If you get a free grandfathered BA Premium Plus Amex, it’s over – but you saved £3,000+

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• Ls says:

  4 Jun4 June 06:46

  Wasn’t the Prem plus card £120/year at some point? Or did I imagine it?

  • Rob says:

    4 Jun4 June 09:14

    As opposed to Premium Plus?

  • Mark says:

    4 Jun4 June 09:56

    I’m sure when they first came out the Premium card was £60 and the Premium Plus card £120, then when they stopped new applications for the Premium card they upped the Premium Plus to £150.

• Ed says:

  4 Jun4 June 07:06

  Hi Rob, what about the 241 voucher first leg can be used for departing from a non Uk airports? You haven’t mentioned that again. Is it a wrong info or Amex/BA hasn’t release the whole terms yet ?

  • meta says:

    4 Jun4 June 08:15

    It’s in the terms.

• Alex Sm says:

  4 Jun4 June 07:10

  Can we assume that let’s say MBNA Horizon cards will be discontinued one day by simply letting the existing cards expire and not reissuing them?

  • Genghis says:

    4 Jun4 June 07:15

    I may be corrected but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an example of when cards are discontinued, that they stop on a card’s expiry date. It’s generally all at once, irrespective of when individual cards expire.

    • Andrew says:

      4 Jun4 June 07:17

      Yes because you can always “lose” your card and it will be reissued with another few years on it.

      • old codger says:

        4 Jun4 June 08:53

        I got a Barclaycard around 2000 and only used if for a free (pre fee) balance transfer. Never purchased anything on the card and may have even transferred the balance to another no fee card or paid it off in full.

        Every 3 years I’d duly get the new cards. Finally last year or the year before they wrote to say if I wanted to keep the card to spend something on it. I meant to, just for the heck of it but forgot!

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      4 Jun4 June 08:13

      Indeed – they would be insane to do it that way, firstly because at the end they’d be runnnng an entire credit card program for a few stragglers and secondly they’d attempt to shunt them onto a non-earningback card and hope to keep a percentage of the customer book no?

  • Andrew says:

    4 Jun4 June 08:17

    There’s multiple versions of the Horizon card. All have the 0.5% rate, but only some have the FX free benefit.

• flyoff says:

  4 Jun4 June 07:50

  Rob, I note your comment about people ditching the Platinum card. I think there will be significant people who are on the £30 rate, who only needed another credit card product, may ditch the BA card with this increase in fee. This will be especially true if two people in the household had this discount as they are likely to have 2-4-1’s awaiting use and don’t need another 2-4-1.

  • Truffman says:

    4 Jun4 June 08:31

    Agreed. I have been paying the £30 rate while holding a no-cost companion credit card. As a single person I mostly use companion vouchers with friends opportunistically, so will most likely downgrade and focus on UUA in future. The old Lloyds upgrade vouchers were much more useful for me.

• StanC says:

  4 Jun4 June 08:13

  I have had an Amex Gold charge card since 1975, so only paid £30 for the BA Premium card…. going to £250 my emails says. Gold card will go.

• StanC says:

  4 Jun4 June 08:18

  PS – it does not require “maths” – simple arithmetic!

• TC says:

  4 Jun4 June 08:20

  Getting rid of the BAPP. I have 3 2-4-1 vouchers and not enough avios to use them for decent long haul flights. Moved spend to Virgin, so will see how that goes. Has anyone got feedback on using the VA upgrade to Premium or a Companion ticket? How easy is the process to upgrade/book? Thanks

  • Sean says:

    4 Jun4 June 08:24

    Using the voucher has to be done by phone – but never had much of a problem – only issue will be availability – no guarantees unlike BA.

  • Travel Strong says:

    4 Jun4 June 08:50

    As above, easy by phone. No weird call centre times or useless agents – every virgin agent is skilled, empowered, and friendly. Easy to see availability on the app before you call (much quicker to see than BA). I’ve never had any issue getting availability if I am a little flexible on dates, although on occasion I have had to book 1 leg in a different class and wait and see if more availability opens later on (it always has). There’s simply a lot less people competing to get the seats compared to avios.

  • Tom says:

    4 Jun4 June 09:20

    Called a few times and they’ve been highly knowledgeable and helpful regarding the voucher. Was easy to book UC to the States with Premium miles by using the voucher also at sales rates so got an absolute bargain. Also hassle free to get back miles, taxes and voucher (less £30 fee) when I had to cancel it because of Covid. I would strongly advise ringing them at 7am on the dot when they open, I’ve managed to get straight through most times whereas I did have one experience of waiting over 2 hours ringing in the afternoon. You snooze you lose! Hope that helps

• Paul says:

  4 Jun4 June 08:26

  I simply do not buy the
  “You saved £3,250 in fees argument” used to soften this blow. You only saved it if you would actually have paid it!
  My anniversary date is August 24th so I am unclear if I’ll get another year of free BAPP or if the charge starts right away.
  For me platinum will be retained
  and BAPP ditched. Family travel is over and my wife and I are sitting in two vouchers which have become harder and harder to use in recent years. Indeed 2/3 of the last vouchers were used on ShortHaul club Europe redemptions.
  Longer term I am more likely to churn and look at alternatives to Amex and BA altogether – if any where available.
  2 club world long haul seats using are nearing £1,200 in fees and as we saw yesterday, sub £1,000 fares ex EU still come along it’s hard to justify the often painful experience of obtaining seats, I have never for example booked 355 days out. I class may improve that but I can’t use my existing vouchers for those.
  This move has been a long time coming I admit, but it again demonstrates very starkly that loyalty is a one way street. For those for who money is no object £825 a year in fees may not be an issue but for many others it is unlikely to be value for money.

  • Andrew says:

    4 Jun4 June 08:55

    I think you’ll be lucky and not have to pay the fee until August 2022 as your anniversary date is before 1 September and the new fee kicks on the anniversary after 1 September.

    • NFH says:

      4 Jun4 June 09:41

      The same happened when Platinum went up from £450 to £575. My increase was delayed for more than a year because of good timing. So Paul will not pay the £250 until 24/08/2022.

      • Paul says:

        4 Jun4 June 09:54

        I have just had confirmation from Amex that fee kicks in August 2022. So a bit of luck there. I will then have old style vouchers till 2024 by which time who knows what will happen

        • NFH says:

          4 Jun4 June 11:37

          So the new companion vouchers (redeemable in I class) apply only to those earnt in a membership year in which a £250 annual fee is paid, not for all vouchers issued after 1st September 2021?

  • Harry T says:

    4 Jun4 June 08:58

    Saying that people saved thousands in card fees over the years also ignores the fact that they could have churned the BAPP numerous times during that period instead and earned many more points from sign up and referral bonuses.

  • Sloth says:

    4 Jun4 June 09:31

    Data can be, and is, always skewed to suit the argument being made

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