REVEALED! How to earn tier points from your British Airways American Express card

HfP has, we believe, got the answer to the big question in the Avios world at the moment.

How are you meant to earn tier points from your British Airways American Express card?

We don’t have all the answers, but we have most of them.

As you will remember, when British Airways Club was announced last December, BA said that you would be able to earn 2,500 tier points per year from the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card.

(Note: ONLY the Premium Plus card. There was never any intention to involve the free American Express card or the two Barclaycard Avios products.)

1st April came and went. British Airways Club launched with no mention of the tier points offer. BA fell back on semantics, saying that when it said it would provide more details before the launch, it actually meant the launch of the tier points offer and not the Club ….

When will the tier points offer launch?

Wednesday 18th June.

This is handy because it gives everyone a good conversation opener at the HfP summer party on 19th June!

You will need to opt-in to be included.

Will card spend between 1st April and 18th June be backdated?

We believe not.

What are the thresholds?

We have been told, although this is not official:

• you will receive 750 tier points for hitting £15,000 of BAPP spend

• you will receive a further 750 tier points for hitting £20,000 of BAPP spend

• you will receive a further 1,000 tier points for hitting £25,000 of BAPP spend

This means that earning the full 2,500 tier points will require £25,000 of card spend.

What is the timeline for this?

We don’t know. Sorry.

It will NOT align with your British Airways American Express membership year. This would make no sense, because everyone is on the same British Airways Club year now of 1st April to 31st March.

I suspect it will be either:

• spend £15/20/25,000 from 18th June to [a date 3-4 months later], or

• spend £15/20/25,000 from 18th June to 31st December, or

• spend £15/20/25,000 from 18th June to 31st March

We need to see.

Will this offer repeat every year?

It’s not clear. I’ve heard some chatter that it is initially being sold as a one year thing. We need to see.

It obviously won’t run from 18th June in future years.

How far will 2,500 tier points get me?

Whilst it’s not making much of a dint in Gold status (20,000 tier points), it is a bigger chunk of the 7,500 tier points required for Silver status.

Bronze is potentially most interesting. Bronze members of British Airways Club get free seat selection seven days before departure as the core benefit, which can be valuable.

Anyone earning the full 2,500 tier points from their Premium Plus card would only need to spend £1,000 net (note net, not gross) with British Airways in a membership year to earn the extra 1,000 tier points they need.

Any other obvious problems?

Yes.

A lot of HfP readers delay triggering their 2-4-1 Companion Voucher because they don’t want to start the two year clock on using it.

Both my wife and I currently have our Premium Plus cards in a drawer having passed £14,000 of spend for this card year. They won’t be coming out again until a month before our year end date.

Unless American Express has adopted my remarkably sensible idea about changing the expiry date of the 2-4-1 Companion Voucher, anyone chasing the full 2,500 tier points will need to trigger their voucher earlier than necessary.

Let’s wait for the small print

The information above came to me in writing from a named employee at either American Express or IAG Loyalty – I won’t say which – so I believe it is accurate. We haven’t signed any embargo on the news so I am happy to share it. I apologise for the gaps in the small print, but all will hopefully be revealed on Wednesday.

Find out more about the card

Click here for our full British Airways American Express Premium Plus review.

Click here to apply.

The representative APR is 137.8% variable, including the annual fee.  The representative APR on purchases is 30.0% variable.