Originally Posted by
zat_dude
Has anyone on the board any thoughts on today's M&S announcement and the general decline of BA's product offering - in relation to the increased annual fee of the BAPP card?
I, for one, am out as soon as I obtained my 2-4-1 from which I am weeks away only. As difficult as it is to find availability and plan a year in advance, I think I will focus on aggressive sale fares and pricing errors.
As I see it the optimal thing is a kind of tick-tock approach; alternate 2-4-1 redemptions with paid oneworld fares (which handily top up your avios and TPs). With the 2 year shelf life of the 2-4-1, it isn't necessary to keep the paid AMEX continuously if you take this approach.
I do think it's marginal though: the BA AMEX really only works for me because I have the work travel to drive the spend through it, and I value premium travel enough that I would probably be paying cash for some of these trips if I wasn't redeeming the avios+241.
The whole thing is very marginal and dependent on circumstances.