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Bits: £100 off £500 BA spend, 4000 Miles & More miles with a hotel, Troy Warfield leaves BA

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News in brief:

New £100 off a £500 British Airways spend deal with Amex

American Express is offering a very limited number of cardholders a £100 statement credit with their next £500 British Airways purchase.

If you are targetted, it will appear on your American Express online account under ‘Offers’.  It is limited to the first 7,000 people to save the offer to their card and the £500 transaction must be made by 12th June.

Neither my wife or I have this.  If you have put British Airways transactions through one of your Amex cards recently then you will probably be out of luck.   Some – but not all – HfP readers who have contacted Amex Customer Services have managed to get this offer added to their accounts even though they were not targetted.

Helpfully, £500 just covers the taxes and charges on a Club World or First Class long haul Avios redemption.

Get 4,000 Miles & More miles with any hotel booking

Lufthansa is again offering a generous bribe to encourage you to try its new hotel booking website.

It is only valid for first-time bookers via the Miles & More Hotels portal which you can find here.   There is no minimum stay and no minimum spend.  You need to book by 23rd May but the stay can be for a future date.  All bookings must be pre-paid.

The 4,000 miles is the minimum you will earn – this consists of a 3,000 miles bonus and 1,000 base miles.  You may receive more than 1,000 base miles based on the cost of your room.

British Airways BA 777X 777 9X

British Airways loses its second ‘Director of Customer Experience’

British Airways staff were told last week that Troy Warfield, BA’s ‘Director of Customer Experience’ is leaving the company after 18 months.

The announcement:

Troy Warfield, Director Customer Experience, has decided to leave British Airways.  Since joining the airline, Troy has led many customer improvements including the Gatwick and Boston Lounges, First Wing and forthcoming transformation of Club World catering, service and sleep proposition.  The process of finding a successor is now under way and an announcement will be made once an appointment is confirmed.

…. seems to be lacking the usual ‘leaves with our best wishes’, ‘we wish him success in his future career’, ‘I am sad to leave behind such a hard working group of colleagues’ etc platitudes normally found in such wording.

There were raised eyebrows when Warfield was hired, given that his previous employer (Avis Budget) is not exactly known for its outstanding customer service.  His job before Avis was running Andrex, Kleenex, Scottex and Velvet for Kimberley-Clark in Europe ….

That said, Warfield’s departure mirrors that of Frank van der Post.  van der Post was Warfield’s predecessor and the first person to have this role.  He came from a successful stint at Jumeirah Hotels – which does have a good reputation for customer experience – but he did not last too long either, albeit he went on to a senior role at KPM Royal Dutch Telecom.


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.

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.

Comments (187)

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

  • Sharon says:

    The offer didn’t show on my BAPP account either so I emailed Amex last night and they put the offer of £100 cash back for £500 spend onto my account offers tab this morning! Do you think the cash back would apply to bookings over the phone? Need to book my kids in on my flight ( already booked ) but can’t do it on-line. Was toying with idea of booking my 13 yr old as an adult on ba.com and then calling them the next morning for refund of her APD…Thank you

    • Genghis says:

      My previous 241 taxes paid over the phone went through as ‘British Airways MOTO’

  • Robert says:

    O / T – I’ve seen it mentioned previously that BA will occasionally extend the tier point collection year, but does anyone have any experience of reducing their tier point year? It would still run for only a year in total i.e. not 13 or 14 months due to any extension. Asking as I’ve got some work based travel that I would prefer to be classed as within the next collection period.

    • Alan says:

      Nope – have seen it asked about a few times on FT but there sole flexibility seems to be the up to 2/52 addition, not anything else.

  • Nick says:

    Just phoned Amex and the offer has been applied to my account, just in time as I’m about to make an £800 (effectively £700) payment, result. Thanks HFP

  • Kim says:

    Amex kindly added this offer to my card in response to my email this morning and I’m now looking to book our flights to FLL.
    There are reward flights available, I assume its because its a new route and I’m looking to upgrade our return flight to Club using our avios. I’m new to this so can anyone tell me why the cash price for 2 x WTP returns would be £1615 whereas the upgrade price is £1769 plus 60,000 avios? (Exact same flights)
    Im wondering if I booked the flights at cash prices in the hope I could then upgrade the return flight would I have to pay anything alongside the 60,000 avios or would this get me a better deal? Thanks!

    • Stu_N says:

      To upgrade, you have to pay taxes, fees and charges plus the extra Avios. The bit that is really taxes (Air Passenger Duty) will be the same for WTP and CW. If you take a test booking as far as a price quote, you can see the split between fare and charges on BA.com. Click the “i” next to the taxes fees and charges and this shows the breakdown.

      Having looked at LGW-FLL return for 1 person on a random date in August, the carrier imposed charges are £86 higher for CW so that’s basically your difference (you have £154 for 2 people so £77 each). You would need to pay this difference to upgrade, as well as the Avios so might be easier to book and upgrade at the same time, as upgrade availability can’t be relied upon to stick around.

      Hope this helps.

      • Kim says:

        Thanks that’s a great help – explains things fully, Much appreciated!

  • Alan Wan says:

    Thanks for the tips regarding contacting Amex for the £100 BA cash back offer. After emailing them they have applied the offer to my account.

  • Adil says:

    Called and tried to get the BA offer added to my Amex Plat around lunchtime and was flatly refused. Called after work and asked to get it added to my BA Amex (basic blue one) and they happily went along with it. Didn’t turn up in the app but I booked on BA and got an e-mail immediately saying that I had redeemed the BA offer so guess it’s valid from the moment Amex add it.

  • Ali says:

    Thanks for this. Wasn’t targeted for this on my BAPP -I messaged them via their website and in less than 24h it was added to my card.

  • Ammar says:

    Can someone explain why when I called to add a return leg to my existing 241 Avios booking (outbound one was LHR-PEK with 743 taxes), that instead of quoting me 75k avios and 70 pounds for HKG-LHR I was quoted 400 pounds?

    Has the call center guy messed up? As I thought it would be 743+70

    • Genghis says:

      The £70 tax for two is the single price for taxes ex-HKG. The agent trued the taxes up to the £500-550 pp return prices. It’s right. Basically you forgo £340 to save 75k avios. It’s where the Lloyds voucher comes into its own as that can be booked as two singles

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

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