Anyone who travels a lot for business will be stockpiling rewards points to get flight discounts or upgrades. But you can earn travel rewards faster by using a specialist rewards card to pay for your day-to-day business spending. There are several around, but in this guide, we’ve focused on how to get the most out of a British Airways American Express® Accelerating Business Card, which is aimed at sole traders and SMEs.
This guide is a paid content promotion brought to you by American Express®.
Accelerate your Avios earning. Earn up to 150,000 Avios in your first year with the British Airways American Express Accelerating Business Card.
Representative example: When you spend £1,200 at a purchase rate of 28.2% (variable) p.a. with a fee of £250 per annum, your representative rate is 107.8% APR (variable). Learn more
You could rack up 30,000 Avios – the rewards currency used by BA plus more than a dozen partner airlines including Iberia, Aer Lingus and Qatar Airways – when you spend £5,000 in your first 3 months, if you’re accepted for a BA Amex Accelerating Business Card. That’s more than enough for an off-peak economy return Reward Flight to Athens or Tenerife (you just pay £1 and the taxes and charges).
Alongside this golden hello, you can earn 1.5 Avios for every £1 you spend on everyday business expenses on the Card, which has an annual fee of £250 (tip: card fees are a tax-deductible business expense). So you’d get another 7,500 Avios on that £5,000 spend.
The BA Amex Accelerating Business Card allows you to apply for up to 99 complimentary Employee Cards. So you can make it a team effort with additional cards to top up your rewards pot faster. Plus, you can manage expenses via one account.
Just remember that, as the Account owner, you’re responsible for paying the bills.
If 10 employees each spent £300 entertaining clients, you’d collect 4,500 Avios. Add that to your 7,500 to give you 12,000 and you’re well over half way to a major flight upgrade for your next US trip.
For example, a flight upgrade on a peak flight from London to New York with BA – upgrading from Premium Economy to Business – would be 20,000 Avios, so you’d need just 8,000 more.
There’s an extra 30,000 Avios per calendar year up for grabs, as long as you hit certain milestones on eligible spending and keep your Account payments up to date.
For every £20,000 you spend, you earn 10,000 bonus Avios, up to 30,000 Avios per year.
This means that in your first year, you could earn a total of 150,000 Avios from spending £60,000. That consists of the 30,000 welcome bonus, 30,000 from these £20,000 milestone bonuses and of course 1.5 Avios per £1 spent (90,000 Avios).
Here are some savvy ways to help reach the £20,000 milestone.
An easy way to earn rewards is to use the Card for all eligible business spending. Think about how much you spend on subscriptions, office supplies and marketing campaigns every year. If you put those costs on your Amex, the rewards would quickly add up.
What about office snacks or lunches? As long as it is a business expense, using your BA Amex Business Card for food or online shopping can get you more Avios.
Shop with Sainsbury’s? Use the Card to earn Avios and use your Nectar card to collect Nectar points on the same spend. You can then convert Nectar to Avios at a rate of 400 Nectar points per 250 Avios by linking your Nectar account to a British Airways Executive Club account.
If you find that a store doesn’t accept Amex but does accept PayPal, you can still collect Avios if you pay via PayPal, which allows you to choose your Amex card as an option.
If you’re currently using the BA Amex Accelerating Business Card, or considering applying for one, you’re probably travelling frequently for work.
You can earn more rewards when you book BA as well as other types of travel – you could book your hotel or train tickets and get extra rewards.
Book a hotel via booking.com using the BA E-store online portal or Rewards App and collect 8 Avios per £1 spent. This doesn’t apply if you’re getting a corporate rate and you won’t see the Avios until 3-4 months after the trip, but for that earn rate, it’s worth considering.
With the BA Amex Accelerating Business Card, you can earn 1.5 Avios plus 2 On Business Points per £1 spent when you buy certain BA flights directly with the Card. This is double the standard On Business earn rate. You’ll need to input your On Business Account number when you buy the flights.
Like Avios, On Business is a rewards currency used by BA, but is exclusive to business cardholders. With On Business, you can book Reward Flights and flight upgrades with British Airways, American Airlines and Iberia. You can also earn On Business Points with these airlines.
Like most credit cards, this one comes with some fees and interest, so you can undo the benefit of your rewards unless you use it wisely. Here are a few key costs to avoid.
Don’t withdraw cash on this Card if you can help it. The BA Amex Accelerating Business Card comes with an interest rate of 27.9% cash advance, plus a cash advance fee of 3% (min £3), and any cash advances won’t be eligible for collecting rewards.
If you make a balance transfer to this Card, you won’t be able to earn rewards on it and you’ll have to pay 22.9% interest and a fee of 3%.
If you’re just researching and are yet to apply, it’s wise to pay off any debt before you continue with your application.
The interest rate for purchases is 22.9% so try to pay off your bill every month. If you do pay it off, your business cash flow will also get all the benefits of a 56-day long billing cycle.
The Card comes with several types of cover as part of the deal. When you go on a business trip you’ve booked with the Card, you as the Cardmember are covered for travel accidents on public transport up to £250,000. And there’s cover for flight or baggage delays.
There’s also cover for items you buy on the Card. For example, under the Purchase Protection policy, if an item is stolen or damaged within 90 days, American Express will replace or repair it, or refund you up to £2,500 per item.
The BA Amex Accelerating Business Card is primarily aimed at keen travellers, who can justify spending an annual fee of £250. By spending £60,000 in the first year, you could reap 150,000 Avios, which you could use for multiple flights, upgrades or both. But if a travel rewards card isn’t for you, you can compare all types of business credit cards in our guide.
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Designed for small and medium businesses looking for payment flexibility, this card goes the extra mile with an attractive 1% cashback on all purchases.
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