This section deals with the BA American Express Cards that are available to people in the UK. Sorry to all those US users of the BA Visa, but you never seem to generate enough questions, and I know bugger all about the programme. BA in Germany offer a
MasterCard, in France there's a
Diners Card, and in the Netherlands there's also a
Diners Card.
There are three types of AmEx card are:
Basic
Premium
Premium Plus
The Basic card will earn you 1 BA mile per £1 spent, the Premium will earn 1.25 miles, and the Premium Plus 1.5 miles.
If you a Premium or Premium Plus card (but not the Basic) and purchase something from BA, these amounts will be doubled i.e. 2.5 miles per £1 for the Premium and 3 miles per £1 for Premium Plus – this applies to flights as well as Duty Free purchases onboard. It’s also worth noting that on Travelocity and Expedia at least, BA tickets appear on your card as 2 transactions; first as BRITISH AIRWAYS for the fare itself and then a second one for the site’s booking fee. These post with triple miles automatically ^ (Note this does not apply to special/negotiated fares such as ones which appear on Expedia from time-to-time).
The cards do have annual fees. They are £20 p.a. (free for the first year) for the Basic, £60 p.a. for the Premium, and £120 p.a. for the Premium Plus. The serious mileage collector will take the Premium Plus card!
If you hold another AmEx card, such as a Blue credit card, Green charge card, Gold charge card, the annual fee for the Premium and Premium Plus is reduced to £30p.a. We strongly recommend, therefore, that you apply for a free AmEx card, such as the Blue credit card, and THEN apply for the Premium Plus BA AmEx. This will save you £90 p.a. If you have a Platinum charge card, or a Centurion charge card, there is no annual fee. You may need to call them to get the fee changed, it doesn’t always happen automatically.
You can get cash back when applying for most AmEx cards, including the BA AmEx, through sites such as quidco.com and greasypalm.com.
The primary benefit with the cards is the voucher you get a voucher that offers you a second free ticket when you redeem your BA Miles for a flight. You need to spend £20K on the Basic, £15K on the Premium, and £10K on the Premium Plus before you can get this and all of the spend must occur
in one year (from the date of your AmEx card’s anniversary).
Note, however, that if you’re spending loads on the card you can still only have one voucher every 12 months. If you’re really spending and it takes you three months to get to the £10K (for the Premium Plus), the next nine months of spend will NOT count to your next voucher (but will continue to earn miles just fine). If you do spend this much, you may want to consider getting a separate (NOT a supplementary) card for your partner so that your household can generate two vouchers per year.
The voucher will be posted to you, usually within a week of receiving the statement that put you over the spending threshold. It contains a numerical code which you need to give to BA when you ring up to book your flights. So, once you get the voucher, what is it? Well when you redeem your BA Miles for a ticket, it will give you a second one for free. Simple as that! You still have to pay all the airport taxes though.
The voucher is valid for twelve months; by then you must have flown the outbound segment – although it is debatable whether you could book a GLA-LHR-BKK ticket and only fly the GLA-LHR leg in this time, leaving a long stopover before the BKK flight. If you can't fly within that period, call BA, and they will extend the voucher for another three months (it used to be six
) on a discretionary basis.
Stopovers are allowed but this
only applies to bookings solely with BA Miles. You can
NOT use it for:
Flights paid for with money –
Miles ONLY
Part Cash / Part Miles – this means
no MFU’s
Partner Airlines –
BA Flights ONLY
oneworld Flights –
BA Flights ONLY
Code-shares –
BA Flights ONLY
Flights starting from outside the UK – the flight MUST
originate in the UK
In the T&C’s it says you may not use it for flights operated by franchise partners. However, people have been successful in using it for this, notably, Comair in South Africa.
Unfortunately, to book flights using the voucher, you have to call up BA. They’ve recently introduced a £15 per person charge on all longhaul and shorthaul mileage bookings made on the phone, but this is waived
just for AmEx bookings (which you can’t make online) – a step in the right direction!
Another restriction is you cannot combine your AmEx voucher with a Gold Upgrade Voucher. Additionally, seats must be available in the cabin you want to upgrade
from (i.e. if WT+ is sold out and Club has award seats, you still won’t be able to make the booking), as well as the cabin you want to upgrade in to.
The T&C's for the cards are here:
http://www10.americanexpress.com/sif...1,12707,00.asp