Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Astonishing 70,000 Avios sign-up bonus for the British Airways Premium Plus American Express!

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UPDATE – APRIL 2024:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly directory of the top UK travel credit card offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Credit Cards’ menu above.  Thank you.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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I’ve never seen anything like it. British Airways has just launched an exclusive 70,000 Avios sign-up bonus for the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card.

This is, frankly, shocking. I’ve never seen anything like it in all these years.

Just as surprising is a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Avios on the free British Airways American Express card.

You can learn more about the cards in our British Airways Premium Plus American Express review here and our free British Airways American Express review here.

70,000 Avios British Airways Premium Plus American Express card

Here is the legally required interest rate information on the two cards:

British Airways American Express:

The representative APR is 31.0% variable.

British Airways Premium Plus American Express:

The representative APR is 139.9% variable, including the annual fee.  The representative APR on purchases is 31.0% variable.

Yesterday we wrote about a new ‘open to all’ bonus of 35,000 Avios for the British Airways Premium Plus card. There was no special bonus launched on the free card.

I need to stress that we were not told in advance about this (far) better ba.com exclusive deal. American Express had provided us with details of the 35,000 Avios offer but nothing else. There was even a formal press release circulated to the media on the 35,000 Avios deal on Tuesday evening. No-one bothered to mention that a much better offer was available.

Full details are on this page on the BA website. You must be logged in to see it.

This is what the BA website shows when logged in. You can see this under ‘Avios credit cards’ on the home page:

Get a limited time 70,000 Avios sign-up bonus!

For British Airways Premium Plus, if you sign up by 21st February, you can earn a sign-up bonus of 70,000 Avios when you spend £3,000 in the first three months.

I cannot stress how crazy this offer is. If ANY member of your family qualifies for this bonus, I would persuade them to jump in.

What is even more impressive is that the spending requirement is unchanged. You only need to spend the usual £3,000.

What are 70,000 Avios worth?

This is our main article on what Avios points are worth. We generally say that you should expect at least 1p when used for premium cabin flights.

However, even in the worst possible scenario – that you convert to Nectar points and spend them in Sainsburys, at Argos or at eBay.co.uk – your 70,000 Avios are worth £467 of Nectar credit. Not bad for a sign-up bonus …..

20,000 avios free british airways american express credit card

Do you qualify for the 70,000 Avios bonus?

Remember that you are only eligible for the sign-up bonus on the Premium Plus card if you have NOT held a British Airways American Express (free or Premium Plus) card in the past 24 months.

You ARE eligible if you currently or have held The Platinum Card, Preferred Rewards Gold card, Green card, Nectar card, Platinum Cashback cards, Marriott Bonvoy card, American Express Rewards Credit Card, Business Platinum or Business Gold cards.

You ARE eligible if you are currently a supplementary cardholder on a British Airways American Express card held by someone else, but have not held a card in your own name in the past 24 months.

The bottom line is that if you haven’t had either of the British Airways American Express cards in the past 24 months, you will qualify for the 70,000 Avios.

What about the free British Airways American Express card?

Clearly 20,000 Avios on the free card – requiring a spend of £1,000 in three months – is also exceptional.

However, with a 70,000 Avios bonus on the table with the Premium Plus card, I don’t see why you would want to bother with the free card unless the £3,000 spend target is a problem.

Note that the rules for getting the bonus on the free card are tougher than on the British Airways Premium Plus American Express. The rule is that you cannot have had ANY personal American Express cards in the past 24 months.

The Premium Plus card has far looser rules – you only need to have gone 24 months without any British Airways American Express card.

Conclusion

I have no idea why British Airways has decided to offer such a ludicrously generous offer but only tell people about it via its own website.

The offer runs to 21st February. I strongly recommend you jump in if you can.

The application page is on the BA website here.

If you want to know, we did an article on the core benefits of the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card here. If you don’t want to pay an annual fee, a similar article on the benefits of the free British Airways American Express card is here.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current 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

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus 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

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

British Airways American Express, British Airways and Avios

Comments (567)

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

  • Lucy says:
    28 Jan28 January 17:24

    Partner applied for BA Premium amex using 70k avios link, having never had AMEX or BA exec club account. The card has arrived and he’s logged into the Amex account. We’re now wondering if he needs to now sign up separately to the BA exec club or should an account have already been created? We have no emails or anything from BA

    • Rob says:
      28 Jan28 January 17:41

      You really should have opened the BA account first – BA will open one for you but good luck finding out the number and in particular the password!

      You may want to open one yourself and then ring Amex to give them the number.

  • Andy says:
    29 Jan29 January 18:23

    Anyone else can’t see the progress bar for 70,000 points? Amex useless on live chat as expected. Really struggling where to find it

    • Andy says:
      30 Jan30 January 14:11

      Disregard, it took 3 days to finally show two tracking progress; one for welcome bonus and another for the companion voucher.

  • NR says:
    30 Jan30 January 10:22

    Is it worth while keeping this card open after? Already have the Gold AMEX and Barclaycard for Avios..

    • Morgan says:
      30 Jan30 January 10:29

      I have the Gold too, and my free year ends at the end of Feb, so considering moving to this for the companion voucher.

      Anyone know whether it’s possible to transfer my existing credit limit across?

      • Rob says:
        30 Jan30 January 10:31

        Good question. Amex historically doesn’t work like that but it’s worth calling to check.

        If you apply whilst keeping Gold open you are likely to get a very low limit (Amex doesn’t want to increase its exposure to you) unless you reduce your Gold limit first.

        • Morgan says:
          30 Jan30 January 16:54

          Phoned Amex (I already have my BAPP with a fairly low limit) and asked them to reallocate. Told it’ll be done in 48 hours, but that I won’t be able to request another reallocation for 6 months.

          That’s a fine outcome given I’ll be transferring my points and cancelling the Gold card in the coming weeks 👍

    • Rob says:
      30 Jan30 January 10:33

      If you hit £10,000 each year to earn the 241 voucher AND you earn enough Avios each year to get a ‘good’ redemption from the voucher, then yes. If you won’t use the voucher to its fullest value, probably not.

      Given that you need to spend £3k to trigger the bonus, however, it makes a lot of sense to continue to £10k in Year 1 to get the voucher. After that, decide whether it is worth keeping long term.

  • Martin says:
    30 Jan30 January 12:05

    Is it possible to take out this card to get the 70,000avios after spending £3k, then downgrade. Then later this year when close to the £10k 241 trigger, upgrade to the premium card again?

    • Rob says:
      30 Jan30 January 13:26

      In theory yes, in practice Amex has been getting sniffy with people who try it if they’ve already done it before – although most people who keep calling back seem to eventually find a willing agent.

      • Martin says:
        31 Jan31 January 22:10

        I guess it just makes sense to time getting the card with some big spends then and waiting to downgrade until the 241 voucher is earned.

  • Emma says:
    31 Jan31 January 15:09

    Is there any update on whether BA Amex will honour the 70,000 bonus points they advertised? My husband has just successfully applied but it doesn’t say anywhere what the bonus is. I am concerned because I could only find the 70,000 one using the hfp link to ba page. It will be particularly annoying if we don’t get them as I could have recommended him and got 12,000 points. If they surely they are signing people up under false pretences? That can’t be legal can it?

    • Rob says:
      31 Jan31 January 15:45

      Will be fine, I know people who pushed through £3k quickly and had the 70k credited.

      • soneillirl says:
        31 Jan31 January 16:49

        Hi Rob – you mentioned the other day that Sinead would get in touch with Amex to explore this issue. Did she get a response? One of your readers last week said that he had spend the £3k and had only received 35k avios. Thanks.

        • Rob says:
          31 Jan31 January 17:14

          She is still in the Maldives – no feedback that I know of. We have had discussions with Amex over making offers only available via certain channels and it will not happen again, apparently. We will do what we can to help people on this though.

          • soneillirl says:
            31 Jan31 January 17:36

            Ok – thank you. My tracker is still showing 35k avios, so may need your help when I hit £3k.

          • Arno says:
            1 Feb1 February 11:09

            This happened to me too, and neither Amex or BA are willing to help

          • Paul says:
            1 Feb1 February 14:00

            I pushed through the 3k mark in a week I’ve only been awarded 35k points. The Amex chat person flatly denied any responsibility and said it’s BA’s offer, so it’s their issue. Any ideas?

          • Alun says:
            1 Feb1 February 14:33

            Has happened to me too, only showing 35k, have had 2 chat session with Amex trying to resolve

            1st agent started by insinuating I was lying and that the offer wasn’t even live when I signed up (they accepted it was live after I shared links to screenshots and this page). They then said I needed to wait until I had some confirmed transactions for them to fix it

            Tried again a week later (after I had confirmed transactions), and the 2nd agent said they understood completely but that there wasn’t anything they could actually do to fix it, then just disconnected before I could ask anything else :/

  • NICK UK says:
    1 Feb1 February 05:42

    |If you cancel the card straight after hitting target, do you get a proportion of the £250 fee back pro-rata? Thanks

  • Paul says:
    1 Feb1 February 16:57

    I got my card two weeks ago, hit the 3k mark last Friday, and the Amex website bonus tracker says I’ve been awarded 35000 points. The Amex chat ‘bot’ says it is BA’s problem and they won’t do anything. Is there any way I can get some help?

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

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