A positive suggestion for improving the British Airways American Express cards

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

• points_worrier says:

  23 Feb23 February 05:28

  Putting it bluntly, surely Amex don’t want your spend? For the time you are in a drawer, Amex are getting a fee, and not having to pay BA for avios. Remember because it is cobranded, there is an interchange fee cap of 0,3%, so Amex can’t be making much/any profit off the spend.

  • Rui N. says:

    23 Feb23 February 06:59

    Always amazed that people really think that Amex doesn’t know what they are doing and that they lose money with their customers.

    • No longer Entitled says:

      23 Feb23 February 07:38

      They lose money with me all the time. They have just given me 77,000 Avios for £18 plus the administration cost of opening and closing the account and printing and distributing the card.

      • R says:

        23 Feb23 February 08:20

        How are you managed this?

        • Rui N. says:

          23 Feb23 February 08:44

          He’s calculating what he thinks are the fees that Amex gets from his spending.

      • Rui N. says:

        23 Feb23 February 08:45

        Totally the same case as an ongoing customer keeping spending on his card! Really relevant!

      • No longer Entitled says:

        23 Feb23 February 08:56

        There was a 70,000 Avios sign up, plus 3,000 for adding a supplemental card, plus about 4,000 for the spend.

        The £18 relates to the one month fee incurred before the card was cancelled. In fairness to Rui N’s point, they would have made a further £9 from the card fees at 0.3%, less cost.

        • Gareth says:

          23 Feb23 February 10:52

          Exactly what I plan to do

    • Charles Martel says:

      23 Feb23 February 09:45

      They obviously don’t lose money (on average) but are they making as much as they could? I have an Amex plat but mainly spend on my Barclaycard because I still have a target to hit for their Avios discount/upgrade voucher.

• BJ says:

  23 Feb23 February 05:38

  Since you’re doing our letter to Santa early this year my BA/amex companion voucher wish list is that it be valid on Qatar Airways, or better still – any BA codeshare.

  • Andrew J says:

    23 Feb23 February 05:40

    +1!

  • Rob says:

    23 Feb23 February 07:03

    This will cost money though. My idea costs nothing.

    • memesweeper says:

      23 Feb23 February 07:56

      …except the IT cost of the implementation. Amex would have to pass over extra data, and BA embed that. There are other things I’d wish BA fixed first, like all the brokenness around the Barclays voucher.

      • Bagoly says:

        23 Feb23 February 08:59

        I don’t see any extra data.
        It is to the end of the Amex card year, not the BA tier year.
        Amex already send BA an expiry date for each voucher – it would just be a different one.

        Agree that any IT change in a less-than-optimally managed department costs a non-trivial amount, but this does look to be one of the smaller ones, and it would bring extra income to Amex.

        • VALittleRed says:

          23 Feb23 February 09:58

          There would have to be extra data transfer from Amex to BA as BA has no idea when your Amex card membership year runs from/to. So every time a voucher is sent across it would have to give BA an expiry date. Whereas it is likely now that BA just set a 2-year expiry when voucher hits your BA account.

• Andrew J says:

  23 Feb23 February 05:39

  I would welcome this change too as I usually obtain my voucher in the first month, or maybe two at a stretch. I do however continue to use my card as I like the 1.5 or 3 Avios per GBP spent.

• zapato1060 says:

  23 Feb23 February 05:57

  After hitting the 10k, how long does it take before receiving the 241 in your BA account?

  • Stuart says:

    23 Feb23 February 06:03

    A day or so

  • Sunlit says:

    23 Feb23 February 06:09

    I triggered spend over £10k on a Sunday afternoon, the transaction cleared on Monday, and I received a companion voucher email in the early hours of Tuesday morning (I.e. Monday night).

    • zapato1060 says:

      23 Feb23 February 06:24

      Brilliant thanks. Because I find my avios themselves are taking ages to hit my BA account. Like 4 weeks.

      • Rui N. says:

        23 Feb23 February 06:59

        Avios are only transferred once per month

• Stuart says:

  23 Feb23 February 06:03

  About to put mine in the drawer and switch my spending too until after the summer holidays!

• Tim says:

  23 Feb23 February 06:10

  Other suggestions would be for Premium Plus card holders to get the economy avios perks of a GCH, such as the ability to book using double points and the enhanced availability. Similarly, people who subscribe for the highest annual Avios subscription. Each should arguably also get a Silver card, at least.

  • dougzz99 says:

    23 Feb23 February 09:50

    But that devalues status. Look at Hilton status in the US, means nothing because everyone has it.

  • Lady London says:

    23 Feb23 February 14:07

    It’s the way frequent flier accrual has been heading recently, sadly you might be right.

    I’d prefer if a useful layer of benefits could only be earned by b*ms in seats ie flying

• pauldb says:

  23 Feb23 February 06:22

  Evidently, what Amex really want you to do is trigger the vouchers, cancel the cards, and re-apply in about six months time – saving yourself about £250. (Referral and sup card bonuses too.)

  I held my original BAPP for over 20 years but at >£20/month it doesn’t get to sit in a drawer.

• Tim Slater says:

  23 Feb23 February 06:28

  Completely agree and have done exactly the same, in the draw for a good few months and onto the Barclaycard. The new vouchers are great though and I’ve managed to bag 2 x business class to Sydney in January 2024 through the online system!

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