A positive suggestion for improving the British Airways American Express cards

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

• Greg says:

  11 Aug11 August 07:44

  Do we know what is happening with Tier points for additional spend like last year. Is this going to happen at 20k, 25k 30k etc. could do with this clearing up at the same time.

• JDB says:

  11 Aug11 August 07:53

  I wonder what proportion of cardholders are actually bothered by this ‘problem’?

  Amex’s response might simply be for the voucher to be triggered at anniversary. Amex tempted those cards apparently held in the drawer to be used between last November and this May with the TP offer.

  • ed_fly says:

    11 Aug11 August 08:54

    I think the 5k increase may make it a bigger problem for families of four. When trying to use two vouchers on one booking, the timing on triggering the voucher is key, and the increase spend target will make it harder for some depending on their card anniversary dates. If you travel as a two, with flexibility on travel dates, much less of a problem. As the two year validity makes this much less of a problem

  • memesweeper says:

    11 Aug11 August 09:17

    Anniversary +2 years would work for me. And I’d mean the “first date” anniversary, so if you triggered the spend at 3 months you’d have 9 + 12 months on the voucher. Little risk to BA in having more vouchers kicking around and upside for consumers and Amex.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    11 Aug11 August 09:23

    I’m not trigger then cancel. Sign up and Trigger the next one when I need one.

  • Cicero says:

    11 Aug11 August 10:25

    You seem to be sufficiently bothered by it to reply several times in this thread.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      11 Aug11 August 11:09

      That’s unfair some of us are just interested by the article and discussion around the topic rather than bothered by it.

• daveinitalia says:

  11 Aug11 August 08:01

  When they extended the validity to two years I thought this was the problem they were trying to solve. I’m guessing their systems weren’t clever enough to issue them for remainder of card membership year + one year so they just went with two years.

  There’s always a risk that if Amex has the capability in future to issue variable length vouchers they go to remainder of card year + 1 year rather than 2 years.

  They’d both have the same outcome. You’d now have no advantage by not using the card but overall you’d be worse off.

  • memesweeper says:

    11 Aug11 August 09:18

    This is what I meant! I was out by a year…

• Bernard says:

  11 Aug11 August 08:01

  The point of voucher schemes is that many go un redeemed. The pleading above misses that.

  Thats how the economics work.

  So with your suggestion how would you feel if the trigger spend was not£15k but £25k instead, so the economics remain unaltered?

• BJ says:

  11 Aug11 August 08:09

  Challenge @Rob: publish an article on how you manage to keep a decent pile of avios constantly available for a family of four? Given you are taken to at least one longhaul family trip per year and state you have two amex vouchers per year I conservatively estimate a decent pile as earning at least 480k avios across your family per year on a rolling basis. Avios earned cannot include niche avios earnings that specifically result from running HfP as these would not be available to your readers. Purchasing avios directly or indirectly at more than 0.75ppa is also excluded. Are you game? Go on, please accept the challenge 🙂

  • Mikeact says:

    11 Aug11 August 08:19

    I agree. I thought I was doing well, but always open to other ideas.

  • Phantomchickenz says:

    11 Aug11 August 08:34

    I suspect a shedload are earned through referrals

    • ed_fly says:

      11 Aug11 August 08:48

      Running HFP must generate a huge pile of Avios through referrals, any advertising spend etc. which places rob in a fairly unique spot, so what would be the point of rob posting his Avios earning? It’s not like someone else could replicate.

      • BJ says:

        11 Aug11 August 09:02

        The challenge excludes earnings uniquely related to running HfP as I stated. He does not need to share his own data, only to explain how he, and by extension others, can do it. I vould have done this quite easily until about 3 years ago but changes since then makes it much more challenging and it will become even more so for most here when amex refunds finally kick in.

    • BJ says:

      11 Aug11 August 08:52

      He’s previously said that he gets no referral concession for running HfP etc.

      • ed_fly says:

        11 Aug11 August 09:11

        Is the referral limit 90k per person or 90k per card? If per person, that’s 180k between Rob and Connie, if per card, then a BAPP and patinum (+other MR card), that’s 360k. Card spend, Avios from cash flights for personal/work flights etc

        • TGLoyalty says:

          11 Aug11 August 12:19

          Per points currency per person.

          So 90k MR, 90k BA, 90k Bonvoy, 90k Nectar etc.

      • Rob says:

        11 Aug11 August 09:32

        We get nothing beyond the standard 90k per card, although admittedly we have a lot of cards. Helps that the fees are a tax write off as long as we keep personal spend off them.

  • Swiss Jim says:

    11 Aug11 August 09:09

    It’s very easy to earn Avios if you know how.

  • Andy says:

    11 Aug11 August 09:41

    But if a large proportion of Rob’s Avios do come from CC referrals how can he write an article about how to earn a ‘pile’ by other means, if he doesn’t? Most here already know how to earn Avios and there are already MANY articles on the site about various earning opportunities open to all. Why not list your/our own ways of doing it? For me, it’s a combination of CC spend, flying (!! 😲), Nectar, boost and shopping portals. I don’t think there are any ‘secret’ ways to earn lots of Avios anymore. All involve spending cash. ‘Matt’s planet’ produced a good YouTube video about how he earned Avios in 2023 (and spent them).

    • Rob says:

      11 Aug11 August 10:05

      There are probably five routes these days:

      *you spend a lot of money – given the demographics of our readership this is more common than you think, and I know a lot of SME owners who put £100k per month through their cards

      *your company spends a lot on BA flights (remember that a fully flex New York Club ticket earns 80,000 Avios now if you’re Gold)

      *you play the 2-year cycle on sign-up bonuses, which for most people probably remains the most sensible route – obviously having a partner is key for this, and having a small business of some sort helps even more. With some sort of small business (buy to let?) allowing you to get business cards too, 500k between a couple over 2 years in bonuses isn’t a stretch.

      *you hit the 90k referral cap on all your cards

      *you have found a way of doing manufactured spending

      In my house it is 1 and 4 – neither of us have applied for a new card for ages (so 3 is out) oddly, and HfP pays for very few flights (and no fully flex ones!) so 2 is out. 5 requires too much time!

      • BJ says:

        11 Aug11 August 10:27

        Thanks, the problem though is that combining even two if those per household is probably already tending toward the exceptional. You yourself acknowledge that referals for you are key and I’d guess most if them come courtesy of HfP requests than family and friends. Even to max out one if the routes requires either good fortune or dedication. I think for most of us we are trying to part-play 3 or 4 of the routes on your list without necessarily maxing them out. When we have to do that it is what has become harder work in the last three years IMO and is set to become harder still. An SME seems like the best way forward but I have neither the right mindset or skill set, and I enjoy retirement too much.

    • BJ says:

      11 Aug11 August 10:10

      The doors are going to close with the end of pro rata refunds. Less people will have multiple cards and less people will be churning cards. On top of that the 24month rule means the pool of family and friends one can refer to is less.

      I think I am better than average at collecting avios. 480k/y on a rolling basis is, I believe, already challenging for the vast majority of HfP readees and will become even mire so.

• Mikel says:

  11 Aug11 August 08:11

  The 2 years is long enough for me. It’s redeemed fairly quickly in our household as we now travel a lot. A mix of cash, to maintain our BA silver status, and Avios redemptions.

• LST says:

  11 Aug11 August 08:12

  I would also recommend a way to search for additional voucher availability without having a voucher in your account. Trying to book a return at the moment and getting fed up with calling BA everyday to see if anything has been released!

• Thea says:

  11 Aug11 August 08:12

  I could not agree more with Rob’s article. Every year I hold back spending on my BA Amex card for much of the year in order to trigger the 2 for 1 voucher as late as possible to avoid being penalised by an early expiry date. Meanwhile the card’s missing out on thousands of pounds of extra spend and I’m missing out on the benefits I’m paying for in my card fee. I could not even do the TP deal because I needed the later voucher expiry date more than a few extra TPs. This is all because of the poorly conceived terms of the card, with obvious but unintended consequences . Please can we all try to get this amended as it’s in everyone’s interests, not least those of BA and Amex! I agree it’s a ‘no brainer’’ and I can’t help thinking that this must describe those who designed the card!

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