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Bits: could YOU stop BA’s next IT meltdown?, 500 bonus Avios from Amex working

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News in brief:

How you can stop the next British Airways IT meltdown

After losing an estimated £80m due to the total IT failure a couple of months ago, British Airways has a plan.  Maybe you know someone who can help.

Business Resilience Executive

Are you interested in working on crisis management, emergency response and business continuity across British Airways? If so, the role of Business Resilience Executive could be for you.

This new position offers a fantastic opportunity to join the Business Resilience team in a challenging role that will require you to work with colleagues across the whole of British Airways.

You will be responsible for the administration and development of the team’s resilience plans, processes, learning portfolio, communications, facilities and technology. As such, you will be a core member of the team that helps ensure the airline is in a constant state of readiness to deal with any disruptive event – through both planning ahead and responding appropriately.

This role will allow you to develop a great understanding of the wider airline and partner operation and build personal and organisational resilience in the face of the most challenging situations.

Key skills presumably involve a) stopping weekend contractors pressing the big red ‘off’ button at the data centre and b) making sure Alex Cruz’ hi-viz vest is ready for use at all times.  Apply on ba.com here.  Thanks to Marc.

Alex Cruz

That odd email from Amex …..

If you have a British Airways American Express card, you probably got an email from Amex yesterday asking you to sign up for a new cashback deal.

All you had to do was spend £20 across WH Smith, Ocado, Shell and the Post Office, in as many transactions as you like, and you received 500 bonus Avios.

There was a button to ‘save to your card’, but it didn’t work.  Amex told one reader yesterday that it hadn’t been added to the system yet.  It told another that all 20,000 registrations had already gone, which I doubt is true as I clicked through within 30 seconds of receiving the email.

It did start working at about 9pm last night and I was able to register myself and my wife successfully.  If you tried and failed during the day yesterday, try again now before the 20,000 registrations cap is reached.

PS.  Talking of Amex IT cock-ups, American Express has just told holders of the British Airways Corporate American Express Card that it has fixed an IT error in setting up new Avios accounts.  This error has been in place since 2015.  Amex has only just got around to dealing with it, even though it impacted everyone who did not have an Avios account in place at the point of their BA Corporate Amex application.

There is also an IT issue regarding the Starwood American Express card which Amex still refuses to admit exists and which cost me 10,000 SPG points.  This has been going on for at least 3 years …..

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Earning miles and points from small business cards

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Category

British Airways American Express, British Airways and Avios, Marriott Bonvoy American Express

Comments (101)

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

  • Stewie Griffin says:
    26 Aug26 August 14:06

    Wasn’t targeted by the email. They wouldn’t manually add to either of my cards – even when I suggested other customers had this done. Might be a case of trying again with a different agent…

    • Kinkell says:
      26 Aug26 August 15:37

      Likewise. Not targeted, not on any of our cards. Same happened with the Amazon avios offer a couple of weeks back, and CS refused to add to cards then. The offers currently on our cards are ones we’ll never use. Feeling a tad disenchanted.

    • Andrew F says:
      26 Aug26 August 18:28

      Same – agent on chat refused saying it was targetted “and it wouldn’t be fair to those targetted if they added it to my account”. Then they asked me how I’d feel if I’d been targetted and I couldn’t get it because others had had it manually added. The fact that I know from here that this has been done for other folk didn’t seem to bother them in the slightest!

      But then again, it would’ve been 500 Avios for nowt, so I’ve not lost anything! Win some, lose some.

  • pr99 says:
    26 Aug26 August 14:35

    Thought the 500 Avios was the reward for stopping the IT meltdown – gotta keep costs under control.

  • Lee says:
    26 Aug26 August 15:04

    Just been told by Amex when closing my BAPP

    “Companion voucher bookings must be made using the British Airways Card they were earned with. This is set in the Terms & Conditions on the companion voucher. Once the card is closed, you will not be able to use the Companion Voucher You will no longer earn Avios and any Avios not yet appearing on your American Express points balance will be forfeited.”

    • Alan says:
      26 Aug26 August 15:09

      Sounds like their standard scare tactic messages.

    • James Phillips says:
      26 Aug26 August 15:58

      Is this really true? I was planning on triggering my 2for1 voucher imminently and then closing the account…

    • Rob says:
      26 Aug26 August 16:10

      Bull re the voucher. May be true re points not sent over.

      • Alan says:
        26 Aug26 August 16:24

        Although I did it slightly inadvertently (after I remember Liz had issues), I still had 1,500 Avios sitting in my BAPP when closed – they came across fine even though the account was shut.

        • JamesB says:
          26 Aug26 August 21:30

          When attempting to backtrack on cancellation of my last SPG card because I realised I still had points to transfer the agent assured me they still woul. I was sceptical but they did transfer as normal despite card being closed.

  • John says:
    26 Aug26 August 15:27

    Could this be used for the spend £150 at heathrow rewards offer? (e.g. 7 X £20 transactions + £10 of course) thus 35000 avios bonus?

    • John says:
      26 Aug26 August 15:28

      Typo! 3500 avios (and at LHR T5 airside WH Smith)

    • Rob says:
      26 Aug26 August 16:08

      Yes – and I plan to do this if I get some non-WHS gift cards!

      • Mark says:
        26 Aug26 August 20:13

        My take on the T&C’s is that it can only be used once.
        You can have as many transactions as you want up to the £20 limit. then you get the 500 bonus avios.
        You only get the bonus once as the T&C’s state “Valid once per UK Card for the first 20,000 Cardmembers to save.”

        • Rob says:
          26 Aug26 August 22:14

          I agree. The logic of doing this at Heathrow is that I have a family Heathrow Rewards card where I can trigger the 3,000 bonus points for spending £150 in one day – if I can do this with 3rd party gift cards bought at WHS, and get £5 back too, even better. (I can’t see myself spending £20 at any of the others, given we don’t run a car.)

  • Bill Rimmer says:
    26 Aug26 August 16:25

    Ref BA corporate Amex card- I have been trying to resolve with Amex why my account has not been credited with 2500 On Business points (which you get with a spend of £25k+ pa) since the end of 2015. Same with 2 other cards on the account. I have been stonewalled several times and been told twice that the credit has been done. It’s a joke.
    When BA moved the On Business spending and earning goalposts, they also wiped all historical transactions, so it’s also impossible to see when these ‘bonuses’ were last awarded.
    After many phone calls and emails I have got nowhere in 3 months. I now intend to write and request a formal answer !
    I don’t know why I am bothering really as the earning capability is so low unless you are PLC and spend £100,000’s every year on employee travel.

  • RussellH says:
    26 Aug26 August 16:39

    Managed to get enrolled for the offer after 30 minutes on chat – it really is appaling cf e-mail. The first time I was getting somewhere when I got logged out and the chat ended.

    I noticed in the Ts+Cs:

    Offer valid online at ocado.com, in-store and online at whsmith.co.uk and in-store only at Shell and Post Office.

    There is also a link to participating sites – I bet all the WH Smiths I see tomorrow will not be included…

    • Steve says:
      26 Aug26 August 17:06

      The Moto Deals app has 20% off today and tomorrow @ W H Smiths if you are on the motorway

      • RussellH says:
        26 Aug26 August 21:48

        Motorway WH Smiths are not in the offer, presumably because they are not WH Smith owned or operated, just branded. They show on Amex as something like “Moto Retail”. Same applies to Waitrose at Welcome Break and Marks+Sparks at Moto. They do not take Waitrose / M+S money off coupons either.

        Thanks for the tip though – although I do not have a phone that runs apps. But an old AA card still works at Moto

  • Chris says:
    26 Aug26 August 23:04

    What is the IT issue with the SPG amex? how did you lose 10,000 SPG points? curious because i’ve just signed up to that card.

    • Alan says:
      27 Aug27 August 02:06

      See other comments, need to ensure spend on card each month to ensure referral points post.

  • Ade says:
    27 Aug27 August 02:25

    Its worth noting,

    I’d previously (weeks ago) via chat got the original 1k amazon deal added to my BA amex, but was not cheeky enough to ask to add to gold at the same time. But when i logged on today to check for the whs offer i note the amazon offer had been added in the last couple of days (buried a couple of pages down in the offers) so it might be worth a trawl to the end of your offers for those of you who never got the amazon offer. And it still works

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