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Last week, I explained how it is possible to earn 233,000+ Avios (worth £1865+) from just 4 credit card applications. That’s a lot of Avios, but if you’ve got a partner/family member/friend and want to play the points/miles game in ‘2-player’ mode, you could earn a whole lot more!

Remember that the order you apply for Amex cards in is absolutely vital in terms of maximising your earnings!

[Please note that there may be other personal factors to consider in terms of how easily you can meet the minimum spend requirements to trigger the bonuses, annual fees, etc. This post is aimed primarily at people new to points/miles/reward credit cards –  I am therefore making the assumption that you both would be starting from a position of not having had a personal Amex card in the last 24 months] 

To maximise your earnings, you will actually earn three different types of points – Amex Membership Rewards, Nectar, and British Airways Avios. All of them can be transferred to Avios though, so for the sake of simplicity, I’ll generally refer to the Avios total.

It is now possible to effectively cash out Avios at a minimum of 0.8p each (via Nectar), so I’ll include the notional cash value too.

Where do I start?

I would recommend reading the full article here in order to understand the rules Amex applies to welcome bonus eligibility, but the basic order you should apply for cards in is as follows:

• Business Amex Gold/Platinum (if you are eligible for a Business card – otherwise, start with the personal Amex Nectar.)
• Personal Amex Nectar
• Personal Amex Platinum
• Personal British Airways Premium Plus Amex

However, to really supercharge earnings, you need to mutually refer each other for each card after your first one. I’ll lay out the steps below explaining first what ‘Person One’ should do, and then what ‘Person Two’ in your duo should do.

Earn 298,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points with the Business Platinum

Person One

The headline welcome bonus on the Business Platinum (annual fee £595, but you can get a pro-rata refund) is 100,000 Membership Rewards Points. If you use a referral link when you apply for the card, like this one, you will receive an additional 5,000 points.

You have to spend at least £10,000 on the card in the first 3 months to trigger the bonus, which will get you another 10,000 points. So, that’s 115,000 in total.

Amex regularly offers small incentives for adding supplementary cardholders to your account. You would probably want to give someone the single free supplementary Platinum card that you are entitled to, so that they can share the various Platinum benefits like elite status with various hotel loyalty programmes, but Amex will give you 5,000 bonus points on top for doing so.

You can then add another four people as (free) Gold cardholders to your account and receive 5,000 bonus points for each of them. Add the 5,000 and the 20,000 (4 x 5,000) together, and you’ve got an additional 25,000 points.

When you put all the above together, your ‘real’ sign-up bonus is 140,000 Membership Rewards Points, rather than 100,000.

140,000 Amex MR Points can be exchanged for 140,000 Avios, worth at least £1,120 (if cashed out via Nectar). Not a bad start – but only the beginning.

At some point during the 3 months (whenever makes most sense for you, given the high spend required to trigger the welcome bonus), Person One should refer Person Two for a Business Platinum Card. Person One will receive 18,000 bonus points for doing so.

Person Two

Person Two can then earn 140,000 points as per the other steps outlined above.

In total then, a couple would earn 298,000 Amex Points between them, convertible to 298,000 Avios and worth at least £2,384 

Amex Business Card Eligibility

• The business has a current UK Bank or Building Society account
• You/The business have/has no County Court Judgements for non-payment of debt
• You are aged 18 or over
• You have a permanent UK home address

If you don’t want to pay an annual fee or are concerned about hitting the £10,000 spend requirement in 3 months, you should consider the Business Gold Amex instead, which has a sign up bonus of 52,000 points and is free for the first year.

Earn 60,000 Nectar Points with the Amex Nectar Card

Next up, is the Amex Nectar Card. If you are not eligible for an Amex Business card, this is the card you should start with.

The Amex Nectar is free for the first year and has a solid sign-up bonus – 21,000 Nectar Points (worth at least £105, if you use a referral link. You could also transfer the 21,000 Nectar Points into 13,125 Avios.

Person Two

Assuming you got the Business Cards, we start this next round with Person Two. They need to refer Person One for the Nectar Card, using the link generated from their Amex Business Platinum. This might sound odd, but works fine.

The normal referral link (which you can generate from your Amex account), will go to the Business Amex Platinum referral page, but after clicking on the link, scroll to the bottom of the screen and it is possible to choose from a range of different card types. Pick the card that is actually desired – in this case, Nectar (listed under “retail and hotel rewards”).

Person Two will accrue an extra 18,000 bonus Membership Reward Points for the referral – bringing the total tally so far to 316,000 Amex MR Points / Avios.

Person One

The welcome bonus for Person One will be 21,000 Nectar Points (rather than 20,000 if they hadn’t been referred). That can be converted to 13,125 Avios.

Add on the 4,000 Nectar Points earned from hitting the £2,000 minimum spend, and the total would be 25,000 Nectar Points (worth at least £125), equivalent to 15,625 Avios.

There is no bonus currently available for adding supplementary cardholders to an Amex Nectar account.

Person One then refers Person Two for a Nectar Amex – earning a bonus of 5,000 Nectar Points in the process. Person Two would earn 25,000 Nectar Points (21,000 welcome bonus, 4,000 normal points from meeting minimum spend).

Person Two

Person Two should then refer Person One for their next card – the personal Amex Platinum. They will receive 5,000 Nectar Points for the referral.

The total haul from the Nectar Amex Cards is therefore 60,000 Nectar Points, equivalent to 37,500 Avios.

 The running total is 353,500 Avios (worth at least £2,828).

Earn 124,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points/Avios with the personal Amex Platinum

Person One

Because Person One was referred, the welcome bonus on the personal Amex Platinum would be 35,000 Membership Rewards Points, rather than the standard 30,000:

There is an annual fee of £575, but you receive a pro-rata refund when you cancel the card.

Add 4,000 points for meeting the £4,000 minimum spend requirement. Then there is another 5,000 points for adding a (free) supplementary cardholder. Put that together and you’ve got 44,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points from the personal Platinum card.

Person One then refers Person Two for a Personal Amex Platinum, bagging an extra 18,000 Amex MR Points in the process – so 62,000 Amex Points in total.

Person Two

Person Two earns 44,000 points as per the above, then another 18,000 for referring Person One for the next card – the British Airways Premium Plus Amex. That give us a total of 124,000 (62,000+62,000) from the personal Amex Platinums.

The running total is now up to 477,500 Avios – worth at least £3,820.

Earn 78,000 Avios with the British Airways Premium Plus Amex

Person One

The final card you would be eligible for a welcome bonus on is the British Airways Premium Plus Card. The welcome bonus is currently 26,000 Avios, if you sign up using a referral link, which Person One will obviously have done.

The card has an annual fee of £195, but again you can get a pro-rata refund when cancelling.

Add 4,500 Avios for meeting the £3,000 minimum spend requirement, plus another 3,000 Avios for adding a supplementary cardholder, and the total is 33,500 Avios. 

Person One then refers Person Two for a British Airways Premium Plus Amex, receiving an extra 9,000 Avios in the process – so 42,500 Avios altogether.

Person Two

Person Two earns 33,500 Avios, as per the above.

Between both people, that’s 78,000 Avios from the BAPP cards.

What’s the grand total?

If you add up all the above, your total joint haul would be a staggering 555,500 Avios! If you cashed them out via Nectar, that is worth a minimum of £4,444.

Assuming you cancelled each card after ~3 months each time, you would incur annual fees of about £700 in total, once you got your pro-rata refunds back. That’s a net ‘profit’ of about £3,750…

Bottom line

Even if you aren’t eligible for the Business Amex cards, a couple could still earn 239,500 Avios, worth ~£1,900. I also haven’t mentioned the myriad other benefits (airport lounge access, elite status with hotel loyalty programmes, 241 BA Avios redemption voucher, etc, etc) that the credit cards above offer…

As a result of the welcome bonus eligibility rules, many regular readers sadly won’t be able to take advantage of the above, due to already having Amex cards (or having had them in the relatively recent past). However, if you are new to the world of points/miles and credit card rewards, there is massive value to be found – so long as you apply in the right order!

I can think of a couple of ways to potentially push things even further, but wanted to keep the post relatively straightforward. Would you be interested in reading more?