Amex closing travelmoneynow – the end of a quick way of hitting your card bonus

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• Freddy Starwood says:

  14 Feb14 February 19:47

  On Wednesday, just before the bonus Avios offer expired, I ordered and have already received the BA PP Amex + supp card. So I now need to spend £3000 in 3 months. However I am now mourning the loss of the 3V prepaid cards – which could be purchased with Amex, earned extra Tesco CC points, and could be used to pay my EdF gas/elec, Thames Water and Sky TV and were a really useful way of ensuring a spending threshold was met. Have just realised that I can’t pay any of those three bills directly on Amex, so will have to find other ways to meet the threshold.

  I’ve got holidays to France, Denmark, Japan and South Korea coming up so may have to use travelmoneynow.com to purchase currency for these trips. However, Avios earning and spending threshold aside, I imagine that the most value for money way would be to use my Halifax Equity card – is this a correct assumption or not?

  Apart from other gift cards, what are others’ suggestions for reaching spending Amex thresholds? thanks

  • harry says:

    14 Feb14 February 20:09

    On council tax, I guess my council is typical. If I over-pay, ie pay in £3000 through Paypoint, when the bill is about £1800, they’ll refund me the excess automatically in a couple of months. Or sooner if I ask. Paid back in a cheque.

    • harry says:

      14 Feb14 February 21:22

      that’s appalling, really. So we pay £1800/ year for the streetlights, the people who pick up dog crap, I guess the police & social services, plus the dustbin men.

      • harry says:

        14 Feb14 February 21:24

        no wonder I’m retiring abroad

      • Pat Butcher says:

        14 Feb14 February 21:49

        £1800 is cheap as chips! My CT is way more than that.

      • Callum says:

        15 Feb15 February 10:42

        Indeed. Sod helping others when you can just help yourself. Who needs police, fire, youth services, social care, parks, leisure facilities, roads, housing for homeless, street cleaning, planning departments and, among other things, fair elections.

        • harry says:

          15 Feb15 February 19:05

          If the number of people employed doing those things were halved, I’d be a lot happier.

          No need to pay them so much or give them such a generous pension – most of the work is donkey work.

        • thetruth says:

          15 Feb15 February 19:56

          Same could be said for bankers and their massive pay packets and pensions (far in excess of these public sector workers) – yet we bailed them out so it cost the taxpayer just as much!

        • harry says:

          15 Feb15 February 20:11

          we weren’t really bailing out the banks, bankers, massive pay packets etc, it was more a case of saving society as we know it and that was just concomitant

        • Rob says:

          15 Feb15 February 21:34

          That’s not entirely true, and I should know as I was working in it at the time! There was, for example, no excuse for not taking complete state control of RBS (it was, after all, bankrupt without state support). For no sensible reason, the deal was structured so that the existing shareholders retained substantial value, value which should have been taken by the state.

        • Alan says:

          15 Feb15 February 22:17

          Agreed. Also frustrating to have read all the rhetoric about having to pay bankers well lest we risk losing them and comparing it to recent approaches to junior doctor pay which risks losing them to the Antipodes.

          Anyway going way OT I know – on the upside looking forward to this exciting mid-week news you’ve been tempting us with, Raffles 😀

  • Nick M says:

    14 Feb14 February 21:12

    I just tried to top up a new card via PP but the till wouldn’t allow me to pay using a CC – and apparently said “this card can only be topped up with cash”… Has anyone found this before or has my local shop had a system update and won’t take any PP by card?

    • Wally1976 says:

      15 Feb15 February 10:05

      My council tax bill says that PayPoint payments are only accepted for cash. When I tried a local co-op they stuck to that rule but when I tried a co-op in another area (by where I work) they accepted the Amex no problem! I’ve done it a number of times now but haven’t tried overpaying as per Harry’s comment. May be tempted to try that this year…will take a few trips as there’s a £200 limit each transaction if I remember correctly.

      • Liz says:

        15 Feb15 February 10:24

        You can pay more than £200 – my council tax is £271 – as long as you tell them to do the £200 first then the £71 it goes through as one payment transaction but I get two receipts for £200 & £71. One time they did £71 first then £200 and it rejected at pay point but went through Amex – took days to sort it out – so now I always tell the person to do the £200 first! I don’t overpay but I pay my mother-in-laws council tax too and she just pays me back!

      • Nick M says:

        15 Feb15 February 13:27

        The shop I use has been quite happy to take AMEX to pay council tax, etc but I tried to load a different card and the till rejected my credit cards and said it needed to be cash… wasn’t sure if their IT has had an update or if particular card types can have additional restrictions put on them….

  • Genghis says:

    14 Feb14 February 21:58

    Hi Harry. How do you get to 0.5ppa? On a £50 Visa card I believe the fee is £3.95 but yields 150 CC = 360 avios + spend on card (e.g. BAPP) 75 avios = 435 avios. What have I missed out? Or are you on the 800 grandfathered rate?

    • harry says:

      14 Feb14 February 22:21

      sorry I was probably factoring in the cakes, not applicable now of course.

      apologies

      • Genghis says:

        14 Feb14 February 22:30

        Next Xmas prob. Till then.

      • Tilly71 says:

        15 Feb15 February 09:16

        That’s the tesco dec 15 magazine 100 cc points coupon for spending £20 on GC named cake voucher due to the mag front cover having a xmas cake on the front if you didn’t know what cake was.

  • JamesWag says:

    15 Feb15 February 07:25

    Does money ‘loaded’ onto an Amex and spent via pay point get treated as a purchase then for miles/points and minimum spends ?

    • harry says:

      15 Feb15 February 09:36

      My Paypoint is in a Co-Op – so the Amex transaction goes through as a ‘shop’ purchase, not a cash advance.

    • Wally1976 says:

      15 Feb15 February 10:09

      Yes it certainly does at the Co-op by my work 🙂

      • JamesW says:

        15 Feb15 February 20:28

        Thanks both of you.

• Topp2015 says:

  15 Feb15 February 22:33

  So provided I am within my cash limit I can order a GBP travelers cheque and deposit into my current account for 1.5%? Barclays appear to accept with no charges at their end… Wish I knew about this before

  • mike says:

    16 Feb16 February 18:34

    Correct – I have been doing at least £650 a month for several years into my Barclays account. I tell them I use sterling travelers cheques for buying and selling cars. The cheques clear like a regular cheque.

• Claire says:

  16 Feb16 February 14:14

  AMEX is insisting today that ordering currency has always been treated as a cash advance, which is very disappointing as I’d just ordered quite a bit of currency and travelers Cheques on my BA Platinum card, which I’d hoped would help me hit my sign up bonus.

  • Rob says:

    16 Feb16 February 14:37

    Are you seriously telling me you trust the Amex call centre more than HFP?!

    As long as you went off travelmoneynow it will be fine.

  • Polly says:

    16 Feb16 February 15:02

    Claire, always worth asking the question first here in HFP, we promise we are more informative than amex….amazingly so…but you will see those points on

• Cuchlainn says:

  16 Feb16 February 15:40

  Newbie !! Just ordered FX via travelmoneynow/avios using my 1 week old BA PP Amex ( thanks Robb ) . I attempted to do £750 worth of $ but got kicked back, sent a secure email to Amex who advised me to : 1. Order slightly lower amount ( £650ish ) and 2. This will be treated as a cash advance……. ( yes I have read above posts ). Seems to have worked well but proof in my statement ( Amex and Avios ) !!

  • AndyR says:

    16 Feb16 February 18:49

    Do you mind me asking if £650 worked out to be 20% of your credit limit? I just got my BAPP today and was hoping to buy £1000 on it.

    • Topp2015 says:

      16 Feb16 February 20:53

      +1

    • Johnnycl says:

      16 Feb16 February 22:54

      I had luck ordering 2 transactions of £650 in succession the other day and to the best of my knowledge that exceeds 20% of my credit limit (not totally sure it was the PRG charge card).

      • LB says:

        17 Feb17 February 10:03

        Just to add, I received my SPG card and ordered £600 worth of dollars that day. This was more than the 20% of my credit limit but went through with no problems.

    • Cuchlainn says:

      17 Feb17 February 12:11

      Andy R / Topp 2015 – direct lift from email :
      ” You may withdraw up to £650 everyday while in UK and up to £950 while travelling, maximum of 20% of pre assigned Credit Limit”.

      Hope this helps, as it came up as Amex CCA on the online statement…

    • AndyR says:

      22 Feb22 February 10:40

      Thanks all. I tried buying £1020 then £950 then £750 but all failed. Got it to work with £650. This is much less than 20% of my credit limit so it must be the minimum of the two.

  • Simmo says:

    17 Feb17 February 16:50

    I’ve never been able to find a link between card limits, 20% and the £650 rule!

    Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t! – It doesn’t work at all for my brother and his limit is higher than mine!

    AMEX BA customer services told me all BA cards have a limit of £650 or 20% of your limit whatever is lower.

    However, I’ve purchased £700 or £800 in one go before!

• JamesW says:

  17 Feb17 February 16:32

  Deleted

  • Rob says:

    17 Feb17 February 20:12

    Yes, there is a 1.5% fee on £ travellers cheques. How do you think they cover their costs?! The transaction itself does not incur any cash advance fees however and is treated as a purchase by Amex.

• Genghis says:

  22 Feb22 February 15:02

  As an update, I paid in some sterling travellers cheques into the Metro Bank on Cheapside, London this morning without a hitch.

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