Just a quick reminder that the current sign-up offer on the two British Airways American Express cards ends tomorrow (not sure what time!):
The Premium Plus version, with the £150 annual fee, currently offers 25,000 Avios instead of 18,000 Avios. You must spend £3,000 within three months to receive the bonus. Household income of £20,000 required. Representative APR of 56.4% variable including the fee based on a £1200 credit limit.
The basic, free, card currently offers 9,000 Avios instead of 3,000 Avios. You must spend £1,000 within three months to receive the bonus. Household income of £20,000 required. Representative APR 15.9% variable.
My full review of the benefits of the Premium Plus card is here.
My full review of the free card is here.
For clarity, the only people who cannot get the bonus on this card are those who have cancelled a BA Amex in the last six months.
You are OK if you have (or have recently cancelled) a Lloyds Avios Rewards card, an Amex Gold, Amex Platinum, SPG Amex or any other American Express, MBNA or Lloyds-issued Amex.
Note that you cannot have both of the British Airways American Express cards in parallel. You need to choose between them, and if you want to swap over you need to telephone Amex and upgrade or downgrade your account.
(To see our complete list of all current credit card bonuses, click here to visit our ‘Credit Cards Update’ page or use the link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)
About Head for Points
I need to open a BA account for my wife as well as an Amex. I’ve discovered that if I open it on October 1st rather than today, we will have the same membership year, otherwise it will be off by one month from my account and thus ruin my mileage run plans.
Can I put in her IB number on the Amex application, and then ring up Amex in a few days after I’ve opened the BA account, to give them the actual BA number and apologise for entering the wrong one?
I mean TP run.
If you are planning on going for status for both of you, your membership year will change again when you hit your next tier, which, if you do together, should align both of your membership years.
In short, I would guess there is a potential that if Amex can’t verify a valid BAEC for her, they might open one, so I expect a lot of running around from your end to cancel etc etc.
Do Blue membership years now reset when you hit Bronze?
I thought they changed the whole system a few years back so you now *didn’t* reset your year when you moved up a tier? Instead you get the status for the remainder of that year and for the following one. The previous system used to reset the year though.
Exactly, I was just a little confused by the earlier comment and was wondering if (from Blue) they actually did still do it. But apparently not.
I don’t think this is correct. I achieved Bronze in July and my membership year stayed the same.
The only way to change membership year (AFAIK) is to close your account and reopen it – which I have done for my wife. This will also have the benefit of fixing her name (which was entered incorrectly the first time), and changing her email address, which resulted in an error whenever we tried to do it online previously.
Just say you don’t have one and then call after a few days to tell them you want to like the one you opened. I don’t think that will be a problem. They might not even have opened one by then.
Just to check, is the minimum spend for the 25,000 bonus avios £3000, or £2000 as stated above?
It is £3000 as stated on the Amex site. I believe Raffles has confused the BA Amex min spend with that of the Plat and Gold charge cards.
Yes, sorry, have corrected. The min spend often goes up when there is an offer on which is why I get confused!
Any idea when this offer is likely to come back?
It may even get rolled over, but I have not been told anything
Thanks for the heads-up. Think I’d have missed this otherwise.
Correct. I think it was more than that very recently but my be wrong. True that the £50 limit is a pain.
Hello Raffles, I currently have a TSB Avios card and also an MBNA Avios card. Would I be eligible for the bonus points if I apply for this card. Thanks
Yes, absolutely no problem to get the bonus.
I asked Amex a question last night which seemed to stump them:
Does the application have to be MADE by 30 Sept, or ACCEPTED by 30 Sept? I only asked because my wife’s application was referred. The agent I spoke to was unaware that there was even an offer on, but guessed that any deadline would apply to the making of the application. Incredibly, when I mentioned that I had referred my wife, I was told that she would get the sign-up bonus of 25,000 as well as the 26,000 for the referral, and I would get the 9,000 for referring her. Obviously the agent got it wrong (and repeated it when I told her she must be wrong), but it would be amazing if it were true.
I think you can see by that last bit the low level of knowledge of Amex agents!
It goes by the day you apply, not the day you are accepted (which of course you can’t control).
Thanks – thought so, but just wanted to check. I am a bit tempted to feign indignation when my wife ‘only’ gets the 26,000 points and ask them to listen to the call and apply the 25,000 extra… but I do like Amex and I actually find that their agents are normally fantastic, so I think I’ll give it a miss.
It’s probably also worth mentioning that the 100% bonus on purchased US Airways miles promo (as posted here:https://www.headforpoints.com/2014/09/08/100-bonus-when-you-buy-us-airways-miles-convert-to-american-airlines/) expires tomorrow too.