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Why the British Airways Premium Plus Amex is the best card for long-term spending

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With the sign-up bonus on the British Airways American Express Premium Plus (BAPP) card increased to 25,000 Avios until February, I thought it was worth taking another look at why I rate this card for long term spending.   I have a BAPP and my wife has her own too.

This is especially important given the recent fee hike to £195 per year which may have made you reconsider the value you get from the card.

I am obliged to remind you that the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card has a representative APR of 76.0% variable based on a £1,200 credit limit.  The free British Airways American Express card has a representative APR of 22.9% variable.

BA Premium Plus American Express card BAPP

A lot of the credit card posts on Head for Points are focussed on sign-up bonuses.  Get a card, spend the minimum required to trigger the bonus, cancel the card, move on.

That works fine for some people.  However, if you are a high to medium spender then the few thousand pounds of card spend required each year to hit your sign-up bonus targets will not be a stretch.  You need to consider where to put the rest of your annual spend.

Many credit card issuers offer incentives for spending £10,000+ per year on their cards.  The value of these perks is often underestimated – they are often worth far more than the points for your normal spend and can be more valuable than the sign-up bonus, especially as you can earn them year after year.

Here are the key cards which offer annual benefits for spending a large sum:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus – 2-4-1 voucher on Avios redemptions for spending £10,000

British Airways American Express – 2-4-1 voucher on Avios redemptions for spending £20,000

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold – 10,000 Membership Rewards points for spending £15,000

Lloyds Avios Rewards American Express & Visa – upgrade voucher for spending £7,000

Virgin Atlantic Black American Express & Visa – upgrade vouchers at £5,000 and £10,000

IHG Rewards Club Premium MasterCard – free night voucher for spending £10,000

Hilton HHonors Platinum Visa – Hilton HHonors Gold status for spending £10,000

Starwood Preferred Guest American Express – free night voucher for spending £25,000

By a substantial margin, the most valuable of these is the 2-4-1 voucher offered on the British Airways American Express Premium Plus.

A potential 10% return on your spending

When you spend £10,000 on the BAPP card, you get a voucher which gives you two Avios redemptions (on BA planes, ex-UK only) for the miles of one.  You still need to pay the full taxes and charges on both tickets, however.

On an average redemption (two Club World tickets to San Francisco on a peak day, say), this saves you 150,000 Avios points.  On a First Class flight or a longer Club World trip, the saving could easily exceed 200,000 Avios.

I have a very conservative valuation of Avios points of 0.75p.  Most readers value them more highly.  However, even at 0.75p, the 2-4-1 voucher is ‘worth’ £1,100 if it saves you 150,000 Avios points on a trip.

£1,100 of value for spending £10,000 on the card is an excellent return.  Even when you factor in the £195 annual fee, you are still getting a £900 net return on your £10,000 of spending.

Why I prefer the Premium Plus card to the free British Airways American Express

As I wrote in this article, I am NOT a fan of the free British Airways American Express card if you plan to earn the 2-4-1 voucher.

This is the despite the fact that you would save £195 in annual fee by taking out the free BA card instead of the Premium Plus.

Why is this?

The 2-4-1 voucher on the BAPP card lasts for two years, whilst the voucher on the free card only lasts for one year.  This is very important since, on busy routes, you may need to book 11 months ahead to guarantee the seats you want.

You earn an extra 0.5 Avios per £1 spent, which outweighs some of the £195 fee

You only need to spend £10,000 and not £20,000 to trigger the voucher.  Even if you can easily do £20,000 of American Express spending per year, it would make more sense to get a 2nd Premium Plus card for your partner and put £10,000 through that as well – so you generate 2 x 241 vouchers each year, each valid for two years – rather than put £20,000 through the free card.

My full review of the British Airways American Express Premium Plus can be found here.  The official Amex website and application form is here. 

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current 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

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

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

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

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus 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

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

British Airways American Express

Comments (173)

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

  • BLT says:
    23 Sep23 September 07:51

    Anyone else get a mailing offering an extra 10k Avios on £10k spend on their BAPP, by 30 Nov?

    • Ash says:
      23 Sep23 September 08:31

      Yes! I was wondering whether it’s for spending £10k strictly within that period? Unachievable for me in such timescales, have no major expenses….maybe I should by a new car? Hmm…

    • Gin and Tonic Please says:
      23 Sep23 September 14:36

      Yep. Mine arrived today

  • Raj says:
    23 Sep23 September 07:53

    Well timed mail shot from Amex to my wife yesterday – a bonus 10,000 avios on the BAPP card if she spends £10k until end of November…. those cap on fees must be beginning to bite..

    • Raj says:
      23 Sep23 September 07:57

      Sorry BLT, that will teach me to sit on a comment before submitting it…Me! (Or rather, my wife 🙂 )

  • Steve says:
    23 Sep23 September 08:08

    Can someone please confirm, does the companion voucher get you one Avios redemption or two? For example, If I booked two one way Avios tickets to say New York would I:

    Pay no avios at all, only the taxes and charges for both tickets??

    or

    Pay Avios for my ticket, then pay no Avios on second ticket, plus all taxes and charges for both.

    Also can you only redeem voucher on BA?

    Just on BA website it says just one voucher. I know it is Friday and my head is totally pickled by this point but a little help please 🙂

    • Raj says:
      23 Sep23 September 08:14

      Steve, basically the voucher Entitles you to 2 avios bookings for the price of one.
      So you pay the avios and charges for seat 1 and “just” the charges for seat 2. The booking can be one way or return.

      They are only redeemable on ba operated flights and note, you can use 2 vouchers if you should have them to secure 4 avios bookings for the price of 2

      • Genghis says:
        23 Sep23 September 08:17

        Can be used one way or return but not sure really why you’d use one way.

      • Steve says:
        23 Sep23 September 08:28

        Thanks Raj, So is the 2-4-1 avios redemption for a return ticket? would I just have to use the avios for one return ticket?

        • Rob says:
          23 Sep23 September 08:41

          Let’s use NY as an example at 120k Avios off peak plus £500 tax in Club World each.

          Without a voucher, 2 people would be 240k Avios plus £1000 tax return for two.

          With the voucher, you pay just 120k Avios plus £1000 tax return for two.

    • James says:
      23 Sep23 September 08:15

      Pretty sure it’s two people

  • BrianDT says:
    23 Sep23 September 08:08

    Do Amex charge a fee for overseas spend ?

  • James says:
    23 Sep23 September 08:14

    My setup: I’m not sure I’ll have any long term card. Anything from Amex has a pro-rata refundable fee, so I churn those. I hit PRG £15k spend target, then used link to upgrade PRG to Plat. Amex confirmed I’d not lose 10k points for hitting £15k spend and I’d still get 20k MR points for upgrade. Only need to hit £1k spend on Plat to then cancel that. I churn SPG and BAPP too. Meanwhile, I’ve got non-refundable fees on HSBC Premier World Elite and Virgin Black, so I’ll definitely be keeping these for the full year, but likely no longer. Amex, meanwhile, will be getting all kinds of renewals every six months out of me. My golden rule is to always be working towards some kind of sign up bonus or spend target. I don’t like to put any spend through a ‘BAU’ card. I’ve earned 200k Avios and 70k Virgin Flying Club points this way – exploiting sign up bonuses and the various Tesco and other points-deals I find out about on here – since April this year. I imagine the only card I would keep for the truly long term is the Lloyds Avios (£24 one) because of it’s no-fx.

    TL/DR: I don’t aim to have any card for the genuine long term and instead like to put every £1 of spend towards a sign up bonus or another sort of target. ‘BAU’ cards seem a bit wasteful, under the current T&Cs of CC companies.

    • Ash says:
      23 Sep23 September 08:36

      Thanks for sharing. Always good to hear other people’s ‘strategies’.

    • Genghis says:
      23 Sep23 September 08:46

      I agree, James. I feel like any spend not going towards earning a sign up bonus / longer term target spend (e.g. BAPP / IHG) is a waste. Once I’ve met the target, I generally have something else lined up and transfer the spend elsewhere.

  • Gabriel says:
    23 Sep23 September 08:17

    Well, in order to value the voucher at 150k avios you need to already have the 150k avios, to hunt obscure redemptions a lot in advance and to not mind spending a lot of money on taxes and fees, probably even more than the cash tickets from another company… So the £900 figure is just a sad joke. I can’t believe that none of these facts have been included in this article. Realistically, the value of the voucher is more like £100, when taking into account the card’s fee.

    • Genghis says:
      23 Sep23 September 08:24

      But the other company would likely be an ex-EU involving a hotel the night before for safety and an ungodly hour transfer (depending where you’re going of course) so 3 flights vs 1. Once add up all the extras and the price you put on a good sleep x 2 for return journey x 2 people, it’s not that different in my mind.

    • James says:
      23 Sep23 September 08:24

      ‘Sad joke’ strikes me as a little harsh. It’s worth whatever you can redeem it for. Most people in this card’s target market will be high spenders and will likely not redeem on a cheap flight. You wouldn’t say a Ferrari is worth less money from the dealer because you also have to pay for the insurance premium, would you? Or a country mansion is worth less than the agreed price because in order to buy it you’d need to be able to afford the stamp duty. Premium products – like Ferraris, country mansions and, to a clearly lesser extent, the BAPP – assume a premium market. A premium market assumes that one has the necessary considerations in place to support that premium product (i.e. insurance, stamp duty or the ability to acquire a large number of Avios in two years).

    • Rob says:
      23 Sep23 September 08:45

      In the currenr Triple Avios promo, 150k Avios is a relative doddle for anyone doing the occasional long haul flight in a premium cabin for work,

      You can get 102,000 Avios for free in 8 months by getting an Amex Gold (20k), referring your wife for one (you get 9k, she gets 22k), cancelling both and the doing the same 6 months later. 150,000 per year is therefore a doddle, if we’re honest.

    • James says:
      23 Sep23 September 08:59

      Completely disagree. I value this higher than Raff’s £900!

    • mark2 says:
      23 Sep23 September 10:42

      I have just spent 175,000 Avios + 241 + £1100 for First tickets to Seattle and back from Vancouver. Now you tell me that I can get similar tickets on another airline for about £1100.
      Since the Avios tickets are refundable please tell me which airline you mean.
      I did book at T-355 but that is fine by me as I had to book a cruise to Alaska too and twelve months out most cabins had gone.

      • Chris says:
        23 Sep23 September 16:45

        Except the 175,000 Avios are worth money too.
        In my valuation they are worth around £1,200. So your flight is actually costing around £2,300 for both of you. (still great value of course).

  • Andy S says:
    23 Sep23 September 08:36

    slightly OT: IHG credit card (creation)
    I know I could contact customer services but they take weeks to respond, so I thought I’d try here.
    I’ve just had my first statement. I had set up direct debit which I thought said they’d take the minimum, but on the statement it says they’ll take the whole lot.
    Is this set in stone like the MBNA cards, or if I were to make a payment in good time (say a week before the DD date) would the DD change to take this into account (like the Amex cards (see, not totally OT!))

    • Paul L says:
      23 Sep23 September 09:10

      my online statement on the other hand is still saying ‘payment is due 12 September…’

    • the_real_a says:
      23 Sep23 September 10:17

      The DD amount is always taken as published on the statement. You cannot pay it down in the same way as Barclaycard/MBNA.

      • Andy S says:
        23 Sep23 September 16:53

        dammit! Thanks anyway, wonder why its set up for full amount when even on this statement it says to contact customer support (ha!) to set a direct debit for the minimum …

        • Andy S says:
          10 Oct10 October 07:48

          Well, an update to this, for the record. I emailed customer support and after about a week they said anything manually paid 10 days or more before the DD would be taken into account. I quickly did a balance transfer from another card for some of the amount, and sure enough, today the DD is taken *less this payment*.

          (The 10 days seems to be calendar days, as by the time they replied there were less than 10 working days until the DD date.)

    • Roger says:
      23 Sep23 September 17:50

      Waiting for mine to be collected in about a week’s time. I will know then….

      Everyone who has IHG Premium card managed to get their points transferred successfully?
      I am still waiting for mine. Both IHG and Creation are passing buck to each other.
      Platinum Elite status was applied after few phone calls….
      The CS is like a cottage industry….where someone needs to check something with someone else…who is on holiday!!!

      • Andy S says:
        23 Sep23 September 22:28

        Plattinum status took a bit of effort*, but the points appeared on IHG a day before my statement appeared on the creation site !

        * I emailed which seemed to go unanswered, the a phone call and the guy said it was down to IHG before I’d even finished asking the question, then got an email back saying it would be passed on to the relevant department, but by the time I got that email status had been updated.

  • Professor Yaffle says:
    23 Sep23 September 08:43

    Whilst the article is factually correct, the point it misses is the non-existence of reward availability on the BA network, particularly to West Coast USA (where I travel most).

    I did have one of these cards for a couple of years, but the voucher was of seriously limited value as I couldnt use it for my normal travel. I ended up burning the vouchers on lower-value trips as a result.

    Until BA fix this (fat chance), my airline (and resulting credit card loyalties) have moved to VS – no 241 vouchers to be sure, but fair levels of reward availability and a better product to boot.

    • Rob says:
      23 Sep23 September 08:47

      Availability comes and goes in waves as you know. I have 4 J to Abu Dhabi and 4 F back from Dubai for October half term – busiest week of the year for that route – and we did exactly the same at Easter which is the 2nd busiest time of year.

      American opened up huge slugs of US availability recently although admittedly no use with a 241.

      • Leo says:
        23 Sep23 September 09:30

        I think you’ve said it yourself though Rob that finding F redemptions from LAX or SFO are like hens’ teeth….he said looking for one as we speak!

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