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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.

  • LLLL says:
    10 Apr10 April 11:49

    This is a real shame as I am about 2 weeks from completing my 24 months without the BA Amex PP and therefore was looking to sign up soon.

    I think my tactic has now changed due to this. I may sign up to the BAPP for the big £3000 spend 25,000 Avios reward. And then soon after, downgrade with the pro-rata fee refund to the free card or perhaps just cancel the card and switch entirely to the Barclaycard Avios PP or (preferably) the Virgin Atlantic Plus card once I can reuse the SUB. I’ve found the voucher availability in BA Premium/CW cabins to be pretty awful for the routes I want or horribly expensive on avios, so the £300 card fee is unjustifiable to me. And that’s without highlighting that BA are one of the most frustrating companies to deal with, so I’d rather not give them a penny more than makes sense for me.

    Interested to read other people’s thoughts.

    • Rui N. says:
      10 Apr10 April 11:59

      Wait until there is a bigger sign up bonus. That’s what I’m doing.

    • Jimbo says:
      10 Apr10 April 12:15

      I’ve just spoken to Amex and it’s clear they are gathering feedback on this while they continue to dialogue with BA.
      Between these rises and BA changing the dates for Tier points it all seems so punitive.

    • Dave says:
      10 Apr10 April 12:44

      You should definitely hold out for a bigger sign up bonus. They were offering 50 or 60k (from memory) not that long ago. It’s likely they will offer a big one soon to coincide with these changes. Never go for the standard deal

  • NFH says:
    10 Apr10 April 11:59

    I wonder what percentage of us have an anniversary date at the end of January or beginning of February because we first got the card when it was launched in January 2001?

    • BBbetter says:
      10 Apr10 April 15:44

      Most would have cancelled when the discount for holding both platinum and BAPP was removed.

  • Talay says:
    10 Apr10 April 12:10

    The £10k or £15k threshold doesn’t matter to me but the argument for the BAPP is weakened by the fees.

    £300 card fees plus £650 charges or so is about £1000 for one ticket and the benefit of 50% off the Avios amount is perhaps worth 75k to 90k Avios.

    The win for me is getting on Qatar but I don’t need a BAPP to do that and I can get the same earnings rate on the Amex Accelerating Business Card or the Avios Mastercard.

    There is no real availability anymore and the fanciful first redemptions are like hen’s teeth.

    However, if Qatar accepted the 241 then it would implode as 10000s of people tried to book.

    So after a long history, I think the BAPP needs to be retired.

    • ed_fly says:
      10 Apr10 April 12:12

      I’m planning on saving 180-200k per voucher in a matter of days. Probably 180 due to off peak / on peak days. Total saving of 360,000-400,000 avios for 2x voucher. Even at £600 that remains good value.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        10 Apr10 April 16:14

        Ask yourself would you have paid 360-400k Avios in the first place!

    • NorthernLass says:
      10 Apr10 April 12:19

      ? F seats are available to NYC every month except November. Just in the past few days I’ve also seen DXB, MEX and even a couple to SIN. But it’s all the more for the rest of us 😂

      • ed_fly says:
        10 Apr10 April 12:25

        Exactly this, the flip side of make things ‘harder’ is more availability for the more determined. Obviously don’t want to sink hfp in the process.

  • Sam says:
    10 Apr10 April 12:10

    Hi Rob, I was just about to upgrade from the free BA card to the paid one to trigger the 2 for 1 (currently have a spend of 8.5k on the free card). if I upgrade to the paid version, the increased fee kicks in, but if i then spend the 1.5k and get the better 2 for 1 and then cancel or downgrade to the free card, does the pro rata refund apply? My card anniversary is Dec of each year. Thanks

    • Rob says:
      10 Apr10 April 12:13

      Yes, for now

      • Sam says:
        10 Apr10 April 12:14

        Thanks.

        • Colin_Thames says:
          10 Apr10 April 13:27

          +1 thanks for the clarification Rob. I’m in same boat with almost same level of spend on the Blue BA Amex.
          Sadly I don’t think I’ll be able to reach £15k of spend in future. So unless I start getting devious with MS, which I haven’t really the stomach for, I’ll probably just stick with the Barclays BA cards.

  • AJA says:
    10 Apr10 April 12:39

    Is this down to Amex alone or was it done with the agreement of BA?

    I don’t mind the increase to the spend threshold if using inflation as a reason for doing so. But if that’s the case then it would be fair to increase the Avios earned per £ as well. That hasn’t changed since the card was introduced.

    I also hope they make TP for earning over £15k a permanent thing. That would justify continuing spending over £15k

    • The Savage Squirrel says:
      10 Apr10 April 16:04

      “But if that’s the case then it would be fair to increase the Avios earned per £ as well. “. Nope. It’s a % so this is built in: inflation means higher prices mean more spending mean more Avios. Inflation doesn’t change the “correct” ratios.

  • Chris says:
    10 Apr10 April 12:39

    Can we not petition to stop this??

  • Mutley says:
    10 Apr10 April 12:49

    £15000 is ok, I guess it could have doubled. I used to hit the number in one go on company tax or school fees, via Billhop, pity Curve doesn’t work with Amex.

    • NorthernLass says:
      10 Apr10 April 12:58

      I’m just wondering if this has got more hits than the Curve/Amex debacle 😂😂😂

  • Ben says:
    10 Apr10 April 12:54

    I was planning on triggering my next companion voucher between Jan and Jul 25. £10k seemed manageable but £15k might require some manufactured spend. Do gift cards count or would £2k or so in Sainsbury’s gift cards trigger some kind or t&cs violation?

    • Rob says:
      10 Apr10 April 13:02

      All fine.

    • NorthernLass says:
      10 Apr10 April 13:26

      That’s not MS, that’s actual spend. You may get some questions from Sainsbury’s who might think you’re the victim of a scam but it’s fine to pay with Amex.

      • PeteM says:
        10 Apr10 April 14:35

        From what I can work out Sainsbury’s have now limited GC spend to 1 GC per transaction at a maximum of £100 – at least at the self-checkouts. Even staff can’t override that.

        • LittleNick says:
          10 Apr10 April 18:17

          These transaction restrictions are so stupid, like the max 2 paracetamol a time, you just keep repeating the transaction. So pathetic companies try and do restrictions because it won’t stop someone

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

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