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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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Comments (623)

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

  • occasionalranter says:
    10 Apr10 April 15:27

    *unlawful

    • JoshB says:
      10 Apr10 April 15:42

      This lawyer suggests reading the card T&Cs first…

      • NotGrumpy says:
        10 Apr10 April 15:53

        Not a lawyer but thinking back to my uni contract law for engineers course I vaguely remember a stipulation that no contract or T&Cs could state something that the wider law deemed illegal?

        • JoshB says:
          10 Apr10 April 15:58

          correct, one cannot generally contract around public policy – but thats not what is engaged here.

      • occasionalranter says:
        10 Apr10 April 16:02

        I’ve read both the general card T&Cs and the companion voucher T&Cs. It seems to me that a unilateral change to the yearly spend target, during the card year, is unreasonable, even if a change to APR or number of days to pay monthly statement or similar would be reasonable if done on a couple of months’ notice within the card year. The promise made at the start of the card year has induced the cardholder to allocate to the card spend that could otherwise have been allocated to another card to meet another incentive (e.g. many of us hold Barclays Avios Plus and try to hit £10k target on that once we hit £10k on BAPP).

        • Josh B says:
          10 Apr10 April 16:21

          Cl 5 gen t&cs seems to allow it. The PP changes cl is more restrictive but doesn’t preclude it but I suppose there’s a possible argument based on the latter.
          I suspect the Barclays Avios card and allocation of spend may be behind this change in part.

          • occasionalranter says:
            10 Apr10 April 16:32

            Hi Josh, appreciate your reply. I keep refining my thinking on this. My view now is that this change has retrospective effect – it affects the rewards available for spending already incurred in the card year. Either it fails the 3 month notice requirement in the PP T&Cs or that notice requirement is insufficiently transparent because it fails to make clear how it might apply to the most important qualifying criterion for the voucher and is therefore unfair (or at least ambiguous and therefore to be interpreted in the consumer’s favour – s69 CRA).

          • Ken says:
            10 Apr10 April 18:12

            We are not talking about what is lawful and unlawful.

            The more relevant test is would the FCA consider this as treating customers fairly.
            For a small sub section of customers, they could strongly argue that this change is unfair.

            They are however probably only worse off by a few months fee, let’s say a maximum of £80.
            I’d imagine if you complained to Amex then they would refund any card fee in full if you look it out in the last couple of months.

        • JDB says:
          10 Apr10 April 16:40

          @occasionalranter – there were some (unsuccessful) challenges to Amex’s change of terms to the PRG in 2022 which similarly sought to alter a spend threshold (and slightly reduce the benefit) mid year for extra points on £15k spend in each 12 months starting on the individual anniversary.

          The mid-year changes (on two months notice) to the popular Nationwide FlexPlus travel insurance seem much more significant than these Amex changes and interestingly highlight the downside of these rolling contracts vs a fixed term one as NWFP holders who have paid any fee to add an existing medical condition or age/cruise extension don’t have the change imposed until their anniversaries because the payment creates a 12 month contract.

          Finally, if you talk to the FCA, they don’t get too excited about fairness as it relates to paid credit cards on the basis that those cardholders ought to know what they are doing.

          • Josh B says:
            10 Apr10 April 16:52

            I think this is right. And cl 5 is wider than the examples it provides which are just illustrative. Can’t really see that they cannot do it (and tbh makes v little difference here as hit the spend target increasingly quickly thanks to inflation!)

        • JDB says:
          10 Apr10 April 17:51

          Amex’s ability to vary the cardholder agreement derives from statute and the text of the agreement merely reflects the terms of CCA1974. The separate but additional agreements in respect of Avios, Companion Voucher etc. actually require greater notice than provided for under CCA1974 but Amex has given double the necessary notice period.

        • Will says:
          10 Apr10 April 22:50

          I think I’m correct in saying any change to the APR has to be made with the option to close the account and retain the original APR / repayment terms if there is an outstanding balance.

  • Bill_B says:
    10 Apr10 April 15:42

    Does downgrading to the free card BA and then re-upgrading later reset your card year?

    • JoshB says:
      10 Apr10 April 15:44

      From memory it does not but its been ages since I did that so hopefully someone with more recent experience can confirm.

    • BBbetter says:
      10 Apr10 April 17:13

      It does not.

    • CheshirePete says:
      10 Apr10 April 17:57

      Indeed it doesn’t, This is why today I downgraded as they were due to take £250 on 13th April but my 241 collection year is still July due to a previous downgrade a couple years ago. When you upgrade again it starts from that new month. My downgrade today was not related to today’s announcement, by the way, although I think it’s a big change that probably would have made me think twice. I would have had to spend £10k from July to October or it’d then be £15k, which I think is unfair.

  • Ben says:
    10 Apr10 April 16:07

    Thanks for the replies. If not manufactured spend perhaps time adjusted spend is a more accurate description. 😀

  • Fang says:
    10 Apr10 April 16:20

    I consider changing the spend requirement mid-year is unreasonable.
    I paid the annual fee, on the understanding that I could attain the 241 voucher. Now I am unsure if I can reach the higher level this year – so I was mislead when paying my annual fee.
    The change should happen at the end of my membership year – then I can make an informed decision whether to renew.

    BTW – where has Amex announced today this change for existing cardholders? The countdown in my app still shows £10k spend to the end of my current membership year. No email informing me of this either.

  • Josh B says:
    10 Apr10 April 16:39

    Guess we will have to see what they say when they formally let us know about the change and see then.

  • occasionalranter says:
    10 Apr10 April 16:44

    Changing the spend requirement mid-year, in relation to the whole of that year, is like changing the annual fee mid-year, in relation to the whole of that year. It’s essentially retrospective.

  • Super Secret Stuff says:
    10 Apr10 April 16:46

    Even more glad I ditched BA Amex now

  • Alistair says:
    10 Apr10 April 16:51

    I wonder if Barclays will make any changes to their Avios credit cards in light of this.

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

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