Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

A positive suggestion for improving the British Airways American Express cards

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

To give British Airways and American Express credit, they have never stood still when it comes to the benefits on the two British Airways American Express cards.

Whilst these changes have not always been positive (eg the constant fee increases), many of them have genuinely improved the product. This includes the ability to open up additional reward availability in Club World for British Airways redemptions when using a companion voucher, letting you use your companion voucher on Aer Lingus and Iberia and letting solo travellers fly for half Avios.

You can see the current features in our British Airways Premium Plus American Express review here and our free British Airways American Express review here.

There is one change that I still feel is overdue, however.

How to improve the British Airways Premium Plus American Express credit card

(Before I go on, long term readers may recognise that I ran a version of this article 18 months ago. It had absolutely zero impact (!) but I am happy to give the idea another shove. Like our long running campaign last decade to bring in a status hold for new parents, we often get there in the end.)

Here’s the problem ….

Both my wife and I have our own Premium Plus cards, meaning we generate 2 x 2-4-1 companion vouchers each year. Because we have two children, this works well as it covers a family holiday.

Whilst the renewal dates on the two cards differ by three months, we try to time our spend so that we trigger the vouchers at roughly the same time.

The problem is that we can hit the voucher target very quickly these days, for better or worse. We are normally at around £9,000 of spending after three months.

But we don’t want to trigger our vouchers after three months ….

Here’s the snag. I want to delay triggering my companion vouchers for as long as possible.

I try to ensure that I have two unused vouchers and a decent pile of Avios constantly available, in case British Airways open up an attractive new route and I can grab seats for peak weeks. However, we already have two unused vouchers in the bank – we don’t need any more for now.

What this means is …. our two British Airways American Express Premium Plus cards go into a drawer when we get close to £10,000.

How to improve the British Airways American Express credit card

(I tend to stop at £9,000 because I don’t want to risk missing out on a good cashback offer on my card. It would be galling if I got, say, a ‘£100 back on £300 of Hilton spend’ offer but couldn’t take advantage because it would force me to trigger my voucher early.)

Where is the value in this for British Airways and American Express? I end up moving our family spending to other cards, even though I would be perfectly happy to keep picking up 1.5 Avios per £1 on my Premium Plus card.

There seems to be a very simple answer to this problem

In November 2024, the spend required to trigger a companion voucher on a British Airways American Express card will rise to £15,000. This will force me to use my card more, but using a stick rather than a carrot is not good business sense.

This is what should be done.

Your 2-4-1 Premium Plus companion voucher should be valid for the rest of your current Amex membership year plus two years.

At the moment it is valid for two years from the date of issue. I believe it should be for the rest of your current card year PLUS TWO YEARS. The expiry date should not be impacted by when you trigger the voucher.

If this rule was currently in place, I would happily keep spending on my Premium Plus card. Because it isn’t, I won’t.

I don’t see who loses under my proposed scenario. Cardholders don’t have to mess around juggling their spend to ensure they trigger their voucher to maximise its life. American Express and British Airways profit from additional card spend. Let’s get it done!

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways American Express

Comments (146)

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

  • The Savage Squirrel says:
    11 Aug11 August 08:13

    Giving away 1.5Avios/p spent, what’s Amex’s margin on additional spend? Obviously they don’t buy Avios at the rate we do, but vs the interchange fee, the margin can’t be enormous (and may even be negative)? Sure, this proposed change might pull in some extra interest charges after non-full-payment too, but that will be very marginal amongst this spending group.

    Other than interest-carrying debtors, their most profitable customer is actually someone who doesn’t even make the 10k spending limit (I suppose the truly ideal customer would be someone who forgot they have the card or doesn’t spend at all for whatever reason, and so is just donating hundreds of pounds each year to Amex).

    So do they actually even want to encourage additional spend…? Anyone want to hazard a guess at the numbers?

  • Paul says:
    11 Aug11 August 08:18

    Have they stopped giving tier points now?
    That was a brilliant new feature that helped me get silver then gold last year!

    • Rob says:
      11 Aug11 August 09:36

      It will almost certainly be back when TP move to a cash basis.

      • Paul says:
        11 Aug11 August 10:18

        Is this happening? Any more info?

        • Rob says:
          11 Aug11 August 10:29

          It seems more likely than not. Alignment of membership years comes first of course. You might want to ponder why the BA Holidays double tier points offer ends on 30 June next year when the prime holiday period is July/August and logically it should have been extended to cover that.

          • TGLoyalty says:
            11 Aug11 August 11:02

            It’s ended in June for the past two years and was just extended a year each time …

          • LittleNick says:
            11 Aug11 August 20:16

            I really do hope they don’t penalise us predominantly leisure travellers too much who have to pay for our own flights etc and can’t rely on corporate to get us status. Bad enough Avios earning is heavily skewed to corporates. Ideally they’d leave TP earning as is but I doubt that would be the BA Accountants way sadly.

  • CarpalTravel says:
    11 Aug11 August 08:28

    With the spend target moving to 15k in November (so £1250pm + sub fee required), I think this is going to be an issue to an even smaller minority of people.

    • JDB says:
      11 Aug11 August 08:34

      Yes, this, plus to judge by the delight here when the 50% solo traveller was introduced and the number of older and/or couples travelling without children, is this going to be an Amex priority?

    • AJA says:
      11 Aug11 August 09:02

      I suspect Amex will find that increasing the spend limit to £15k to earn a voucher this card will lose even more customers than it attracts. It already is one of the most expensive to hold and is more difficult to apply for now since they increased the income required.

      I would prefer vouchers earned to have no expiry date but if they won’t do that then I like the idea of earning TP once you hit the £15k to keep you spending.

      Actually I’d like to be able to earn TP as well as earning the voucher, perhaps 50TP at £5k, a further 50TP at £10k, 100TP at £15k together with the voucher and a further 100TP on each £5k above £15k.

  • gavalar says:
    11 Aug11 August 08:32

    I’m paying my balance & terminating the card after generating the voucher, then reapplying 2 weeks later – with a friend referral somewhere along the way.
    Pro-rata membership refunds will affect this choice

  • David says:
    11 Aug11 August 08:39

    Using a 241 on AY would be an incredible addition.

  • Chris R says:
    11 Aug11 August 08:47

    An improved benefit would be the ability to use two vouchers in one booking (both earned by primary cardholder) when you have more than two travelling. Family of 3 for example.

    • SammyJ says:
      11 Aug11 August 11:34

      You can do it with a group of 4 at the moment, just search for 4 people and tick both vouchers. Totally agree that they should make it available for bookings for 3 though, or even larger groups with just one person getting the discount. Annoying when we have to out people on separate bookings.

  • tw33ty says:
    11 Aug11 August 08:50

    I do exactly the same on my Amex bonvoy card, I get near the limit, then stop spending on it to save triggering the voucher, do it’s not just the Amex ba card this happens with.

    They are basically loosing spend on the cards

  • Jake says:
    11 Aug11 August 08:50

    @rob,

    Another change that is easy and could make sense is being able to use 2x 2-4-1 in one booking (i.e. one flight half price and another at 2-4-1).

    For a family of three, with two vouchers in one name it is frustrating that 2 vouchers cannot be used.

    Is there a reason BA haven’t made the change?

    • Rob says:
      11 Aug11 August 09:32

      There is a separate HfP article on the unfairness of that I will update at some point.

    • Jonathan says:
      11 Aug11 August 10:05

      Their customer facing IT systems are hardly great, it was announced some months ago that they’re investing £750 million to build new state of the art systems that we (consumers) use, which’ll definitely save calls to their CSAs

      • Rob says:
        11 Aug11 August 10:19

        Be careful what you wish for. The new IT system is designed to pay for itself by making passengers pay for more ancilliaries.

        BA admitted this during one of the Q&A sessions to show off the new Club Europe seat. Someone asked if they were going to sold the overhead luggage problem by installing the new larger bins on old aircraft, and the response (in as many words, it was not this explicit) was that they were going to solve it by charging for cabin baggage instead once the IT is there.

        • JDB says:
          11 Aug11 August 10:29

          Well they need to deal with the excessive hand baggage issue one way or another, it’s a problem causing delays at security, boarding and creates unnecessary conflict on board.

          • Jonathan says:
            11 Aug11 August 10:56

            Hand baggage is a luxury of using the likes of BA over the ultra low cost carriers – who’re known for charging not letting anything slip.
            I was once talking to a VS CSA and he said that he was on a flight with a low cost carrier, and one of the other passengers hand baggage was about a single centimetre out, and they got charged, for it, I responded by saying ‘will they want to use that airline again’

        • LittleNick says:
          11 Aug11 August 20:19

          So BA will be no different to easyjet/Ryanair/Vueling etc on short haul? What will be the point unless flying C.E?

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!