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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.

  • Nick N says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:20

    I have literally renewed in the last month and am £1500 away from hitting the £10k 2 4 1 voucher which I am about to do in next 2 days. As they are changing T&C will I get a pro rata refund if I hit required spend get voucher then cancel?

  • VinZ says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:25

    I wonder if this will come with added benefits such as TP earnings etc. the card fee was increased a couple of years ago from £195, right?

    • Rob says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:27

      Was £150 at launch, although for the first 15 years it was free if you held a Platinum card too.

      • Paul says:
        10 Apr10 April 12:05

        They lost me as a BAPP holder at that point

      • VinZ says:
        11 Apr11 April 07:46

        But the last increase was to £195 two or three years ago, no?

        What about TP? Maybe we’ll see an improvement there?

        15k spent is not unrealistic for me. I generally stop spending around 6 months into the card year and divert spend into other cards because I hit the 10k threshold fairly quick.

  • Maples says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:26

    I thought this change was ridiculous but then the £10K requirement’s been around for 20 years? Why are people so mad about this?

    • Steve says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:38

      Because they are changing the target in the middle of people’s membership years, not at renewal. If they changed it at renewal, then I would have a choice whether to accept it or to not accept it and not renew. But now I am in a situation where I have channelled my spending to Amex to go towards meeting the target, but they have pulled the rug from under us and now said that we need to spend more.

      The spending I have made on my Amex card for the last few months is now worth less than it was. Imagine Amex saying that all of your spending since you last renewed only gets you half an Avios or no Avios, not 1.5 Avios. Its effectively the same thing.

      I can spend £10k in a year, but I would struggle to spend £15k in a year, so all of my spending on this card has been in vain.

      Changing things going forward, after your next renewal, is fair (e.g. the change to the fee). Changing the value of what you’ve already spent isn’t.

    • LittleNick says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:45

      I think a 50% increase in one go is a bit harsh and put the voucher out of scope for many, whilst still attainable it makes it more difficult for me, as I like to drive spending on MR cards

      • Maples says:
        10 Apr10 April 09:57

        For sure, as it’s now out of reach for me since I’ve decided to cut back on spendings. I just think that it’s not a big of a deal for most people on here that seem to have huge swaths of points floating about, so they must be spending a lot.

    • Numpty says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:46

      Depends on how long you have been with BAPP, as someone who has held the card for 10 years, i can grudgingly accept the increase. But for those who have just joined the points game recently i can see why they would be very annoyed.

      I’ve been getting to the £12k spend earlier every year. I guess Amex can see that kind of data, and think to themselves that £12k is getting too easy and time to increase it. I would have preferred it if they had done some kind of increase avios rate, or continued spend bonus to keep spending past £12k but instead they’ve gone the other way.

    • Tim says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:50

      A bit shady to increase the spending requirement mid year don’t you think? Anyone who has signed up/renewed their card in the past few months and spends between £10k and £15k per year is getting shafted.

  • Russell G says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:39

    Here’s something that will upset all the commenters – the raise in target is actually beneficial for me! At the moment my card sits in the drawer once it hits £9999. This forces me to put FHR spend on the Platinum. Now I get an extra £10000 spend on the 2 BAPPs we have which means an extra 5000 points. On top of that anything that forces more people out of the programme is good for availability. The fee increase is just inflation. So please Amex, keep increasing the spend target, increase them more now! Then everyone that’s complaining, cancel all your BA travel plans and move your Avios to Nectar. Also, convince all your friends and family to do this too please!!!

    • TGLoyalty says:
      10 Apr10 April 10:14

      5k avios are worth £50 at best. Personally Amex offers trumps points earned and voucher thresholds.

    • RTS says:
      10 Apr10 April 11:14

      id rather have 5k of MR than 7.5k of avios and an increase in fees on a card.

    • Paul says:
      10 Apr10 April 12:09

      Until BA then devalue the avios again.

      It’s this type of thinking that lets them away with this. MR points are more valuable than an avios as they have a wider range of uses. MR points have taken me to Australia twice while Avios never have due to the difficulty of getting seats

    • Russell G says:
      10 Apr10 April 14:15

      Told you this would upset the commenters!! 😉

    • VinZ says:
      11 Apr11 April 07:49

      Lol. I didn’t look at this from this angle… yes more availability, perhaps in first too!

      But I suspect most of those moaning and threatening to cancel won’t do so. Collecting points and vouchers is an addiction and we’re all in, for better or worse. 🙂

  • Ben says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:39

    What do we think the chances are of increased intro bonus now that the fee and voucher earning requirement has increased?

  • stevenhp1987 says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:48

    People may moan about an extra £50 a year… but £300 for the ability to save over 100k Avios on a redemption booking is still worth it for 99% of us.

    Would be nice if they enhanced the Tier Points earning though.

    • Maples says:
      10 Apr10 April 10:03

      This is something I was surprised about when doing some calculations last week when deciding to get the BAPP or not, when the welcome bonus came around. £250 to save over 100K Avios is wild, especially for those that don’t spend large amounts each year.

  • NorthernLass says:
    10 Apr10 April 09:58

    I agree you can’t complain about £15k, we’re not wealthy but usually spend the current £10k within 3-4 months with things like council tax and annual car insurance boosting spend. The annual fee seems to have gone up rather more than inflation in the past few years though!

    • James says:
      10 Apr10 April 10:05

      How do you pay for council
      Tax on Amex ( sorry if I’ve missed this somewhere )

      • Rob says:
        10 Apr10 April 10:08

        You can do via a Co-Op store with a PayPoint terminal – and of course some councils accept Amex anyway. I’m stuck with MC / Visa but luckily the bill turns up just after my Virgin card year renews.

        Lots in the forum on this sort of stuff.

        • LittleNick says:
          10 Apr10 April 10:45

          Only if your council accept paypoint, from what I can see ours doesn’t, it’s direct debit or debit card online only

        • NorthernLass says:
          10 Apr10 April 10:57

          There’s a thread specifically on this! I have just paid £1500 of this year’s council tax on Amex to trigger the 241 which I wanted to use to travel next March.

      • can2 says:
        10 Apr10 April 11:01

        there is a long thread on this

  • Simon says:
    10 Apr10 April 10:09

    The single traveller discount is of course a benefit for those of us who are single BUT what Amex offer us is still way below the offer of the 2-4-1 deal in that single people get ONE ticket for “half avios (plus full taxes) while a couple get TWO tickets on the 2-4-1 deal plus full taxes. i.e. single people only get HALF the benefit.

    To be fair Amex should offer single travelleers TWO upgrade vouchers / tickets each year to make the benefit the same (and this would cost the same to them as the 2-4-1 deal), so please dont say that us single travellers are gettting a great deal as Amex is making more from us than those who use the 2=4=1 deal.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      10 Apr10 April 10:18

      If a flight is 100k Avios and £500

      The couple gets two tickets for 100k Avios and £1000 and a voucher but they need to find a flight with 2 seats available.

      A single traveller gets it for 50k Avios, £500 and a voucher but it’s easier to find a single ticket.

      You can argue they got 50k more value but could also say you got your preference of flight as they could only find 2 on a sub optimal route. It’s swings and roundabouts.

    • babyg_wc says:
      10 Apr10 April 10:22

      Simon your logic is flawed, its YOU that chooses to only redeem for a single person, you could invite a 2nd person along to feel like you are getting better value, but you chose not to, and remember its much better than it was before when you had no choice… Now the real fix needed is for families, 2for1s are not possible to use for 3+ people unless you have vouchers held by diffirent people.

      • SG says:
        10 Apr10 April 10:42

        Obviously 2 for 1 vouchers can’t be used for 3+ people. The clue is in the name. To borrow from your own words, if YOU choose to travel with more than 2 people, that’s your choice. Go without the kids next time and you can use your voucher.

        • Rob says:
          10 Apr10 April 10:44

          You’re missing the point.

          If I have two vouchers in my name, I can book for a family of four.

          If my wife has a voucher and I have a voucher, we can book for a family of three (me and kid on the 241, wife on 50% off).

          If I have two vouchers in my name, I CANNOT book for a family of three (doing a 241 and a 50% off) and this is pure BA IT crappiness.

          A family of three needs to swap who holds the 2-4-1 each year to maximise value.

          • TGLoyalty says:
            10 Apr10 April 12:56

            Now that is dumb.

          • LittleNick says:
            10 Apr10 April 18:19

            It shouldn’t be that way because all they have to do with the Amex voucher is drop the restriction that the account holder must be travelling like the barclaycard voucher which allows you to use it on someone else. This would mean 2 vouchers in your BA account could be used on a family of 3. The fix EXISTS on the barclaycard voucher, they only need to apply it to the Amex one.

          • Rob says:
            10 Apr10 April 19:42

            They don’t even need to do that. They just need to code ba.com to automatically do a 241 and a 50% when someone selects 3 people and 2 vouchers. Not hard.

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