BIG NEWS: BA Amex annual fee AND voucher qualifying spend to rise sharply

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

• j22262 says:

  10 Apr10 April 05:17

  Ouch. This is some unexpected news. Had a path plotted out for some spend for the 2-4-1 with BAPP in a few months but now need to re-evaluate.

• Ben says:

  10 Apr10 April 05:29

  Another opportunity for a retention bonus, though

  I am a solo traveller so the card massively increased in usefulness to me when they added this, but appreciate I’m one of the few who benefit.

  It also seems a lot of people “put their card in the drawer” at £9,999, so this will now happen later.

  • Qrfan says:

    10 Apr10 April 05:48

    Yeah, if we are anything like the majority I would not want to be working on the Barclays avios cards right now. They just lost £10k a year of spend from our household.

    • BJ says:

      10 Apr10 April 06:12

      Readers could ditch BA and fly QR (and AY) more often like I did 🙂

    • Roy says:

      11 Apr11 April 02:00

      Yeah, that has to be the thinking. I’m guessing that there are a lot of people who hold the BAPP and Barclays, or BAPP and Virgin (or even all three!) and they (probably rightly) feel that the BAPP 2-4-1 voucher is the most valuable in the industry, so they’re trying to get holders of multiple cards to push more spend their way.

      Of course some will cancel a card, but they’re probably guessing that a lot more will cancel one of their other cards than cancel their BAPP.

      Of course, they’ll lose those who don’t put at least £15,000 through a credit card – or at least can’t do £15,000 of Amex spend – but I guess they feel that they benefit more from those who will be shifting spend to Amex than they lose from those shifting spend away.

  • Novice says:

    10 Apr10 April 09:52

    They never give me a retention bonus when I ask😩

• Zark says:

  10 Apr10 April 05:40

  Rob, you say “the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card awards a 2-4-1 companion voucher when you spend £12,000 in your membership year”.
  I believe this should read £10,000

  • FEMW says:

    10 Apr10 April 09:12

    I did notice that and about to comment when I double- checked and it had been sorted. I wasn’t imagining it!!

• BBbetter says:

  10 Apr10 April 05:43

  Don’t mind these changes if they can:
  1) sort out booking for a family of 3 using one or two vouchers
  2) extend the voucher expiry to the end of anniversary year
  It leaves a bad taste to have been hit by both fee increase and threshold increase with nothing to show for it.

  • cin3 says:

    10 Apr10 April 08:17

    What’s wrong with booking for three?

    • BBbetter says:

      10 Apr10 April 08:28

      BA’s systems reject booking for 3 if it includes a BAPP voucher.

      • Corney says:

        10 Apr10 April 08:51

        Not for me they don’t. Currently away in Turkey on a ticket booked for 3 using one 2-4-1.

        • babyg_wc says:

          10 Apr10 April 09:17

          Oh, how did you do this? (book for 3 using 2 for 1?).. normally you need 2 vouchers so that all pax can “see” the extra seats etc.

        • Rob says:

          10 Apr10 April 09:28

          You can book for 3 IF you’re not accessing the ‘extra’ seats in long-haul Business AND the 3rd seat is paid at full Avios price.

    • Rob says:

      10 Apr10 April 09:11

      Impossible using 2 vouchers issued to the same person to do a 241 and 1×50%

      • Gustavo says:

        10 Apr10 April 11:39

        That’s what is making me rethink this card. I have got a newborn who doesn’t pay yet but when she does my alternative is using the barclays voucher. The problem with that is the amount of avios required to use it which is not flexible.

• CheshirePete says:

  10 Apr10 April 05:55

  My next Fee was due on 13th April and was about to call anyhow to downgrade to the Free card, as the travel insurance in particular is so poor now.Also my fee renewal and collection year are now misaligned, for next voucher this doesn’t start till July 13th. Not bothered about generating a voucher anyhow this year so just need to keep a card for a bit to use existing. This news now makes it a no brainier to cancel for my particular circumstance anyhow. Just hoping I don’t long queues now when I call on the next 2 days!

  • BJ says:

    10 Apr10 April 06:10

    Way not take a retention bonus, refer a family member for Nectar from the BAPP, get a Nectar sup, cancel BAPP after your referral avios transfer to BA?

• BJ says:

  10 Apr10 April 06:01

  Readers should not let amex and BA take them for fools. Even before this change the card, amex voucher, RFS had all combined to trash what was a great opportunity. They now have little merit except for those living within the LHR catchment who can benefit from the convenience of direct flights, and those redeeming the voucher in First. For those in the regions who need to connect anyway the lower avios and co-payments required by AY and QR, or exEurope departures, are an increasingly more attractive proposition than BA RFS even with an amrx voucher. Since RFS went global, avious have become increasingly fifficult to collect, and amex has tightened things up BA and BAPP have all but disappeared from my radar in favour of AY and QR. From a loyalty point of view BA and amex are flogging a dead horse, relying on customer ignorance to do so.. HfP are not ignorant so fon’t fall into their trap, explore all the options of alternative carriers, revenue flights, and exEurope departures. Ignore BA and BAPP unless you fall into the increasingly small niche where it still provides value, and even then pause to think twice because your strategy depends solrly on BA metal reward seat availability and your personal flexibility. All things considered, I think BA reward travel facilitated by BAPP vouchers is already a dead horse, there are better and mire flexible loyalty and reward strategies available to all.

  • Mikeact says:

    10 Apr10 April 07:53

    Agreed..

  • SharonC says:

    10 Apr10 April 08:26

    Completely agree with BJ. We always used to use our 2-4-1 for First redemptions and those are long gone now, so it’s only Business. That’s OK if you get Club Suite, but otherwise you’re stuck in the old CW even on the A380. Taxes have shot up too.
    We live a good 3hrs from LHR and closer to places where QR and EK fly out of, so guess what….I’ll be utilising my AMEX Plat (transferable miles anywhere) and Barclaycard (Avios) to avoid BA like the plague now. There is little or no value for me to carry on using it.
    My year starts/ends in October so I’m pushing for what will probably now be my last 2-4-1.

    • NorthernLass says:

      10 Apr10 April 10:27

      There are still F redemptions out there if you can be flexible and watchful. We have MEX booked for later this year, going via DUB cost less in cash and avios than CW from the UK!

      • Nick says:

        10 Apr10 April 12:49

        Got a great (imo) cash fare to CUN from DUB in biz in December too.

      • john says:

        10 Apr10 April 13:25

        As I am about to start looking at Mexico potions, please can I ask more about your travel plans ?

      • Tom says:

        11 Apr11 April 21:47

        London to Mexico City via Dubai???

        Any benefit from flying Emirates in First is outweighed by a doubling of your journey time, or maybe a trebling.

        • Aliks says:

          12 Apr12 April 07:50

          DUBlin . . . . .

  • NorthernLass says:

    10 Apr10 April 10:25

    Agree to an extent. We have a very specific use for our annual 241 (CW to GCM where cash fares are always high), and years when we have a second one we do an F redemption. If I feel I’m not “winning” with the voucher going forward, I’ll bin off the paid card, at least, and focus more on QR (or VS), as you say.

    • Robert says:

      10 Apr10 April 19:59

      Not strictly true about the regions losing out, as when you book your reward long haul flights you can simply add your domestic flights on completely free, no extra Avios required or taxes, so if anything the regions are better off.
      I usually pay £250+ in CE for NCL-LHR return, so saving a further £500 on my reward trips.

      • BJ says:

        10 Apr10 April 20:41

        I realise that, my point was just that we’re commited to a connection from regions anyway with the redult thst we arr more amenable to alternatives such as AY and QR
        Than those near LHR who are more likely swayed by the attraction of nonstop on BA matal.using voucher than introducing an extra unnecessary stop to use alternative carriers.

        • NorthernLass says:

          10 Apr10 April 21:18

          Agree, there’s only an incentive to fly via LHR if there’s no direct service from your local airport. Though in the case of MAN, that’s quite a lot of routes!

        • sharonC says:

          11 Apr11 April 20:41

          Agree. It seems most of the other posters are either near LHR or MAN and seem to forget others around the rest of the country

• executiveclubber says:

  10 Apr10 April 06:02

  Smart way to increase card usage and push smaller players out of the market . Well played Amex… making the game harder though!

• _nate says:

  10 Apr10 April 06:06

  Surely changing the spend target in the middle of people’s membership years is unjustifiable…

  • Ben says:

    10 Apr10 April 07:09

    Of course, to be fair, they also should have done is align everyone’s renewal year and have an existing year spending and new year spending running concurrently then shorten the subsequent year and add back what was earned in part of the current year to work out when your new voucher would be triggered.

    • LittleNick says:

      10 Apr10 April 08:44

      Lol, that’s a particular airline’s specialty

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