and am tempted to pay a local contractor. However has anyone any experience of paying a business that takes payment via a SumUp card reader with an amex card. A local contractor has offered me the option to pay using my amex business Plat card via SumUp and he will abrorb the 1.49% fee. My question is will Amex charge me a fee. Had never heard of SumUp

    • Daniel says:

      No Amex will not charge you a fee. You are paying a business with your card in the same way you’d pay a supermarket, it’s just a different company processing the transaction.

      • xcalx says:

        Thanks that’s great to know, I did put a £100 tester through and he confirmed his charge is showing as £1.49. The payment is still pending on my amex account. I think I will offer to go 50/50 with the fees as I was ready to pay by via bank transfer, seems only fair as I will reach my SUB and the £10k monthly spend bonus. Does that sound reasonable or should I offer to cover the whole fee.

        • Ian says:

          If you take cards it is part of doing business. I make far more by accepting cards than I would otherwise. I don’t mind the fees.

  • Tasha Newton says:

    Excellent offer, always looking for ways to earn points on spend. Using Bluechain to pay for school fees via credit card has been particularly helpful. Earning the 3,000 MR points is a great promo.

  • cheng says:

    What if the invoice was less than £3k? You think i could make an overpayment?

    The extra money will just be credit for the next payment instalment

  • Rhys says:

    Is this new Bluechain registrations only? I’ve used it a couple of times already, and have saved the offer (Business Plat). Hoping still available as an existing Bluechain customer

  • Track says:

    Don’t overspend for the sake of points.

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

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