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Why should you add an Additional Card to your British Airways American Express Card Account?

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This article is sponsored by American Express

We rarely cover the benefits of American Express Additional Cards (previously called Supplementary Cards) on Head for Points, which is something I intend to rectify. 

Today I want to look at why holders of the British Airways American Express Credit and British Airways American Express Premium Plus Cards should think about adding Additional Cardmembers. 

Our earlier article in January, which you can find here, looked at American Express® Preferred Rewards Gold and The Platinum Card®.

How many Additional Cards can I add?

Before we look at why it is worth adding an Additional Card, I want to quickly summarise the terms.

Additional Cards are complimentary on both of the British Airways American Express Cards. You are allowed up to 99 Additional Cards although I would be surprised if anyone had ever done that!

The term Additional Card refers to the Supplementary Card programme. Additional Cards are subject to approval and applicants must be over 18*.

You are legally responsible for all charges made by holders of Additional Cards on your Account.

Here is the interest rate information:

British Airways American Express

Bonus: 5,000 Avios

Read our full review

Other information:

  • Receive a companion voucher, letting you book two flights for the Avios of one, when you spend £15,000 in a card year
  • This sum is reduced to £12,000 until 1st November 2024
  • The companion voucher is only valid on Economy flights
  • It can be used on British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus
  • Annual fee: Free

Representative 31.0% APR variable

Apply here
See if you qualify for the 5,000 Avios sign-up bonus +

You will receive 5,000 Avios as a sign-up bonus on the free British Airways American Express card if you spend £1,000 within 90 days of signing up.

To qualify for the bonus, you must NOT, currently or in the previous 24 months, have held any other personal American Express card.

You are OK if you had a supplementary card on someone else’s British Airways American Express account.

You are OK if, currently or in the previous 24 months, you have held a Business American Express card.

For clarity, you can still apply for the British Airways American Express card even if you do not qualify for the bonus.  You would still benefit from the companion voucher and the other card benefits.

Learn more about the card benefits +

When you spend £15,000 on the British Airways American Express card, you receive a companion voucher entitling you to book two Avios redemption flights for the miles of one.  This voucher is valid for one year.  (Full taxes and charges need to be paid on both tickets.)

This sum is reduced to £12,000 if you can achieve it by 1st November 2024.

The voucher on the free British Airways American Express card can only be used on Economy flights.

The voucher can be used for Avios bookings on British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus.

You receive your voucher within a few days of reaching the spending target.  You need to fly the outbound leg of your 2-4-1 flight before the expiry date of the voucher.

If you want more flexibility, the voucher issued with the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card is valid for two years, requires the same £15,000 of annual card spend and is valid in ALL cabins including Business and First.  The Premium Plus card also has a higher earning rate of 1.5 Avios per £1 on general spend and 3 Avios per £1 on spend with British Airways and BA Holidays.

You need a minimum personal income of £20,000 to apply for the card.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

Bonus: 25,000 Avios

Read our full review

Other information:

  • Receive a companion voucher, letting you book two flights for the Avios of one, when you spend £15,000 in a card year
  • This is reduced to £10,000 until 1st November 2024
  • A solo traveller can use it for a 50% discount on the Avios for one ticket
  • The voucher is valid in any cabin
  • It can be used on British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus
  • Annual fee: £300

Representative 139.9% APR variable based on an assumed £1,200 credit limit and £300 annual fee. Interest rate on purchases 31.0% APR variable.

Apply here
See if you qualify for the 25,000 Avios sign-up bonus +

You will receive 25,000 Avios as a sign-up bonus on the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card if you spend £3,000 within 90 days of signing up.

To qualify for the bonus, you must not have held the British Airways Premium Plus or the free British Airways American Express cards in the previous 24 months.

You are OK if you had a supplementary card on someone else’s British Airways American Express account.

You are OK if, currently or in the previous 24 months, you have held any other American Express card.

For clarity, you can still apply for the British Airways Premium Plus card even if you do not qualify for the bonus.  You would still benefit from the companion voucher and all of the other card benefits.

Learn more about the card benefits +

When you spend £15,000 on the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card, you receive a companion voucher entitling you to book two Avios redemption flights for the miles of one.

Alternatively, a solo traveller can use the voucher for a 50% reduction on the Avios required for one ticket.

This sum is reduced to £10,000 until 1st November 2024.

This voucher is valid for two years.  Full taxes and charges need to be paid on both tickets.

This voucher is the most valuable perk available in the UK airline and hotel credit card sector in my view. It could save you 150,000 or more Avios when used for a long-haul redemption in a premium cabin.

The voucher with the Premium Plus card is far more powerful than the voucher given with the free British Airways American Express card.  You need to spend the same £15,000 to receive it.  More importantly, the Premium Plus voucher is valid for two years and is valid in ALL cabins.  The voucher on the free British Airways American Express card is only valid for one year and can only be used for Economy flights.

You receive your voucher within a few days of reaching the spending target.  You need to fly the outbound leg of your 2-4-1 flight before the expiry date of the voucher.

The voucher can be used for flights on British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus.

You need a minimum personal income of £35,000 to apply for the card.

Why should you add an Additional Cardmember?

Reason 1 – it is easier to hit your sign-up bonus

Assuming you meet the conditions for receiving a bonus, the British Airways American Express Credit Card comes with a sign-up bonus of 5,000 Avios for making £1,000 of qualifying spend within the first three months of Cardmembership.

The British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card comes with a far higher bonus of 25,000 Avios point but requires a higher qualifying spend of £3,000 within the first three months of Cardmembership.

By adding Additional Cardmembers to your Account, it will be easier to hit the qualifying spend required.

Note that, whilst you can add Additional Cardmembers during the application process, I don’t recommend this. As I explain below, you can earn a bonus by waiting until your Account is open and then adding a Additional Cardmember separately.

Reason 2 – it is easier to earn your annual Companion Voucher

The British Airways American Express Cards offer an annual Companion Voucher.

The British Airways American Express Credit Card offers a companion voucher when you make £20,000 of qualifying purchases within your membership year.

The British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card offers a companion voucher when you make just £10,000 of qualifying purchases within your membership year.

There is an extensive Head for Points guide to how Companion Vouchers work which you can find here.

By issuing Additional Cards on your American Express Account, it will make it easier to earn your annual Companion Voucher.

Reason 3 – you can share your Card benefits with other people

Some, but not all, card benefits are automatically shared with your Additional Cardmembers.

This is most important with The Platinum Card which, as we explained in our earlier article here, gives an exceptionally wide range of travel and insurance benefits to the main Platinum Additional Cardmember.

Each Card comes with Amex Experiences, Travel Accident Insurance and Purchase and Refund protection.

Your Additional Cards will also come with access to Amex Offers **.

American Express offers regular ‘opt in’ promotions which will give you a statement credit, additional Avios or percentage discount for making a qualifying purchase at a participating retailer.

You may not know that the holder of an Additional Card can register it as a stand-alone Card on the American Express website.

If my wife logs in to her Amex Online Account, for example, she can see her own Preferred Rewards Gold Card alongside the Additional Card she has on my Platinum Account.

Importantly, the Additional Card receives its own batch of Amex Offers.  This means that, if an offer appears on both your main Card and the Additional , you can both register for it and earn the reward twice.

Not all offers appear on Additional Cards, but many do.

BA Premium Plus American Express card BAPP

Reason 4 – you can earn bonus Avios for issuing your first Additional Card

American Express has a dedicated page on its website which you can use for issuing Additional Cards.  You can find it here.

The bonus is only paid on the FIRST Additional Card issued on your Account. The Additional Cardholder must at least 18 years old and issuance is subject to American Express approval. 

You will receive:

  • 1,000 Avios for issuing your first Additional Card on the British Airways American Express Credit Card ***
  • 3,000 Avios for issuing your first Additional Card on the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card

The link for issuing Additional Cards is here.

For clarity, you WILL receive a bonus for issuing a Additional Card, subject to approval, even if you did not qualify for the sign-up bonus when you originally applied for the Card.

Reason 5 – having an Additional Card does not stop someone receiving a sign-up bonus for the same Card at a later date

Some people mistakenly believe that having an Additional Card will disqualify them from receiving a sign-up bonus on the same Card in the future.

This is not the case. As I mentioned above, the Primary Cardmember is legally liable for the spending on Additional Cards.

If your Additional Cardmember finds the Card benefits and American Express service useful, they can apply for their own Card, subject to approval. You can even receive a bonus for referring them if they are approved.

If you are able to generate enough qualifying spend, there is a lot of merit in both you and your partner having your own Card and generating two Companion Vouchers between you each year.

With the British Airways American Express Credit Card, you receive at least 4,000 **** bonus Avios for each friend you invite, subject to approval. There is an annual cap of 90,000 bonus Avios from referrals.

The person you refer will, subject to meeting the terms and conditions and qualifying spend, receive a sign-up bonus of 6,000 Avios compared to the usual 5,000 Avios.

With the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card, you receive at least 9,000 bonus Avios* for each friend you invite, subject to approval. There is an annual cap of 90,000 bonus Avios from referrals.

The person you refer will, subject to meeting the terms and conditions and qualifying spend, receive a sign-up bonus of 26,000 Avios compared to the usual 25,000 Avios.

Conclusion

I hope this article has shown you that there are many benefits from issuing a Additional Card on your British Airways American Express Credit or British Airways American Express Premium Plus cards.

The American Express website for requesting an Additional Card is here.

*Information regarding Additional Cards can be found at: The term additional refers to the Supplementary Card programme. More information on this program can be found at: americanexpress.com/uk/benefits/supplementary-cards. Up to 99 Supplementary Cards are complimentary on the British Airways American Express® Premium Plus Card or the British Airways American Express® Card, subject to approval. Supplementary Cards can be requested for anyone aged 18 or over. If approved, you will be responsible for any spending on your Account made by the Supplementary Cardmember.

** Your Supplementary Cardholder will have access to the Amex Offers programme. In order for them to use an Offer, they (Supplementary Cardholder) must save the Offer to their own Card Account. To do this, they can go to the American Express App, find an offer in the Offers tab and click “Save to Card.” For more information please visit: https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/benefits/why-american-express/offers.html

*** The Bonus Avios offer is valid for the first approved Supplementary British Airways American Express® Premium Plus Card or British Airways American Express® Card only. Please note, in rare circumstances it may take up to 90 days for the 3,000 bonus Avios (For British Airways American Express Premium Plus) or 1,000 bonus Avios (for British Airways American Express Card) to be applied to your Account. You may apply for several Supplementary Cards but you will only receive the bonus Avios for the first approved Card. You will not receive this bonus if you have ever received it before. This offer is subject to change and may be withdrawn at any time.

**** Terms and Eligibility Apply. Log in to your American Express Account or American Express® App to see the latest referral offer available. If you are eligible to participate in the Referral Programme, you may refer as many friends or family members as you wish but there are annual limits on the rewards you can earn through referrals. Please visit https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/referral to find out more. Please only refer friends and family who are happy to receive information from American Express. You can earn up to a maximum of 90,000 bonus points or a maximum of £150 cashback per calendar year if you hold a cashback product. Your friend must apply via the link you share with them to ensure you both receive your bonus. All introductory offers are subject to change and can be withdrawn at any time. Your friend will receive rewards depending on the Card they choose and their spend on this Card. Your Card Account’s eligibility to participate in the Referral Programme is based on your overall credit rating and other factors including your Account history with American Express. If payments to your American Express® Card Account are not kept up to date, you could lose your bonus points.

Category

British Airways American Express

Comments (27)

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

  • Anthony says:
    13 May13 May 07:26

    You’ve missed a key (and probably best benefit) – that supplementary cards also benefit from Shop Small

  • JohnT says:
    13 May13 May 08:06

    Doesn’t seem to be any minimum time after main card arrives and is activated/used before adding supp, just done it after 3 days and bonus posted.

  • Julian says:
    13 May13 May 08:20

    Rob,

    There seems to be a small snag with having up to 99 additional cardholders on your Amex account (surely you or someone in your team have the full 99 by now but if not perhaps you can stand outside the local supermarket offering any passer by the right to have one on your account) in the quest to earn yet more Amex membership points bonuses that you have not mentioned.

    Namely that you the main cardholder are then financially liable for all spending on the supplementary cards of any kind. So any membership points benefits will be fast eroded by being responsible for people who can use a card you have let them have to spend from your bank account (that the card bills are reimbursed from) without having any liability towards that expenditure themselves.

    So unless the additional partner is a non earning dependent partner or a child that you trust the expenditure patterns of implicitly and totally is putting additional cardholders on your Amex account to earn a few more membership points not a very financially risky and highly imprudent step?……………………

    • Julian says:
      13 May13 May 08:25

      Or are we saying you request additional cards in other names but then hang on to them yourself and don’t hand them over to the additional cardholders to spend on but spend on them yourself? But wouldn’t creating cardholders who don’t exist and/or using cards in the names of others that you in fact use yourself not in fact be against Amex’s rules and/or the law (Fraud Act)?

      Perhaps there is something glaringly obvious that I am failing to understand fully here?

    • Damian says:
      13 May13 May 08:37

      The article clearly says:

      Additional Cards are complimentary on both of the British Airways American Express Cards. You are allowed up to 99 Additional Cards although I would be surprised if anyone had ever done that!

      You are legally responsible for all charges made by holders of Additional Cards on your Account.

  • Oli says:
    13 May13 May 08:30

    There seem to be bonus on taking supplementary cards until 31 July for cards that do not usually attract a bonus
    E.g. Earn 3,000 bonus Nectar points when you add someone to your Account before 31 July 2021.
    Earn 3,000 bonus Marriott points when you add someone to your Account before 31 July 2021.

  • Julian says:
    13 May13 May 08:34

    You say you rarely cover the benefits of Additional Cards yet I see that I have come across this article in January 2021 here at http://www.headforpoints.com/2021/01/11/american-express-supplementary-card-benefits/

    • DT says:
      13 May13 May 08:41

      Congratulations on finding an article linked near the top of this article that Rob acknowledges as the last time he wrote about supp cards

      • Julian says:
        13 May13 May 09:04

        Is Rob using a special dictionary then to interpret the word “rare”?

        Mind you this has got me thinking about the whole Amex card churning and recycling game and how I was rashly lured in to emailing 50 or so people I know encouraging them to become Amex cardholders before the recent higher new card signup bonuses ended. But I would be surprised if even one or two of those people actually take out a new card due to my email.

        But probably that’s age profile as if I had lots of friends in their late 20s or early 30s in decent jobs then quite a few of them might actually become genuinely new Amex cardholders for the first time………..

        • Lawro says:
          13 May13 May 14:54

          “Rashly lured in to emailing 50 or so people” 😂😂 that’s got to be one of your best yet!

      • Julian says:
        13 May13 May 09:12

        Some of the comments in the article such as hitting your BA Companion Voucher earlier imply real new expenditure being incurred on your Amex account (even if that would need real new people to do so) but some of the comments imply the original cardholder simply taking out additional cards to split their total existing spending across more cards than before in order to earn more additional card signup bonuses.

        Presumably in reality both courses of action are being recommended here although I would imagine Amex only really enjoy seeing new cardholders that create real new additional spending with American Express.

        Of course with Tesco customers did make real new additional purchases they would not otherwise have made but Tesco didn’t like them only targeting a small number of products with very high and unusual numbers of additional Clubcard bonus points.

        I suppose that basically Rob and his team are in the game of arbitrage type anomalies in points bonuses awarded by different credit card schemes of one kind or another……….

        • Richard says:
          13 May13 May 17:26

          You saw that this article is sponsored by Amex, right? I’ve no idea whether they got to sign off on the exact wording, but it’s fair to assume they generally approve of what it says.

          I also don’t really understand why it’s in their interest to work with a site which is all about gaming their bonuses… but they know their business far better than I do, so clearly, it is.

          • Rob says:
            13 May13 May 17:37

            New Amex customers acquired via HfP spend more money with the company than customers acquired via any other route. Fact.

  • mark2 says:
    13 May13 May 08:46

    Another benefit of Additional Cards is that they often, but not always, get offers. This is especially useful to me in the case of Shop Small which you told us https://www.headforpoints.com/2021/04/12/american-express-shop-small-to-return-in-june/ will return on 5th June.(Any more news?)

  • Lola says:
    13 May13 May 10:33

    If I have gold and ba free. Open additional cards on both card, do I received two bonus or just one?

  • RWJ says:
    13 May13 May 12:58

    I want to get one for my mum but she doesn’t want any checks against her name. Presumably they just do an ID check rather than a credit check? Do they send the card to my house as the bill payer or to hers as the applicant do you know?

    • Rob says:
      13 May13 May 13:03

      Just an ID check. Card will come to you.

      • A says:
        13 May13 May 14:04

        They don’t do any sort of check. My dog used to have one, as did my father-in-law and mother-in-law living overseas

        • Rob says:
          13 May13 May 14:15

          They do, because we have had nannies rejected.

          • Bagoly says:
            13 May13 May 15:11

            Probably now need to be on the Electoral Roll?

          • A says:
            13 May13 May 16:26

            Hmm. That certainly doesn’t align with my experience. In addition to my older cards in dog names and such, in the past couple of months I opened extra supp cards in fictitious names with no issues (nothing nefarious…it was to get around purchase per card limit reasons – for spend/flip reasons) and have done exactly this before. With the name being fictitious, it doesn’t exist on the electoral roll or have a credit history – so I can’t see what checks could be done? The dog definitely isn’t on the electoral roll.

          • John says:
            13 May13 May 16:50

            Maybe because the nanny was on the electoral roll and they did a soft check?

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