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BIG NEWS: BA Amex annual fee AND voucher qualifying spend to rise sharply

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American Express has announced some unwelcome changes to the two British Airways American Express credit cards today.

The fee for the Premium Plus card will increase to £300. This is effective immediately for new applications.

The annual spend required to receive a 2-4-1 companion voucher will increase to £15,000 in November. This applies to both cards.

BA Amex fee AND voucher qualifying spend to rise sharply

The British Airways Premium Plus fee will rise to £300

This is the easiest change to get your head around.

The fee for the Premium Plus card will increase from the current £250 per year to £300 per year.

The fee increase will apply:

  • from today, if you are a new applicant for the card
  • for your next renewal after 1st August, if you already have the card

This means that if your renewal date is in April, May, June or July, your card will renew at the current £250. You will not pay the higher fee until your subsequent renewal in 2025.

If your next renewal date is after 1st August 2024, you will pay £300 from your next renewal.

The 2-4-1 companion voucher will require £15,000 of spending

This change is more complex because it is NOT linked to your current card year.

From 1st November, you will need to spend £15,000 to receive a 2-4-1 companion voucher. This applies to BOTH the free British Airways American Express card and the Premium Plus version.

The change will kick in on 1st November for both new and existing cardholders.

This means that you are now under pressure to hit your current membership year spend target by 31st October. If you don’t, you’ll need to spend £15,000 instead.

Here’s an example. Let’s assume that you have the Premium Plus card and that your card year runs to 1st February. You will need to either:

  • spend £10,000 by 31 October 2024, or
  • spend £15,000 by 31 January 2025

…. to earn your next voucher. From 1st February 2025, when your membership year renews, you will need to spend £15,000.

BA Amex fee AND voucher qualifying spend to rise sharply

As a reminder, this is how the companion vouchers currently work:

  • the free British Airways American Express card awards a 2-4-1 companion voucher when you spend £12,000 in your membership year. The voucher is valid for one year for an Economy flight redemption on British Airways, Aer Lingus or Iberia.

What do we think?

The increase in the annual fee is not easy to justify. American Express is pointing to improvements in card benefits (the ability for a solo traveller to use it for a 50% Avios discount, the ability to use it on Aer Lingus and Iberia) but for 90% of cardholders these changes have no impact.

(The solo traveller benefit IS valuable, but by default most existing cardholders applied when the voucher was only usable by two people and don’t need this functionality. The ‘value’ in the solo traveller discount is all for the benefit of Amex, since solo travellers are now applying for the card when they wouldn’t previously.)

It will be interesting to see how many people decide that the maths no longer stacks up.

I am more amenable to the increase in annual spend. The card is now over 20 years old and the spend target for the Premium Plus voucher was £10,000 from the start. £10,000 in 2004 is equivalent to over £17,000 in 2024, so it is hard to argue with £15,000.

What should you do if you can’t spend £15,000 per year?

We’ll look at this in a separate article later in the week.

Fundamentally:

  • there is little value in having the free British Airways American Express card if you can’t spend £15,000 per year on it – it makes more sense to have the free American Express Rewards credit card or the free Barclaycard Avios Mastercard
  • there is absolutely no value in having the Premium Plus card (beyond the first year and the big sign-up bonus) if you can’t spend £15,000 to earn the voucher. This isn’t up for discussion.

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Category

British Airways American Express, British Airways and Avios

Comments (623)

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

  • Will says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:00

    It would be nice if they could make it more flexible with one way trips.

    A companion return is effectively 2 x avios funded one way trips + 2 x complimentary companion one way trips.

    It would be good if they allowed a voucher to be used on 4 x one way flights like this.

    I’ve “wasted” vouchers on one way trips and it grinds that they don’t allow you to use the voucher on the same number of sectors as someone booking a return.

  • Shayne says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:00

    What if I take out the BAPP now? Is the spend still 10k before November to get the companion voucher, the topic reads different but that’s how I read it in their terms

  • Phil says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:02

    Increase spend makes sense, but I think this is what they call in the trade ‘moving the goalposts’. I’d be shocked if a lot of people don’t kick up a stink who were already are at the margins when they applied.

  • Mike Hunt says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:03

    We definitely need more articles on manufactured spend – I will certainly struggle to hit the £15K spend threshold – whilst I have no shortage of income, I don’t really spend much

    • Michael says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:50

      Yeah absolutely, I’m sure we can expect a number of articles by Rob and Rhys about MS.

      Sheesh.

      • Rob says:
        10 Apr10 April 10:02

        If anyone’s got any secret MS loopholes which have been quietly working well for them, drop us a note and we’ll share them with our 50,000 daily visitors, which includes virtually everyone working in credit card and travel loyalty in the UK.

    • ankomonkey says:
      10 Apr10 April 10:07

      My VS card now must be paid off using my bank’s app rather than a debit card. I bank with First Direct. When paying the VS card bill yesterday, I had to locate ‘Virgin Money Credit Card’ from the FD ‘Card’ company list (in alphabetical order but can be searched). I nearly spat my Golden Grahams all over my laptop screen when I saw ‘3V’ something or other at the top of the list. I was ready to ignite my MS engine for the first time in about 10 years.

  • FEMW says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:10

    I will discuss with my frugal husband but looks like we will probably cancel.

    • Russell G says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:43

      Woohoo, more availability incoming! Please convince your friends and family to do the same!

  • Euan says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:11

    I was on the verge of upgrading my free BA Amex to the Premium plus as I could just about hit the companion spend threshold for the first time and the added year to use it would be beneficial but was a close call. Won’t be upgrading now.

    Also think the value of referral bonuses is often overlooked on here, it is a key benefit ahead of the Barclaycard equivalent.

    • Alex G says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:13

      Many of us no longer get referral bonuses!

      • Euan says:
        10 Apr10 April 09:15

        Is the referral bonus a targeted offer?

      • Mostlycloudy says:
        10 Apr10 April 17:38

        That was the case for us however a recent referral from a niece who still had the facility to refer landed me the Plat business card with which I have now been successful in referring 2 people for the nectar card at 35000 MR each. win win. First referrals from me in 17 month. Just when you think it’s all over LOL.

  • RichFamilyFlyer says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:11

    I am ambivalent to this news in the sense, that the BAPP companion is the holy grail of airline vouchers, and for my personal circusmtances both the fee and spend stack up for a family of 4 (albeit long-haul only). Purely a simple anaylsis of the companion vchr saving would be far in excess of the £300 fee, that being said its another fee on top of ever increasing fees elsewhere, and it would be remiss for me to not mention the remarkably competitive Qatar Airways ‘standard’ reward seats; whereas in October I’m looking to book 2 adult, 1 child and 1 infant to Doha for 266k avios and £1100 via Qatar Airways (Qsuite); for simple anaylsis, a BA comparison (using a companion and upgrade) would cost 261k avios and £1100. Although I’m aware this is Qatar’s ‘value route’ as there main hub is obviously in Doha. If BA decided to nudge Qatar on the companion vchr train, I think the fee would be a steal…….! As my hobby collecting avios I understand its easy to be blind-sided to the nuance of each persons personal circumstance, so I know it will be right for some and not others.

  • Numpty says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:17

    It’s inflation etc. i get that and i am reluctantly ok with it. But should inflation also apply to the earning rate? Can we now have 1.75 avios per £ instead of 1.5?! The more I think about that the more complicated it gets with reasons for and against!

    • LittleNick says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:33

      Lobby the Government to increase the 0.3% interchange fee so you can get a higher earn rate

      • Numpty says:
        10 Apr10 April 09:41

        No thanks. It’s a percentage fee for transactions on already increased costs of products which have gone up with inflation. An individuals annual spend on card increases directly with inflation so the money recouped from the interchange fee goes up regardless of whether the interchange fee is increased or not.

        Alternatively, you could say that if the cost of products has increased then the 1.5 avios earned is ok as the purchase costs have increased and you earn more avios. But is that enough to exclude the earning rate from inflation increases?

    • Russell G says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:42

      It already does. Say inflation is 10% and last year you spent £1000 receiving 1500 points. This year you would spend £1100 on those same purchases and receive 1650 points. So you get 10% more points for making the same purchases.

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