£5 off American Express gift cards – good for hitting your minimum spend

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I first wrote about Amex’s new range of gift cards last year.

Basically, you can now (in theory) walk into a WH Smith, Sainsbury or Superdrug and a buy a £20, £30, £50 or £100 Amex gift card. The fee payable on top is £2.45, £2.95, £3.45 and £4.45 respectively.

Amex Gift Card

Via the Amex Selects website, Amex is offering a £5 discount when you purchase an Amex gift card.

Now, this hardly makes the deal an unmissable one. However, buying these gift cards DOES count as a ‘purchase’ and therefore qualifying spend towards triggering any sign-up bonus. You may therefore be willing to pay the fee if you may otherwise struggle to hit a spend target.

You also need to add a postage fee of up to £4.95 to the fees above. However, this is capped at £4.95.

Including the £5 discount, you therefore pay, in fees and postage:

£100 gift card – £4.40
£200 gift card – £8.95
£300 gift card – £13.30
plus £4.45 for each additional £100

Is it worth it? Well, if you are £500 short of qualifying spend for a sign-up bonus then paying £23 in fees to buy a £500 gift card may be worth it. It is cheaper than buying the £50 Visa gift cards with £3.95 fees found in Boots, Tesco etc. (Of course, if you can find 3V cards with no fee then they are clearly a better deal!)

The offer runs until August 15th.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – December 2021 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit or charge card, here are our November 2021 recommendations based on the current sign-up bonus.

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the top current deals:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee 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 Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and free for a year Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and a long list of travel benefits Read our full review

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

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company 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 Credit Card

1% cashback and no annual fee Read our full review

Category

General

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

xcalx says:

20 Jul20 July 07:49

I was late to the 3V card merrygoround due to my usual tescos not stocking them. However in the last 10 days I have found 102 3V cards across 6 Tesco superstores. All are now deposited in a NS&I account.
I was shocked to receive 3 lots of conditional spend coupons this last week £12 0ff £80 £7 off £50 and £5 off £30 all used to purchase 3V cards, plus I also received £8 £5 and £3 off coupons for the next 2 weeks. I have never received these type of coupons so late into a quarter.
I now have 19 £5 off £40 Helping Hand coupons that I am hoping to use next week. Will the £50 Visa gift cards with the £3.95 fee transfer over to a NS&I account the same way the 3V cards do.

Regards
- Mr Bridge says:
  
  20 Jul20 July 08:19
  
  not tested, but if 3v works then in theory they should to
  - xcalx says:
    
    20 Jul20 July 08:42
    
    I will test it on Monday and post here
    - takke says:
      
      20 Jul20 July 13:46
      
      Yes, the tesco ordinary prepaid visas do work perfectly with NS&I. The only one that I’ve tried and hasn’t worked for me has been a Vanilla MasterCard that I got in Sainsburys with a coupon and their triple nectar points deal.
- 21h21j says:
  
  20 Jul20 July 09:12
  
  Yes the other £50 Visa gift cards can be paid into NS&I without any problem – Mrs 21h21j bought some thinking they were the same as 3V cards!
- ComeFlyWithMe123 says:
  
  22 Jul22 July 09:21
  
  Any idea how long it took to transfer your funds from your NS&I account to your bank account?
  
  Thanks
Mr Bridge says:

20 Jul20 July 08:18

3V GIFT CARDS:- still available in Tescos here, incidentally, i did read on HFP that a reader bought 3v in homebase.
tesco sell homebase gift cards, so i wonder if you can use the homebase cards from tesco to buy the 3v in homebase, if it works you would get not only the CC but nectar too,.
Our homebase closed down 6 months ago, so cant test it.
- xcalx says:
  
  20 Jul20 July 08:47
  
  I have seen the 3V Gift Cards in Homebase ( T&C state not for gift card purchases). Would not want to be stuck with Homebase GCs
  - Mr Bridge says:
    
    20 Jul20 July 09:28
    
    T+CS also say cant exchange for cash, but you can via ns+i
    - Yozza1977 says:
      
      20 Jul20 July 10:44
      
      I have read someone had managed to buy 3V at homebase with giftcards, however when I tried it after much deliberation the cashier refused to take them. Ended up paying with Amex as have large tax bill to settle!
      - YL says:
        
        20 Jul20 July 21:39
        
        I have managed to use Hombse gift cards and Argos gift cards that I bought from Tesco to buy other gift cards from their shops.
        
        It really depends on the cashier, I stick with small amount each time and so far it has worked for me.
Rich Spencer says:

20 Jul20 July 08:56

I bought £300 of 3v from Boots last saturday.
- Mr Bridge says:
  
  20 Jul20 July 09:29
  
  do you get boots points on them
  - Rich says:
    
    20 Jul20 July 13:11
    
    I didnt have my card with me but it didnt suggest I would have got any from the receipt, and the cashier didnt ask for my card.
  - Tom H says:
    
    20 Jul20 July 14:43
    
    No, not when I tried.
    - YL says:
      
      20 Jul20 July 21:40
      
      Sadly Boots do not give out points for gift card purchase.
thesaver79 says:

20 Jul20 July 12:59

I still can’t find any 3V card. I haven’t even managed to buy one 🙁 Any suggestions on where to find one near SE1?
- Mr Bridge says:
  
  20 Jul20 July 16:15
  
  move house! lol
David says:

20 Jul20 July 19:03

Alternatively, to reach an Amex target – you could just buy Tesco gift cards which come at no added expense.

Then just use your Tesco gift card for petrol/groceries/perhaps even sell a few gift cards on to family members.