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Should the BAPP Amex let you earn tier points permanently, perhaps instead of Avios?

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The news yesterday that British Airways will start offering Executive Club tier points for British Airways Premium Plus American Express spend generated a huge amount of feedback. Our article had over 350 comments by the end of the day.

As I said yesterday, I feel that it’s the right idea but wrongly executed, although a fair attempt at a first stab.

Let’s look into this in more detail.

Should the BAPP Amex let you earn tier points permanently, perhaps instead of Avios?

I had four issues with the offer. You need to understand that my key starting points when looking at any loyalty deal are whether it is easy to understand and how it plays on human psychology.

The spend threshold starts too high

You need to spend £15,000 within six months to start to benefit from this offer. This is too high and will simply lead to too many people tuning out.

It would make more sense to start earning tier points at £5,000 of qualifying spend for 50 tier points. Most people would earn something this way, and once a member had a handful of tier points it would – psychologically – encourage them to look into ways of earning more.

Remember that it costs BA NOTHING to give out tier points if the member does not go on to earn or retain status. It’s a different dynamic to Avios, where giving someone a handful of Avios which are never used requires IAG Loyalty to accrue for them on its balance sheet for three years.

The number of tier points should be uncapped

You can’t be half pregnant. If you’re going to give out tier points based on card spend, you should allow people to earn status entirely on card spend.

If someone wants to spend £60,000 to earn a British Airways Executive Club Silver card from scratch, assuming they also fly four segments, they should be able to (and the same for spending £150,000 to earn Gold).

Anyone who isn’t flying enough to earn status is unlikely to be flying enough to cost British Airways a fortune in lounge access etc. Some people who gained status via this route would also move travel to BA from other airlines to benefit from it.

Running a six month offer only benefits people with certain membership year end dates

Another issue with this trial is that, even if you were keen to take part, you may find that the way your year end falls counts you out. If you could spend a consistent £5,000 per month on your BA Premium Plus American Express card but your BA year end is 8th March, you’d trigger 100 tier points in your current 2023/24 year (which may be wasted) and 100 in the following 2024/25 year.

Should the BAPP Amex let you earn tier points permanently, perhaps instead of Avios?

There are issues for people who have stopping using a BA Amex because they have spent £9,999

Some people have spent £9,999 on their cards and are holding off spending more so they don’t trigger their annual 2-4-1 companion voucher unnecessarily early – although I published the obvious solution for that problem here.

I spent nothing on my BA card between February 2023 (when I was above £9,500) and the last week of October 2023 because I wanted to ensure the 2-4-1 voucher would be valid for October half term in 2025.

If BA is going to give out tier points on card spend, it ALSO needs to address the issue of people deliberately holding off using their card to avoid triggering their voucher early.

An idea: should British Airways offer Avios OR tier points?

Ever since interchange fee caps cut the money that credit card companies have to fund travel rewards, I have been pushing the idea of giving out elite status instead of miles.

(Iberia has been offering the equivalent of British Airways Bronze status with one of its credit cards for some years now – all you need to do is pay a €100 annual card fee. IAG isn’t against the concept of ‘selling’ status.)

What would happen if you were given a choice with your British Airways Premium Plus American Express?

  • earn 1.5 Avios per £1 (as you do now) or
  • earn 0.75 Avios per £1 and receive 1 tier point per £100 spent?

Why would BA do this? Because it makes financial sense – and financial sense is something that BA understands.

The airline targets a 10% operating profit margin from flying, although it is currently doing better. Bear this in mind.

Let’s assume that BA started to offer the two options above and I chose the second – 0.75 Avios per £1 and 1 tier point per £100 spent on my Premium Plus card.

Should the BAPP Amex let you earn tier points permanently, perhaps instead of Avios?

To earn British Airways Executive Club Silver status at 600 tier points would require £60,000 of credit card spend. I’d also receive (60,000 x 0.75) 45,000 Avios, instead of the 90,000 Avios I’d get at the standard rate of 1.5 Avios per £1.

Let’s assume Amex pays BA the same amount of money either way. Instead of paying BA around £750 for issuing 90,000 Avios, it pays BA £750 for issuing 45,000 Avios and giving me a Silver card.

Basically, BA will have been paid £375 for giving me a Silver card.

Because the airline targets a 10% profit margin on flights, BA makes the same profit on this as if I’d spent £3,750 on flying.

This is a big win for the airline.

Let’s assume I try to earn Silver from scratch by flying. A good ‘tier point run’ would cost around £2 per tier point. You can beat this – Heathrow to Sofia in Club Europe is currently as low as £210 return in March / April / May for 160 tier points, and you’d get another 80 tier points with a connection by starting outside London. Stay five nights in Sofia, book via BA Holidays, and you’d earn double tier points.

At £2 per tier point, I could earn Silver by spending (600 tier points x £2 per tier point) £1,200 on flights. BA would make £120 of profit this way based on a 10% margin. Instead, it would be getting £375 of profit by letting Amex buy me a Silver card.

Even someone with no real idea of what makes a good tier point run should be able to pick up a Silver card by spending far less than £3,750, generating less than £375 of profit for BA.

‘Selling’ status this way is actually good business sense for the airline.

This offer isn’t for you? That’s fine

Clearly this offer wouldn’t be for everyone. That’s fine.

BA doesn’t want it to be for everyone due to lounge capacity etc. After all, when everyone’s a princess, no-one’s a princess (a lesson I learned from reading ‘Olivia and the Fairy Princess‘ to my daughter when she was five – I can sense the blank looks from readers who don’t have a young daughter ….)

There are so many British Airways Premium Plus American Express cardholders – I am guessing 100k-ish – that BA would only want a couple of percent to earn status purely via card spend.

The extra revenue generated from this couple of percent of cardholders who went for it, gung ho, would be worthwhile for both American Express and BA, however.

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Category

British Airways American Express, British Airways and Avios

Comments (118)

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

  • Jim says:
    22 Nov22 November 09:48

    Maybe they should offer a upgrade voucher to add a level to your status, instead of the companion voucher.

    Would be simple and still only give the main benefits to those who collect at least 300 tier points from flights

    • Colin MacKinnon says:
      22 Nov22 November 10:11

      Like your idea Jim.

      I think you need things like this that would incentive sign-ups, and therefore loyalty to BA.

      What about pick one of these every year?

      Bronze as a basic for £10k. Get the priority queue for check-in. Well, that will appeal to the bucket and spade 241ers.

      Upgrade one level voucher, as you suggest.

      Or choose your seat for free. (For the whole year, or for one trip – including all in your party, etc)

      Or get an extra hold bag for free – even on the super-cheap economy fares. (Again, for the whole year, or x trips etc)

      Or get lounge access….

      A little like IHG’s promotions, with suite upgrades, food and beverage tokens, lounge access etc.

      Makes it all a bit of fun, and doesn’t annoy the super high fliers.

  • TomB says:
    22 Nov22 November 10:05

    How can anyone think status isn’t worth having?

    Most of my short haul work flights are in BA Economy but being silver is a blessing. Fast track, lounge, priority boarding… makes the whole experience much more bearable. Once I board the plane I couldn’t care less whether I’m sat in Economy or Club Europe but those ‘business class’ perks you get with Silver for economy flights are a gamechanger. Bronze however has little value for business travellers not checking in bags.

    • NPWharf says:
      22 Nov22 November 13:34

      Guess it depends on your flight pattern. I live in the North of England, so only BA flights I take are longhaul and in either Business or First using avios – so couldn’t care less about status. Obviously makes sense for you though.

  • David S says:
    22 Nov22 November 10:07

    Why not give a small number of Tier points for taking an Avios flight with BA (and not any other one World Carrier). It keeps the spend with BA due to the extortionate cash component, which most readers would put on their BAPP. Say 5 tier points for short haul and 25 for long haul.

    • QFFlyer says:
      22 Nov22 November 12:58

      This is what Qantas do (albeit as part of their Points Club/Points Club Plus program, which requires earning a number (150k/350k) QF points on the ground each year (max 20k can come from flying)), and it works, in my case at least – I seek out redemptions on QF metal where possible, since I earn status credits on those, as opposed to competitors on the same routes but which QF partner with (either as part of Oneworld or otherwise).

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      22 Nov22 November 14:21

      Another thing that VS have been doing for a while!

  • Chris W says:
    22 Nov22 November 10:11

    Offering both (reduced) Avios and TPs seems too generous for someone like Amex or BA to offer.
    I imagine if it happened if would be one or the other, not both.

  • L Allen says:
    22 Nov22 November 10:12

    It seems that BA is focussing its core market on customers based in the UK and USA. What does it offer to customers in Europe where it has more competition from the likes of Lufthansa Group, etc?

    The Double TP holiday, the Amex offer, the LCY discounted Avios, etc etc all alienate European based customers.

    • JDB says:
      22 Nov22 November 10:22

      Funny that BA would opt to focus on its key markets. Anyway, as it happens, BA offers continental based passengers significantly lower long haul cash fares than a passenger starting in the UK. You also have various country specific cards offering distinctive local offers in conjunction with local partners that we can’t access.

      This new TP offer is inevitably restricted to BA Amex cards as BA doesn’t have a deal with Amex in say France or Germany.

    • Andy says:
      22 Nov22 November 19:31

      Based on the experience of friends in Amsterdam BA offers cheaper flight prices for those in Europe

      My friend seems to often get business class flights on BA way cheaper than someone in the UK

  • JDB says:
    22 Nov22 November 10:14

    All the comments about holding back spending to avoid triggering the voucher seem to be encouraging Amex to introduce the system like Barclays whereby one can get the voucher at the time of one’s choosing or simply only award the voucher each anniversary. The latter option would probably cause a lot of complaints initially but be simpler to implement.

    Either option would have the additional benefit of further clamping down on the upgrade/downgrade freeloaders who may not be caught by the removal of pro-rata refunds for cancellation.

    • FatherOfFour says:
      22 Nov22 November 10:37

      I’d much prefer the former, not because of removal of pro-rata refunds, but because I want to be able to get to a position of having 2 “live” vouchers valid for a particular time. (Ultimately I want to get 3 within the family)

  • strickers says:
    22 Nov22 November 10:17

    A few thoughts, firstly, whilst the offer in its current form isn’t for me as I’m £1k away from my 241 with a card renewal in May so as many others it sits in the drawer until nearer the time. The £1k is to allow for any too good to miss offers come along.

    I understand this is a trial but a longer term offer would allow me to factor in 100-150 tier points in a push to achieve Bronze. I would probably move 1 flight a year from Avios to cash to allow me seat selection at 7 days.

    Finally, what I find somewhat perplexing is that the BAPP is the Amex card that appears to be trying to innovate whilst the Plat seems stagnant with no true game-changers. BAPP; 241 on more airline, additional I class especially from the regions, tier points from spending. Plat; have a refund from lots of place you probably wouldn’t go to and a few thousand points if you don’t leave. You can also have a 10% fee increase with no additional benefits and we are stopping pro rata refunds!

    • JDB says:
      22 Nov22 November 10:35

      I commented yesterday how stale Amex’s two core cards are and that it’s only having a partner that seems to wake up their ideas. Amex was the hare, being the UK market leader in the premium card space but it seems blissfully unaware of all the tortoises catching up. They are so arrogant, I hope their UK business will soon be a case study for A level economics like Schweppes/Fever Tree.

      Obviously Amex will be totally fine in the US because of the interchange fees, something all the card companies are spending hundreds of millions in lobbying costs to kill various proposals to limit them saying it will hurt the consumer!

      • Colin MacKinnon says:
        22 Nov22 November 12:07

        @JDB Never saw the promised benefits from the drop in interchange fees. My favourite Pound shop didn’t become a 98p shop, my Buckfast is still £9.99 in the local petrol station and my McLaren went up in price!

      • Mikeact says:
        23 Nov23 November 01:35

        Quite right too….I guess they operate as totally stand alone operation in the UK, with little US “You will do as we tell you. “…Hence rubbish and totally arrogant management. And there are still numerous places that will not accept Amex and of course not just the UK, not forgetting the 3% overseas factor.

  • Dan says:
    22 Nov22 November 10:34

    Anyone with any vague insight of airlines and credit cards existence/split share revenue from annual fees, interest, and other card-related charges? If we are talking of elevating the use of the BAPP card from. £10K to £60K, I can’t imagine that BA would not gain as well a piece of those extra interests, fees etc.

    Maybe also invaluable extra customers data and leverage to achieve better deals with Amex for everything else too.

    Ultimately, the move to open tier point on credit card spending, if open year round and uncapped, would probably increase the financial evaluation of Avios/BA/IAG as a company in line with AA?

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