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A positive suggestion for improving the British Airways American Express cards

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Over the last 18 months, British Airways and American Express have done a lot of fiddling with the two British Airways American Express credit cards.

You can see the current features in our British Airways Premium Plus American Express review here and our free British Airways American Express review here.

On the whole, this has been positive – in particular the ability to open up additional reward availability in Club World for British Airways redemptions when using a companion voucher. Adding Aer Lingus and Iberia to the 241 was handy for some, as is letting solo travellers fly for half Avios.

There is one change that I still feel is overdue, however.

How to improve the British Airways Premium Plus American Express credit card

Both my wife and I have our own Premium Plus cards, meaning we generate 2 x 241 companion vouchers each year. Because we have two children, this works well as it covers a family holiday.

Whilst the renewal dates on the two cards differ by three months, we try to time our spend so that we trigger the vouchers at roughly the same time.

This year we have got a little carried away. Whilst the membership year on my own card only started a few weeks ago, due to some spending on our home I am almost at the £10,000 cap to trigger my voucher.

Due to a trip to Scotland over New Year, amongst other things, my wife is also nearly at her £10,000 cap after three months.

But we don’t want to trigger our vouchers now ….

Here’s the snag. I have no interest in triggering our vouchers now.

We already have two unused vouchers, probably for October 2023 half term use.

We only really have two opportunities in the year for long haul holidays, which are over Easter and over October half term. With GCSEs looming next year, I don’t see us doing much next Easter so my next set of vouchers is likely to be used in October 2024. It could be even later, given that I have a lot of Lufthansa miles and Virgin Points to use too.

How to improve the British Airways American Express credit card

What this means is …. our two British Airways American Express Premium Plus cards are now going to go into a drawer. I will probably dig them out in November and put through the last few hundred pounds on each to trigger our next vouchers, which will allow us to use them as late as half term in October 2025 if necessary.

Where is the value in this for British Airways and American Express? I will now be moving our family spending to other cards, even though I would be perfectly happy to keep picking up 1.5 Avios per £1 on my Premium Plus card.

There seems to be a very simple answer to this problem

Your 2-4-1 Premium Plus companion voucher should be valid for the rest of your current Amex membership year plus two years.

At the moment it is valid for two years from the date of issue. I believe it should be for the rest of your current card year PLUS TWO YEARS. The expiry date should not be impacted by when you trigger the voucher.

If this rule was currently in place, I would happily keep spending on my Premium Plus card. Because it isn’t, I won’t.

I don’t see who loses under my proposed scenario. Cardholders don’t have to mess around juggling their spend to ensure they trigger their voucher to maximise its life. American Express and British Airways profit from additional card spend. Let’s get it done!

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Category

British Airways American Express

Comments (194)

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

  • Milaneser says:
    23 Feb23 February 15:17

    OT – but just a heads up you can get around 0.7-0.8p of value per IHG point on Reward Nights at the new Voco on the Palm in Dubai during March through May… stacks very very nicely with the buy points offer on at the moment.

  • Jon F says:
    23 Feb23 February 15:40

    Same issue. I have the standard card so 241 voucher only valid for 12 months. I spend up to limit minus aprox £100 after about 7 months. The card goes away and I do all my spending on a Mastercard until I’m ready to trigger the voucher. A weekly shop usually does it. With the 12 month voucher it is even more critical to time it right!

  • Kazim says:
    23 Feb23 February 15:46

    Allow more than one voucher to be earned in a calendar year- this will surely encourage continued spending on the card.

    Also, allow the voucher to be allowed by any member of a household account even if the cardholder is not travelling.

    • Rob says:
      23 Feb23 February 16:09

      Won’t happen – a) too expensive, b) will lead to people selling vouchers for £1k so not happening.

  • Julia says:
    23 Feb23 February 15:47

    Haven’t got the BA card but the Marriott card’s just as bad. Have already met next year’s Titanium requirement and only spent roughly £4,500ish on it. My only incentive now is to spend another £20,500 to just earn a middling free night. Bizarre.!

    • TGLoyalty says:
      23 Feb23 February 17:13

      Uh the card and titanium status aren’t linked at all

      • Julia says:
        23 Feb23 February 20:12

        You need to spend £25,000 on the Marriott Amex card to get the free night. However as I’ve already stayed enough this year to renew my Titanium status for 2024 there’s no reason to put any more spend through the card till next year.

        • Cranzle says:
          23 Feb23 February 20:40

          Except to earn Bonvoy points for redemptions? Which is surely the main selling point of the card? I have never used the free night as I generally don’t stay in the category of property.

          • Rob says:
            23 Feb23 February 20:58

            It is better now that you can top it up by 15,000 points, although I had to go out of my way in Paris to use my last one, even at a 40,000 points budget.

          • Julia says:
            23 Feb23 February 21:02

            I can’t justify actively seeking extra points for redemptions since dynamic pricing came in. Now, once I’ve renewed our hotel statuses I shift all spending to the transparent Amex and collect MR points. It works for us but each to their own.

        • TGLoyalty says:
          23 Feb23 February 23:15

          So now you’ve hit titanium you’re going to stop staying … makes no sense

  • Simon says:
    23 Feb23 February 16:12

    I don’t really see the problem here, 2 years validity is pretty good, you just have to time your BA amex spend carefully. And perhaps move onto using barclaycard earlier.

    However as we can leverage jokers and gufs with our 2 annual companion vouchers we do have more flexibility than most, it can be very difficult otherwise to find 4 long haul business reward seats to most destinations.

  • Ian McDowall says:
    23 Feb23 February 16:28

    Why not allow the card holder to choose when it is activated.
    We achieved just under 10k on both our cards after 6 months so they’ve just sat in a drawer. Mine for another 3 weeks, my wife’s until June.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      23 Feb23 February 17:13

      Or Amex can just say it’s at the end of the year …

      Leave well alone please

    • TGLoyalty says:
      23 Feb23 February 17:13

      Or Amex can just say it’s at the end of the year …

      Leave well alone please

      • JDB says:
        23 Feb23 February 18:46

        @TGLoyalty – the debate having been started via this article, presumably with the intention/expectation Amex would read it there was always the risk that other more sensible views would be expressed. Perhaps an amalgam of views – voucher on anniversary with much higher spend threshold and whatever, stop all the cancellers/downgraders getting the benefits they don’t pay for.

  • e14 says:
    23 Feb23 February 16:31

    Just downgrade yourself, problem solved

  • Stu_N says:
    23 Feb23 February 17:30

    Is the issue that the 10k threshold is too low? It’s been 10k since 2014 when I first got into this game – if linked to inflation it would be about £12,500 now.

    This would help solve the problem of people hitting it too early and also if earning the 2-4-1 is too easy, increasing the threshold would reduce the strain on redemption availability by reducing the number of vouchers in circulation.

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

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