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
#586
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Here today, gone tomorrow
Programs: Nothing shiny :-(
Posts: 2,487
As everyone always says, depends what your travel plans are and how much you'd pay if you didn't have any Avios. I will shortly be living between England and Australia. Even with a 2-4-1, it's not a lot cheaper using Avios than buying a business class ticket either with BA ex-Europe or someone with a better product than CW. I also factor into account that that (i.e. the 2-4-1) means flying with BA and tbh I'd rather fly with almost anyone else, my BA experiences having been on the whole negative (not least the hour I spent on the phone to Singapore this morning trying without success to get them to sort out their latest screw up). Avios can be quite valuable intra-Oz though to be fair.
#587
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Here today, gone tomorrow
Programs: Nothing shiny :-(
Posts: 2,487
Should have added (it won't let me edit) the hassle factor of finding award tickets to suit and the latest changes make me value Avios even less than I did a week ago, though we'll see if the guaranteed club seat release makes a difference to the former.
#588
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: NW London and NW Sydney
Programs: BA Diamond, Hilton Bronze, A3 Diamond, IHG *G
Posts: 6,305
The value of the 241 may be £1000 or more, but we are talking about the value of the additional 0.5 Av/£ that would be earned by keeping the paid over the free card, once the voucher is triggered.
#589
Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club, easyJet and Ryanair
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: UK/Las Vegas
Programs: BA Gold (GGL/CCR)
Posts: 15,859
With the change in Avios earning rates when travelling in economy or premium economy the additional Avios earned on the BAPP card may become more valuable.
#590
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,635
If the annual fee is factored into the 2-4-1 redemption then there is no real cost to retaining the PP. OK, one could cancel it, get a pro rata refund on the fee and therefore make the 2-4-1 more valuable, but then you lose the 2-4-1 at £10K next year.
#591
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: JER
Programs: BA Gold/OWE, several MUCCI, and assorted Pensions!
Posts: 32,113
Note: No Tesco, card-churning or other game-playing from this callsign. Just the same annual spend we would have had if we paid cash or debit card, but trying to maximise the Avios earned. I decided £150 p/a was worth it, for the earning rate and the 2-year 2-4-1.
#593
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: London, UK
Programs: BAEC Silver, ITA Club Executive, Hilton Gold, Marriott Gold
Posts: 3,582
You don't lose them even if you decide to redeem them and then cancel your redemption, as they'll be re-issued to you with their original expiration date.
#594
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 420
so, having spent circa £14K on the the blue card I have upgraded it to a black one and from reading the posts on here this should have triggered my 2-4-1, according to my american express account front page it has but when I click through to the transactions section where it shows how many Avios for each transaction it still stays I have to spend £6K by the 14th February. No 2-4-1 voucher in my BA account either.
Has anyone else had a similar problem ? did the 2-4-1 trigger automatically when you upgraded or did you need to to something ? Many thanks
Has anyone else had a similar problem ? did the 2-4-1 trigger automatically when you upgraded or did you need to to something ? Many thanks
Last edited by janed9388; Feb 6, 2015 at 8:53 am
#595
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: JER
Programs: BA Gold/OWE, several MUCCI, and assorted Pensions!
Posts: 32,113
so, having spent circa £14K on the the blue card I have upgraded it to a black one and from reading the posts on here this should have triggered my 2-4-1, according to my american express account front page it has but when I click through to the transactions section where it shows how many Avios for each transaction it still stays I have to spend £6K by the 14th February. No 2-4-1 voucher in my BA account either.
Has anyone else had a similar problem ? did the 2-4-1 trigger automatically when you upgraded or did you need to to something ? Many thanks
Has anyone else had a similar problem ? did the 2-4-1 trigger automatically when you upgraded or did you need to to something ? Many thanks
You don't give an indication of the timescale since you upgraded, but I could suggest a phone call to Amex might be an appropriate starting point.
#596
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 420
Thanks for that T8191, It's a couple of weeks since the card upgraded but I hadn't actually used it until Monday this week so I was waiting for those spends to post to see if it "pushed" the voucher through somehow.
If it were my card I would have been on the phone already but since it's my husbands and like most men it seems he doesn't like phones much I thought I'd try the collective wisdom of Flyer talk first ! will start nagging him to call once the spending this week shows up if it doesn't happen.
If it were my card I would have been on the phone already but since it's my husbands and like most men it seems he doesn't like phones much I thought I'd try the collective wisdom of Flyer talk first ! will start nagging him to call once the spending this week shows up if it doesn't happen.
#597
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Cambridgeshire
Programs: Varies
Posts: 1,271
Yay. My partner got his Premium Plus card today, and my referral avios have already been logged. Now we just need to spend £3k to get his bonus.
The bonus offer expires on Feb 11th - does anyone else need a referral?
The bonus offer expires on Feb 11th - does anyone else need a referral?
#598
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 420
so, having spent circa £14K on the the blue card I have upgraded it to a black one and from reading the posts on here this should have triggered my 2-4-1, according to my american express account front page it has but when I click through to the transactions section where it shows how many Avios for each transaction it still stays I have to spend £6K by the 14th February. No 2-4-1 voucher in my BA account either.
Has anyone else had a similar problem ? did the 2-4-1 trigger automatically when you upgraded or did you need to to something ? Many thanks
Has anyone else had a similar problem ? did the 2-4-1 trigger automatically when you upgraded or did you need to to something ? Many thanks
#599
Join Date: Oct 2009
Programs: BA Blue these days
Posts: 35
Sorry if this is a bit OT but I couldn't find any information anywhere.
I'm new to charge cards and have recently got Amex Gold (had BA card for some time). I'm off on holiday next month and I’m unsure of what the charges would be on my account for using it abroad. Until now I get cash and occasionally pay for something on my debit card, but in general try to avoid it. Am I a bit of a dinosaur??
Should I get cash from the Thomas Exchange in London (as usual for me), selling USD at 1.511? If so, should I do this on my bank debit card or my Amex Gold? If the latter, will I earn points, but more crucially, will I incur any kind of cash advance type charges that I won’t get from my debit card?
If I decide to use the card for the majority of purchases instead of cash, I’m assuming there’s a 3% charge made on all transactions and nothing else?
If I have this right, it means that 100 USD would cost me £66.18 at Thomas Exchange, but £67.32 on my card, (using today’s exchange rate of 1.53) and adding 3%)? There doesn’t seem to be much in that, so if I can get points using the Amex, that seems the best option.
Or have I missed something??
Apologies for being a true novice here!
I'm new to charge cards and have recently got Amex Gold (had BA card for some time). I'm off on holiday next month and I’m unsure of what the charges would be on my account for using it abroad. Until now I get cash and occasionally pay for something on my debit card, but in general try to avoid it. Am I a bit of a dinosaur??
Should I get cash from the Thomas Exchange in London (as usual for me), selling USD at 1.511? If so, should I do this on my bank debit card or my Amex Gold? If the latter, will I earn points, but more crucially, will I incur any kind of cash advance type charges that I won’t get from my debit card?
If I decide to use the card for the majority of purchases instead of cash, I’m assuming there’s a 3% charge made on all transactions and nothing else?
If I have this right, it means that 100 USD would cost me £66.18 at Thomas Exchange, but £67.32 on my card, (using today’s exchange rate of 1.53) and adding 3%)? There doesn’t seem to be much in that, so if I can get points using the Amex, that seems the best option.
Or have I missed something??
Apologies for being a true novice here!
#600
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: UK
Programs: BAEC, IHG, LeClub, HHonors
Posts: 599
Once you've earned the companion voucher the only difference in earning is 0.5 avios on regular spend (ignoring BA spend bonus). The cost is £150/365 days = 41p/day, so at £82 spend per day the extra 0.5 avios per £ earned on a BAPP over the normal BA Amex is worth 41p which balances the annual fee.