Jan 1, 2014, 5:45 am
Last edit by: EsherFlyer
Current sign-up, referral, spend promotions and retention offers
New member sign ups
British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card:
Collect 25,000 bonus Avios when you spend £3,000 within the first three months of card membership.
British Airways American Express Credit Card:
Collect 9,000 bonus Avios when you spend £1,000 within the first three months of card membership.
Referrals
If you are already a BA American Express card holder (either BA card) and introduce a friend to the BA American Express card, you'll receive a 4,000 Avios bonus once your friend's application is approved.
If you are already a BA American Express card holder (either BA card) and introduce a friend to the Premium Plus card, you'll receive a 9,000 Avios bonus once your friend's application is approved.
If your friend achieves the spend required for the welcome offer on either card they'll receive an additional 1,000 Avios. I.e. 26,000 or 10,000 total bonus Avios for the Premium Plus and Credit Card respectively.
Promotions
Retention offers
Voucher eligible spend
Pretty much everything counts towards the £10,000 (or £20,000) required to earn a 2-4-1 Companion Voucher, including the following which might be unexpected:
A few things that don't:
The online total to the right of the card summary is pretty up to date, and far more useful for tracking spend than what the statements show.
Insurance
Both standard and Premium Plus cards include insurance benefits for goods and services purchased on the card. Full details here and here respectively. Summary of Premium Plus benefit are shown here, with standard card offering same cover unless alternate figure is shown in parentheses:
New member sign ups
British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card:
Collect 25,000 bonus Avios when you spend £3,000 within the first three months of card membership.
British Airways American Express Credit Card:
Collect 9,000 bonus Avios when you spend £1,000 within the first three months of card membership.
Referrals
If you are already a BA American Express card holder (either BA card) and introduce a friend to the BA American Express card, you'll receive a 4,000 Avios bonus once your friend's application is approved.
If you are already a BA American Express card holder (either BA card) and introduce a friend to the Premium Plus card, you'll receive a 9,000 Avios bonus once your friend's application is approved.
If your friend achieves the spend required for the welcome offer on either card they'll receive an additional 1,000 Avios. I.e. 26,000 or 10,000 total bonus Avios for the Premium Plus and Credit Card respectively.
Small print:
You must refer your friend via the referral link provided above to be eligible for this offer.
You may recommend as many friends or family members as you wish but you can only receive a maximum of 45,000 Avios per calendar year for those approved for a Card.
You will receive 4,000 bonus Avios if your friend applies and is approved for the British Airways American Express Credit Card. Your friend will receive 4,000 bonus Avios after they have been approved and spent a minimum of £1,000 on goods and services purchased and charged to their Account within three months of Account opening.
You will receive 9,000 bonus Avios if your friend applies and is approved for the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card. Your friend will receive 19,000 bonus Avios after they have been approved and spent a minimum of £3,000 on goods and services purchased and charged to their Account within three months of Account opening.
When completing the referral form, you must
(i) select the Card you hold from the list at Step 1 and
(ii) select a card to recommend from those listed at Step 2. If you do not follow this process, you and your friend will not be eligible for the bonus.
If your friend has already applied for any of the British Airways American Express Credit Cards without using this referral, you and your friend will not be eligible for the bonus Avios.
All introductory offers are subject to change, can be withdrawn at any time and are not available if your friend currently holds or has held any other British Airways American Express Credit Cards in the past six months.
You must refer your friend via the referral link provided above to be eligible for this offer.
You may recommend as many friends or family members as you wish but you can only receive a maximum of 45,000 Avios per calendar year for those approved for a Card.
You will receive 4,000 bonus Avios if your friend applies and is approved for the British Airways American Express Credit Card. Your friend will receive 4,000 bonus Avios after they have been approved and spent a minimum of £1,000 on goods and services purchased and charged to their Account within three months of Account opening.
You will receive 9,000 bonus Avios if your friend applies and is approved for the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card. Your friend will receive 19,000 bonus Avios after they have been approved and spent a minimum of £3,000 on goods and services purchased and charged to their Account within three months of Account opening.
When completing the referral form, you must
(i) select the Card you hold from the list at Step 1 and
(ii) select a card to recommend from those listed at Step 2. If you do not follow this process, you and your friend will not be eligible for the bonus.
If your friend has already applied for any of the British Airways American Express Credit Cards without using this referral, you and your friend will not be eligible for the bonus Avios.
All introductory offers are subject to change, can be withdrawn at any time and are not available if your friend currently holds or has held any other British Airways American Express Credit Cards in the past six months.
Promotions
Retention offers
Voucher eligible spend
Pretty much everything counts towards the £10,000 (or £20,000) required to earn a 2-4-1 Companion Voucher, including the following which might be unexpected:
- Foreign transaction fees
A few things that don't:
- Annual membership fee
- Interest payments
- Transactions under £1 (although you can earn the single Avios
)
The online total to the right of the card summary is pretty up to date, and far more useful for tracking spend than what the statements show.
Insurance
Both standard and Premium Plus cards include insurance benefits for goods and services purchased on the card. Full details here and here respectively. Summary of Premium Plus benefit are shown here, with standard card offering same cover unless alternate figure is shown in parentheses:
- Purchase protection: £2,500
- Refund protection: £300 (£200) per item
- Flight delay / cancellation / overbooking / missed: £200 (£0)
- Baggage delay (6+ hours): £750 (£0)
- Baggage delay (48+ hours): £1,000 (£0), additional to 6 hours benefit
- Accident: £250,000 (£75,000)
- Hijack (24+ hours): £1,500
- Hijack (72+ hours): £3,000, additional to the 24h benefit
BA American Express credit card
Aug 2, 2016, 8:33 am
#1052
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: London
Programs: BA Silver, Marriott Platinum, IHG Platinum
Posts: 567
Actually you can use any Amex card, not just a BA one. I often use my MBNA issued Diamond Club Amex to pay for flights using a 241.
Aug 2, 2016, 8:50 am
#1053
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: UK
Programs: BA Gold
Posts: 1,021
I got the letter and I'm not being charged until August 2017, but I'm not convinced it's worth £150 any more.
Let's assume I want to go and see The Mouse, and I need 4 CW seats. Even with a Joker, they can be hard to find, and the taxes will cost me around £2200.
Chances are I can get a deal out of DUB for £1k or less. So a total cost of £4k but saving 300k Avios. But we get to choose the exact dates we want.
We'll earn back around 90k Avios as a family on a paid ticket, and there will be TPs as well, but those are largely irrelevant.
So we spend £1800 more, but are 390k Avios better off, which can be spent on hotels and car hire for the trip.
Then there's the extra £150 saving for not having the BA card, plus the £100ish for putting the £10k spend through a cashback card rather than the BAPP, and that £1800 is more like £1550.
So a £390 per person premium to have a much broader choice of dates, flights and stopover options; and an additional 390k Avios to spend on hotels.
I just can't seem to get the BA card to make sense any more, given the abundance of cheap business class tickets available.
Let's assume I want to go and see The Mouse, and I need 4 CW seats. Even with a Joker, they can be hard to find, and the taxes will cost me around £2200.
Chances are I can get a deal out of DUB for £1k or less. So a total cost of £4k but saving 300k Avios. But we get to choose the exact dates we want.
We'll earn back around 90k Avios as a family on a paid ticket, and there will be TPs as well, but those are largely irrelevant.
So we spend £1800 more, but are 390k Avios better off, which can be spent on hotels and car hire for the trip.
Then there's the extra £150 saving for not having the BA card, plus the £100ish for putting the £10k spend through a cashback card rather than the BAPP, and that £1800 is more like £1550.
So a £390 per person premium to have a much broader choice of dates, flights and stopover options; and an additional 390k Avios to spend on hotels.
I just can't seem to get the BA card to make sense any more, given the abundance of cheap business class tickets available.
Aug 2, 2016, 8:53 am
#1054
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: London, UK
Programs: BA Exec Club Gold
Posts: 335
Aug 2, 2016, 9:53 am
#1055
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: BHX
Programs: BA GGL CCR GfL, SQ Gold, Hyatt Glob, HH Diamond, Marriott Plat, Cafe Nero Loyalty Card (7 Stamps)
Posts: 7,328
Aug 2, 2016, 10:08 am
#1056
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: London
Programs: BA Silver, Marriott Platinum, IHG Platinum
Posts: 567
You can safely cancel the card after the 241 flights have been booked and paid for even if they haven't been flown yet but if you are not intending to book the flights until the future, the safest option is to downgrade to the blue card (which is free) and keep this until the 241 has been booked before cancelling it.
Aug 3, 2016, 5:22 am
#1057
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: London
Programs: Mucci. Nothing else matters.
Posts: 38,644
Did they say what the required spend for 241 is on the intermediate card? Would be very nice if it was still only 10k as opposed to the 20k on the free card.
Aug 9, 2016, 10:55 am
#1058
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 141
Took out the paid card last year, spent the £10,000, got the voucher, and have changed to the free card. Got the pro-rata fee refund automatically. Interestingly my account now shows I now need to spend just under another £10,000 before the anniversary to get a companion voucher. Is this a glitch in the system?
Aug 18, 2016, 10:38 am
#1059
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: London
Programs: BAEC Gold, TK Gold, HHonors Silver
Posts: 396
Aug 20, 2016, 4:44 am
#1060
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: London, UK
Programs: BA Gold (OW Emerald) & Jet Airways - Thank goodness i never got started.......most awful FF program
Posts: 2,385
Just phoned up to downgrade to the free card to maintain my 2-4-1 but the guy on the phone stated that I would have to make a new application for the basic card and it will be as if it's a new application with a new credit check, etc but will replace my BA premium card because I cannot hold both.
Is this correct?
Is this correct?
Aug 20, 2016, 5:40 am
#1061
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: EDI
Programs: BA Gold
Posts: 34
Just phoned up to downgrade to the free card to maintain my 2-4-1 but the guy on the phone stated that I would have to make a new application for the basic card and it will be as if it's a new application with a new credit check, etc but will replace my BA premium card because I cannot hold both.
Is this correct?
Is this correct?
To avoid phoning up you can apply for the BA free card via Amex website; by putting in your login details and existing number this will trigger downgrade as you cant hold both cards
As an aside any 2 4 1 vouchers stay in the account.
Aug 20, 2016, 6:24 am
#1062
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: London, UK
Programs: BA Gold (OW Emerald) & Jet Airways - Thank goodness i never got started.......most awful FF program
Posts: 2,385
This is what makes FT so fantastic....quick and knowledgable info!
Aug 22, 2016, 2:42 am
#1063
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: BHX
Programs: BA GGL CCR GfL, SQ Gold, Hyatt Glob, HH Diamond, Marriott Plat, Cafe Nero Loyalty Card (7 Stamps)
Posts: 7,328
Just phoned up to downgrade to the free card to maintain my 2-4-1 but the guy on the phone stated that I would have to make a new application for the basic card and it will be as if it's a new application with a new credit check, etc but will replace my BA premium card because I cannot hold both.
Is this correct?
Is this correct?
Had to give them a right b*llocking on the phone. They got it all sorted but I'd get them to do it for you on the phone rather than make a new application.
Aug 23, 2016, 7:44 am
#1064
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: It's Grim Oop North!
Programs: BA & A3 - Silver and fading
Posts: 182
I currently pay £30 for my card (because I hold a Platinum credit card from the time of the discount offering). To maintain that price there was no point churning the card. Luckily for me my card renewed late-May at £30; I haven't had a letter yet but will expect the higher price next year..
Aug 24, 2016, 12:45 am
#1065
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: DWC
Programs: OWS, *A G
Posts: 626