Has ‘£5 back on a £20 Amazon purchase’ appeared on your American Express accounts?

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American Express and Amazon have launched another of their occasional offers. And it is a generous one.

If you are targeted, you will receive £5 cashback on your next £20+ purchase on amazon.co.uk made with your American Express card.

To see if you are targeted, you need to log into your online American Express account and look at the offers tab for EACH card you have. You should also look under any supplementary cards which you have registered.

If you see the Amazon offer, click ‘Save To Card’. The offer is “only” valid for the first 74,000 people who save it.

We have the offer on:

my Platinum
my wife’s supplementary Platinum
my wife’s Gold

I do not have it on:

my BA Premium Plus
my Starwood Amex
my wife’s Starwood Amex (which now has no offers at all)
my wife’s BA Premium Plus

…. which means £15 of free money for us.

Here are the official rules, but it may not work this way in practice:

Offer intended for UK Cardmembers only.
Offer only available online at www.amazon.co.uk.
Offer only applies to spend made in Great British Pound (GBP) on the Card to which the offer is saved, including an American Express Card loaded into a mobile payment wallet.
Offer does not apply to spend on other Cards you might hold and is not valid for transactions made using Payment Aggregators.
Only one £5 statement credit per UK Card.
Rewarded credit may be reversed if qualifying transaction is refunded or cancelled.
Offer only available to the first 74,000 Cardmembers who save the offer to their Card.
Credit should appear on your billing statement within 5 days from qualifying spend but may take up to 90 days from 9 December 2018.
Offer not valid on orders paid on finance.
Offer is only intended for the targeted recipient of this offer.
Spend must be billed to your Card account by 9 December 2018 to be eligible for this offer. If Amazon does not charge your Card during this period, e.g. because of a delay in dispatching your goods, you may not be eligible for this offer.
Offer not valid on purchases made with Amazon Prime or subscriptions to Amazon Prime.
Offer only valid on orders delivered to the UK.

I am unsure about the ‘not valid on purchases made with Amazon Prime’ rule. I don’t know how American Express can tell the difference. That said, for 100% security you may want to have it delivered normally instead.

Do gift card purchases work?

The easiest way of triggering the bonus should be to purchase a £20 e-gift card, emailed to yourself and then applied to your account.

It should also work if you top-up your Amazon account with £20 of credit. Topping up your account means that you end up with a £20 balance at Amazon and, next time you buy something, the £20 is used first before your credit card is charged for the balance.

I ordered a £20 e-gift card for myself and it appeared to work. I got an immediate confirmation from American Express that I had triggered the offer ‘if your transaction meets the offer terms’. I should know in a few days if the £5 credit will be applied and will report back.

You can buy an e-gift card for yourself, or top up your balance, via this page of amazon.co.uk.

The Amazon home page is here.

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

American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, British Airways and Avios, Marriott Bonvoy

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

Tracy says:

9 Oct9 October 16:09

On 2 out of 4 cards
Not on my platinum supplementary card or OH platinum credit card.
On my BAPP and OH platinum.
xcalx says:

9 Oct9 October 16:33

On Plat + 5 supplementary, Plat + 1 supplementary and gold credit.
- Sundar says:
  
  9 Oct9 October 17:09
  
  How did you check on Supplementary cards ? Amex Connect ?
  - RakishDriver says:
    
    9 Oct9 October 17:26
    
    Supp card holders can create their own amex account credentials/download app and see their offers.
    Primary & Supps can each have the same offers saved separately, so multiple cher-chings.
A13 says:

9 Oct9 October 17:10

My Gold, Supp BAPP and partners BAPP
£15.
BJ says:

9 Oct9 October 17:25

Does the amex16swp still work, ISTR it was extended until 31/10?
- Susan says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 08:23
  
  Didn’t for me
  - Rob says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 09:05
    
    Annoying, I was hoping to fill a bit of space with that article again whilst we’re away at half term 🙂
Jill (Kinkell) says:

9 Oct9 October 17:49

Lucky everybody! Not a one on any of our cards.
- bluemountains says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 04:17
  
  Yeap, same here. 0/5 cards. Mix of Plat charge and BA with supps. Impressively bad…
Geoff says:

9 Oct9 October 18:59

Got it on both BAPP main card and supp.

Also, there is an Amazon Top-up offer on at the moment, which you have to register for, gives you an extra £5 on a £40 top up. May only be for new topper-uppers, and maybe targetted, not sure.
- Shoestring says:
  
  9 Oct9 October 19:15
  
  Not targeted/ only for new topper uppers
- RakishDriver says:
  
  9 Oct9 October 19:15
  
  Did you seen it on your amazon account or via an email?
  - Shoestring says:
    
    9 Oct9 October 19:28
    
    You don’t need an email invite
  - Shoestring says:
    
    9 Oct9 October 19:32
    
    But yep, if eligible, you could activate & top up £40 with your Amex card that has the £5 off £20/£25 offer and get both £5s at the same time.
    
    I already got the top up offer money months ago, so no good here.
  - BJ says:
    
    9 Oct9 October 20:45
    
    Turning over a new leaf?
Rts says:

9 Oct9 October 20:38

Ot https://insideflyer.co.uk/2018/10/curve-and-american-express-are-back-together-again/
- ATS says:
  
  9 Oct9 October 21:30
  
  They announced back in December that the card will be metal sometime this year too.
  - Simon says:
    
    9 Oct9 October 21:46
    
    I’m guessing both these things are linked to the new premium product that Rob warned us about.
  - Simon says:
    
    9 Oct9 October 21:48
    
    OT From 31 December Amex will no longer accept cheque payments.
    - the_real_a says:
      
      10 Oct10 October 12:53
      
      Who the heck pays with a cheque???
    - John says:
      
      10 Oct10 October 16:32
      
      It’s still the easiest free way to transfer a 6 figure sum. I’m not saying I do this often…. but a cheque was the best way to transfer money to my solicitor when buying a house.
  - James says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 17:11
    
    Metal card would be better for London City types who like to chop up white lines 😉
- Max says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 06:03
  
  Not going to be happy if my black card becomes an annual fee card or is simply worthless.
  - Rob says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 09:13
    
    It will have a chunky fee, the question is what happens to those who paid the £50.
    - James says:
      
      10 Oct10 October 17:19
      
      In what regard ?
      They (we) received a wallet and (IIRC) £35 worth of their points (or whatever they were) for credit against purchases. If we get even more benefits that’ll be handy 🙂 Which we should 🙂
    - Mr dee says:
      
      10 Oct10 October 23:57
      
      In regards to it was meant to be a one off fee not annual
- Simon says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 10:59
  
  It’s great they’re bringing back Amex. But why replicate an Amex Platinum type service. Everyone I know that uses Curve already has the Amex Plat, or similar services from their bank account. Wonder who’s the target for this?
  
  @Rob Surely it goes without saying that existing holders will be grandfathered in?
  - Rob says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 11:37
    
    It doesn’t go without saying, because giving you travel insurance, gadget insurance etc is very expensive and clearly you’re not getting free travel insurance for life just because you made £50 one-off payment years ago.
    
    Note that only SOME Amex cards will be included. There will be some unhappy / deflated people.
  - Lumma says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 12:41
    
    Only some Amex cards will be included? Just the ones that are subject to the 0.3% interchange fees then? No Platium/Gold/Green and business cards?
  - Duncan Stevenson-Price says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 13:04
    
    If the price and feature set are compelling I’d consider switching from FlexPlus.
    
    If not, I’ll be miffed being left out of Amex because their other bundled services aren’t compelling.
    
    Interesting that it won’t be all Amex too… seems like an overly-complicated proposition.
  - James says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 17:32
    
    Nah. It will be a whole different prospect. Might get a tiny extra perk but it won’t be massive having paid £50 years ago, got a quite nice wallet and £35 worth of credit on the card……Hardly going to give us travel insurance and loads of expensive perks too for free !
    Would be nice though.
  - Simon says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 18:06
    
    @Lumma I think you’re right. Limiting it to Amex credit cards makes sense, due to interchange and because the new Curve product could cannibalize Amex charge card product line, due to the overlap.
    
    Disappointing that it looks like they’re going to burn existing customers. But from what I’m reading, they want people who they can sell loans etc. to, as they’re planning on becoming a financial intermediary, or as they put it:’a marketplace for financial services’.
  - Mr dee says:
    
    11 Oct11 October 00:04
    
    It’s curve so don’t expect anything
- the_real_a says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 13:00
  
  They were plugging an “announcement” for several days across social media… but then they seem to have “forgotten” to publish a press release. Did they not have anything prepared?
  - Duncan Stevenson-Price says:
    
    10 Oct10 October 13:06
    
    The announcement was a 15 minute slot yesterday morning, according to the conference website.
    
    Why they haven’t said more about it since I have no idea. Their communication strategy is baffling to me.
- James says:
  
  10 Oct10 October 17:24
  
  Probably an extra fee for Amex transactions and sadly with them now passing MCC information through to the underlying card there will be a big loss to a certain cheeky MS 🙁
  - Mr dee says:
    
    11 Oct11 October 00:06
    
    Manufactured spend is dead to an extent now that cards are reporting spend/payments to credit files
  - James says:
    
    13 Oct13 October 22:47
    
    “spend/payments to credit files” what do you mean by that ? Credit files ??
david cliff says:

9 Oct9 October 21:38

If I purchase £20+ of books for my Kindle in one go, does this count ?
- Liz says:
  
  9 Oct9 October 22:15
  
  I just top up my Amazon account and my kindle books come off the balance every time I buy one
  - Mr dee says:
    
    11 Oct11 October 00:06
    
    Yes
- Mr dee says:
  
  11 Oct11 October 00:07
  
  Best to top up with £20 as for whatever reason they may charge separately (unlikely with kindle)