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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.

  • Freddy says:
    10 Apr10 April 08:11

    Makes the plat a bargain in comparison

  • NFH says:
    10 Apr10 April 08:14

    Is the mid-year increase to the spending requirement an unfair contract term under Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015? Schedule 2 of the act contains a list of “consumer contract terms which may be regarded as unfair“, in particular:

    “11 A term which has the object or effect of enabling the trader to alter the terms of the contract unilaterally without a valid reason which is specified in the contract.”

    “13 A term which has the object or effect of enabling the trader to alter unilaterally without a valid reason any characteristics of the goods, digital content or services to be provided.“

    • John G says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:19

      I think Amex may do (another) U-turn on this and make the higher threshold effective only after the next renewal. Then people know the deal before they spend their money and not have the goalposts shifted mid-year.

    • JDB says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:26

      @NFH – the point you have missed is that this isn’t technically a mid-year increase.

      Your credit card agreement is an open ended agreement of no fixed duration (and the fact you pay an annual fee doesn’t change that) so on your analysis Amex could never change the terms. The same ability to change terms during the term applies eg to insurance policies that come packaged with credit cards or bank accounts whereas an annual travel policy’s terms are fixed for the 12 months.

      • Hampshirehog says:
        10 Apr10 April 10:48

        The fact that they can change the spend threshold according to the T&Cs doesn’t necessarily mean that it would be upheld if challenged, but in any case this behaviour by Amex just demonstrates the lack of any awareness of how this clumsy approach is bound to be seen by customers and again shows how seem to lack any ability to make customers feel valued and hence have to spend presumably vast sums on retention bonuses whilst at the same time marketing to new customers who will likely lack any loyalty

  • danimal says:
    10 Apr10 April 08:16

    Presumably Amex have done their sums on this and have worked out that they want high-spend, long-term customers. They are not interested in the “pop it in a drawer” crowd.

    Combined with a regular Tier Points offer this becomes an enticing offer for those of us who struggle to gain status because we mainly fly on points.

  • cin3 says:
    10 Apr10 April 08:17

    Barclays voucher has zero value but the card has much more potential so this doesn’t affect me at all.

    • BBbetter says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:19

      Technically, it has a minimum value of 7k avios.

      • G says:
        10 Apr10 April 08:23

        If you spend £10,000…

        • BBbetter says:
          10 Apr10 April 08:36

          If you cannot spend 10k, is there any point talking about the voucher at all?

        • Mark says:
          10 Apr10 April 13:30

          For anyone taking the Avios I would hope it is £20,000, i.e. the free card. Otherwise you’re paying £240/year for an extra 12,000 Avios over the free card if you spend £10,000.

      • Rob says:
        10 Apr10 April 09:10

        Indeed.

        • Hampshirehog says:
          10 Apr10 April 10:51

          While I remember, can you opt for 7k Avios rather than the voucher for both the annual car spend AND the current account?

    • RS says:
      13 Apr13 April 09:40

      I find the voucher for travelling to the US ok, but anything else like Africa, Asia, etc to be tough as availability in business is rather poor

  • S says:
    10 Apr10 April 08:18

    Not a welcome change but realistically I probably put 15k through the card a year anyway. 50 quid extra fee is neither here nor there. The 241 is what makes this whole game possible for me so i will continue to hold the card.

    • S says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:21

      But I would add, although it won’t affect me moving the goalposts mid-term feels a bit cheeky

  • Alex G says:
    10 Apr10 April 08:21

    Changing the spending target mid year after paying the fee in exchange for specific benefits is unfair, but legal.

    My renewal is Feb 2024. I will probably ask OH to start using his supplementary card on my account to be certain of hitting the new target.

    At this stage, I don’t know if I will renew or not. BA redemptions to the Far East are as rare as hens teeth, so this year most of my trip is on JAL and Finnair.

    What I might do next year is try to get another retention bonus, buy a couple of fully flexible F tickets for about £15k, trigger the voucher, collect the 45k Avios on the expensive F tickets, and once I have the voucher and extra Avios for the tickets I have no intention of using, cancel the F tickets and the card, leaving a large negative Avios balance on my closed Amex account. Unfair to Amex perhaps, but legal. 45k Avios and a 241 voucher for £300 seems like a good deal. Then it’s goodbye Amex, hello Barclaycard.

    • TomB says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:27

      I’m pretty sure they would take some sort of action or you would end up black listed. Is it really worth the risk to try and game the system like that?

    • executiveclubber says:
      10 Apr10 April 08:40

      Are you sure you’d retain the Avios for the BA tickets – wouldn’t they claw them back?

      • Alex G says:
        10 Apr10 April 08:54

        Once the Avios have reached your BAEC account, Amex can’t get them back.

    • Metty says:
      10 Apr10 April 11:24

      I’m sure @Alex G knows what he’s doing but for others having a lightbulb moment, I wouldn’t recommend this strategy in case you mess it up. Much as I hate Amex for cancelling my whole family’s accounts for, it seems, chasing the Tier Point challenge targets, it would be a shame if you were left with 2-4-1 vouchers but no Amex to pay for the redemption.

      • Alex G says:
        10 Apr10 April 13:02

        At present, when you pay for a BA flight using a BAPP 241 voucher, BA have no idea whose Amex card you are using. If that changes, then a 241 voucher without the relevant card would become worthless. If the timing was right, you could use the voucher before cancelling the F flights and closing the Amex card.

        • Metty says:
          10 Apr10 April 18:49

          Yes I agree that it’s currently possible due lack of name verification, maybe I just worry too much. Amex still get the ££ whether you pay for my 241s or I do 🙂

      • Lady London says:
        10 Apr10 April 20:29

        Anyone’s Amex is OK for paying that though. Even a friend’s.

  • Yusuf says:
    10 Apr10 April 08:22

    Well hello there Barclays, nice to meet you 🙂

  • Joe G says:
    10 Apr10 April 08:22

    I don’t think it’s really the end of the world like some seem to be making out. The increased fee is a bit annoying but as others have pointed out that’s roughly in line with inflation and price rises we’ve seen for everything in the last couple of years and the value you get out of the voucher is still great if used strategically.

    If anything I’d see the upping to 15k spend as a positive as I can get an extra 5k of spend at the higher earning rate of 1.5 before having to put my card in the drawer for fear of triggering the voucher too early.

    • Paul says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:01

      No one is suggesting it’s the end of the world! The main complaint is the in year change to the target spend. That seems unethical at best .
      What is to stop them doing it again next month and making it £20000 so pend by October.

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