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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.

  • squawk7700 says:
    10 Apr10 April 07:52

    Anyone with a 2-4-1 in their account be kind enough to price up total fees + Avios for a MAD-EZE-MAD on Iberia for 2 adults in J, Off Peak? Plenty of availability next Feb for ease. Just comparing now versus Barclays upgrade voucher from LHR. Thank you!

    • Rhys says:
      10 Apr10 April 07:57

      It’s just 1x the Avios and 2x the fee, don’t need a voucher to check.

      • Colin_Thames says:
        10 Apr10 April 10:23

        Err, better seat availability? I assume the OP had checked themselves but standard Avios seats not showing perhaps?
        Would check myself but don’t have a voucher at the mo.

    • G says:
      10 Apr10 April 07:57

      Undeniably cheaper on Madrid taxes and fees wise. Unsure on the avios component. Simply not flying from the UK already saves you £194 in APD and £35+ in Heathrow’s charges. Which offsets an economy return ticket to Madrid.

    • Joe says:
      10 Apr10 April 07:59

      102000 Avios + £ 471.60

      • Joe says:
        10 Apr10 April 08:01

        And don’t forget you can fly MAD-EZE-MAD-LHR/MAN for a small increase.

  • Greg Small says:
    10 Apr10 April 07:55

    The BA premium card fee, increase in carrier imposed charges, increase in threshold are all negatives. I don’t see any increase in service, apart from improving standards of club suites which BA and other carriers need to do as the old product is not up to the current standard. Being able to use on other airlines is a minor improvement. There needs to be an increase in reward flights both in BA and other airlines using Avios as reward currency and being able to use the companion voucher on the other Airlines using the Avios loyalty scheme. I await the full communication from BA and hopefully it is clearer than the tier points one. As it stands now I can just about justify staying but any more dilution is not acceptable to me. There has to be meaningful and stable benefits.

  • Jon says:
    10 Apr10 April 07:56

    Any news on a more permanent benefit of tier point earning with the plus card and its new higher fees?

    • Rob says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:03

      TP earning will probably come but only alongside a move to earning status by £ spent, with card spend reducing the £ number.

  • BajiNahid says:
    10 Apr10 April 07:57

    Right fellow brits! Do what we do best, moan and complain to Amex. Fire a backlash against them so they drop this.

    • BBbetter says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:01

      Let’s take it to DM! Where is Farage?

      • Michael C says:
        10 Apr10 April 08:03

        Possibly in Germany with his family?

      • Catalan says:
        10 Apr10 April 08:51

        Yeah, Nigel Farage, man of the working people of this country, whilst (formerly) banking at Coutts! Yeah

    • JDB says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:45

      @BajiNahid – will you also be writing to Tesco to complain about the outrageous increases in the price of bread, olive oil etc. ?

  • George says:
    10 Apr10 April 07:57

    Whilst I understand the changes, I think changing the thresholds mid-collection year is deeply unfair and unethical. My card year started late Feb, and so I now now have to spend £12k by 31 October or £15k late Feb?
    I think that if they change the required spend threshold it should be done only at the start of the new collection year. This would be fairer and more justifiable.
    I do wonder whether this was considered and whether any flexibility will be applied if contact AMEX.

  • phantomchickenz says:
    10 Apr10 April 07:59

    Panicked a bit when I read the opening paragraph and thought the fee was increasing -by- £300 rather than -to- £300. A bit annoying, but an extra £50 over a year? Meh. Still planning to cancel Platinum in a few weeks before the new fee is due, and start again on the BAPP. £15k in a year is quite achievable for me with the amount my kids cost me, but appreciate that’s not the same for everyone.

  • Richard Peters says:
    10 Apr10 April 08:08

    Excellent news as will free up more flight availability for those not gaming the system

    • Mark says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:19

      Not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting anyone using a voucher is “gaming the system”?

      • BBbetter says:
        10 Apr10 April 08:39

        Think he referred to those who spend 9.9k on free card, upgrade, spend 0.1k and get voucher and then downgrade. Repeat.

        • Mark says:
          10 Apr10 April 08:54

          So now those people spend 14.9k on the free card, upgrade, spend 0.1k and get a voucher and then downgrade. Repeat?

          The thing that stops that is surely the cessation of pro-rata fee refunds, which isn’t part of this announcement.

        • Hampshirehog says:
          10 Apr10 April 10:39

          But anecdotally Amex aren’t as readily allowing upgrades/downgrades?

  • Max says:
    10 Apr10 April 08:09

    It’s a big mistake, Barclays will benefit with their lower card fee and spend target.

    • G says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:12

      Just their voucher has a few issues with it. Itineraries beginning outside the UK, lack of pooling for household accounts and not being able to be used on Iberia/EI being the main ones.

      • apbj says:
        10 Apr10 April 08:22

        Yep, just had two great opportunities to use the voucher pulled away because Madrid is now mostly operated by Iberia and thus no voucher. Really struggling to use my Barclays vouchers.

      • RS says:
        13 Apr13 April 09:40

        And they don’t have the increased availability that a companion voucher has.

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

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