British Airways American Express bonuses increased to 5,000 & 25,000 Avios

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• Sprout7 says:

  24 Mar24 March 11:19

  Slightly OT…
  Just had a completely new experience whilst cancelling the wife’s Amex Platinum..
  We cancelled the card online after approx. 2 months having hit the spend target . A couple of weeks later we duly got a letter thru’ confirming the cancellation and informing us we had a credit balance of @£380 and asking us to call them to confirm how we wanted to receive the funds. We called up a few days later when they gave us the option of taking the @£380 at that point or, if we were to wait for 3/4 days (over the weekend), we could have the full £450. We called up the following week and were told that we now had a £450 credit balance and it would refunded to the account used to pay the direct debit.
  I did ask the guy why he would want to do that and the only reply was he was feeling kind towards us! Still can’t fathom it to be honest…

• Andrew says:

  24 Mar24 March 11:24

  Slight OT

  Has anyone had trouble registering for the usual BA “Birthday Bonus”?

  I had the email through from Exec Club, but once I click through to register “Your registration has been unsuccessful, unfortunately you are not eligible for this offer.”

  • Fox99 says:

    24 Mar24 March 13:37

    I have had exactly the same problem. I called the helpline today. I was told that there was a spurious pending registration on my account from February and that was blocking it. No one seems to know where the registration came from. They have referred it to the back office to be corrected. I should be able to register in a few days. I will be calling again on Tuesday if not corrected by then, I need to book the flights by the end of next week.

  • Sam says:

    24 Mar24 March 13:49

    Feeling slightly left out – has anyone else never received this birthday bonus? Only found out about it through HfP about 2-3 years ago.

    • Pid says:

      24 Mar24 March 14:16

      I do not recall ever being offered one.

      • Kinkell says:

        24 Mar24 March 15:01

        Neither myself or husband have ever had a ‘birthday bonus’ promotion in all the years we have held Amex related cards and many years of flying BA. And his birthday was yesterday!

        • Ramones says:

          24 Mar24 March 18:37

          I was offered 15k birthday bonus for completing economy long haul flight in February. Result as I already had a booking in place and points have now hit my account.

    • Andrew says:

      24 Mar24 March 19:39

      Get one most years.

      Last year it was 20,000 Avios for a long haul in May, this time it’s 15,000

      • Alan says:

        24 Mar24 March 20:17

        Wow very nice – wish they’d offer me something similar!

    • Leo says:

      24 Mar24 March 20:47

      Received an email for the very first time this week!

  • Alan says:

    24 Mar24 March 20:16

    LOL at ‘the usual birthday bonus’ – I’m still waiting to be offered this for the first time, have been a BAEC member for decades!

    • the real harry1 says:

      24 Mar24 March 20:22

      best we ever got was a free 500 birthday Avios for my wife, nothing like these offers

• Dan says:

  24 Mar24 March 11:46

  I had one of these 2 years ago and cancelled after receiving the bonus. If I do the same again, will it ruin my ‘relationship’ with Amex? I hold a Gold Card with them which I intend to keep.

  • Rob says:

    24 Mar24 March 12:36

    No, at the moment they are laid back about it. A two year is also pretty long. You will be fine if you reapply. One day they may change the rules to ‘one bonus per lifetime’, as in the USA, but it hasn’t happened yet.

• NigelM says:

  24 Mar24 March 12:31

  OT – funny article: The Match.com promotion offered 150 British Airways frequent flier points for every dollar spent by a new member on the dating site. While Match is only intended to be used by singles, that didn’t stop married travelers from trying to rack up points with fake Match profiles.’
  https://consumerist.com/2017/03/23/married-people-ruin-british-airways-promos-by-flooding-dating-sites-for-singles/

  • Alex W says:

    24 Mar24 March 12:38

    I decided to give this one a miss. Mrs W would have had a fit if she found out! It would have been worse than the mumsnet story about the pet insurance for the imaginary cat!

• rams1981 says:

  24 Mar24 March 13:00

  OT just added myself as a supplementary to my wife’s gold card. Card not arrived but 3k bonus points have hit.

  I have also emailed AMEX from her account to ask how many points they can give if we upgrade to platinum. Hopefully 15k+.

• Marcin says:

  24 Mar24 March 13:27

  Damn….I activated my BA Platinum last Saturday….do you think if I called them up they would allow me to switch to the higher welcome bonus???

• Fenny says:

  24 Mar24 March 13:35

  As an Amex issued card, does this get better Amex spend offers than my Virgin Black? I forget to look as there are so few offers on there compared to what I see HfP readers listing as available.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    24 Mar24 March 17:28

    Yep it will

    some offers are always AMEX issued cards only and then some are type of AMEX issued card only

    • Fenny says:

      24 Mar24 March 21:15

      Ta. Best I got last year was £100 off with Neilson Holidays. So that’s 11 days dinghy sailing in Greece in September sorted 🙂

• AndyF says:

  24 Mar24 March 14:11

  O/T – I have about 6k spend coming up which can only be done via Visa/MasterCard. British Gas I’m looking at you. I have the Lloyds Avios card but It will only generate about 1500 pts from this which isn’t great. I’m looking for a better long-term non-Amex card. I’ve got them down to either Hilton or Virgin. But I’m unsure Virgin white or Hilton. I don’t know enough about the spending power of the Hilton. But they have a lot of aspirational properties. (Anon?) Did you have a Hilton card when saving up for the Maldives… or is it just Amex transfers and virgin transfers to generate enough Hilton points. I’m really stuck on which one would be best.
  People’s views would be appreciated.

  • Anon says:

    24 Mar24 March 14:36

    Do you have Gold status 6k on that would go a long way towards it.

    Rob – Can you pay BG on Amex at a Coop and Paypoint like Council Tax???

    • AndyF says:

      24 Mar24 March 14:59

      becasue it’s boilers I have to pay over the phone etc before the engineers leave. So Paypoint isn’t really an option, unfortunately. Out of interest how did you save towards the Conrad Maldives?

      • AndyF says:

        24 Mar24 March 15:06

        A virgin card gives me the option of a Hilton transfer but if the money was spent directly on the Hilton. It would generate more pts to begin with. The virgin card does give the option of either flights or hotels, although. Regarding stays, I don’t really stay enough in hotels to make use of the gold status. This is more towards planning a great holiday every couple of years.

    • Rob says:

      24 Mar24 March 16:56

      If your Co-Op has PayPoint and BG takes PayPoint and your Co-Op staff are lax on letting you use an Amex, then yes. In theory the answer is No.

      • AndyF says:

        24 Mar24 March 17:34

        It’s such a shame Amex isn’t an option using curve anymore. Have you heard any news on curve lately Rob, any chance of Amex restarting their relationship in the future?

        • Rob says:

          24 Mar24 March 18:25

          Can’t see any progress for at least a year to be honest.

    • Genghis says:

      24 Mar24 March 18:15

      I pay BG at paypoint co op.

      • the real harry1 says:

        24 Mar24 March 18:34

        just stuck £600 through on council tax today 🙂

        • Mark1980 says:

          24 Mar24 March 20:02

          Harry, out of interest, can you pay any amount? I.e. the same amount as you would pay on a monthly direct debit? Also, I believe you said the other day that you can pay and get a refund? Do they not frown upon that (I realise all councils may be different)?

        • the real harry1 says:

          24 Mar24 March 20:19

          I overpaid £1000 last year & when I asked for a refund I got a few questions on the phone, I said I just got confused & my wife paid some in without me being aware, I got a cheque in the post

          you can certainly pay any amount you like in advance so Paypoint is great for initial bonuses

        • Genghis says:

          25 Mar25 March 04:29

          With my council you can request a refund of overpayment online. Funnily enough, if I’m ever questioned on why I’ve overpaid I also blame it on confusion with the wife over who’s paid…

      • Pid says:

        25 Mar25 March 08:42

        Tried to pay my BG bill at coop yesterday but as a it did not have a barcode it would not work. Do you have to ask for a special bill with a bar code rather than the one for direct debit account which does not have one?

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