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Gosh! I’ve read so much but my husband won’t believe me cause he says I’m ditzy…so would appreciate some advice:
We currently have the British airways free Amex x 2. We always qualify for the companion vouchers and use them for European business class flights.
We live off our credit card for the points (and pay in full each month) and typically spend £4000 a month.
I think it would be be good to get an Amex gold and platinum as we would qualify for the new member points…right?
Also, platinum would be better for us as would accumulate more points with our level of spend compared to a gold card and have unlimited lounge access…right?
Thank you in advance. Fab website!!
Have you had a look at the American Express section of the forum?
Also have you read a few of the recent articles by Rob on the various Amex cards. For anyone based in the UK, the ready made and regularly reissued-with-updates articles on HfP are definitely the best information available in the UK.
It definitely sounds like you could benefit from signup bonus and some referrals, poss adding each other as supp after opening each card, taking potentially more than 1 Amex card in the correct sequence. Your researches will let you put together a plan of which card, in which order.
no you don’t qualify for the gold as you have the free ba amex.
Yes you go qualify for platinum. I would wait till there is an uplift in bonus.
Platinium has the same earning rate at 1 point per pound so you only earn more cause of the sign up bonus.
How are you using your 241? would you benefit from the better 241 with the premium card? as that card has better earning rate and better voucher.
I honestly don’t think Platinum is worth the fee these days — you could get it for the sign up bonus and then cancel, and then you should probably look at Barclays Avios Plus sign up bonus.
Ensure you have both added supplementary cards (just add each other) to your account for the bonus points and make good use of any referral offers you may have… you could refer a very kind family member to Amex Gold and borrow their points in a BA household account… 😉
We currently have the British airways free Amex x 2. We always qualify for the companion vouchers and use them for European business class flights.
Have I missed something? I thought the voucher on the free Amex only allowed economy redemptions…
We currently have the British airways free Amex x 2. We always qualify for the companion vouchers and use them for European business class flights.
Have I missed something? I thought the voucher on the free Amex only allowed economy redemptions…
Also curious about this. How have you managed this?
Me too – it’s about 2 1/2 years since that changed.
Thank you so much everyone! 🙂
We both have our own BA Amex cards so we get 2 x companion vouchers a year. So far in our 3-4 years of Amex-ing – that’s the only real benefit we’ve enjoyed – I’d say we’ve saved £800 a year on average with this. So maybe this is as good as it gets for us?
The only benefit of platinum is lounge access which would be cool but then we’d lose the companion vouchers…
Or maybe I’ve missed something completely…(which wouldn’t be the first time!!)
What’s confusing us is that you say you have the free BA Amex, and that you use the companion vouchers for Club Europe flights. For the past 2 years those vouchers have only been valid for economy flights.
Sorry for wasting your time. That’s a stupid typo from me. My apologies. We use the 2 companion vouchers each year for free economy flights to European destinations each year. This year to Berlin and Milan so probably £800 savings in total as Milan is quite pricey on BA.
Go step by step.
First get the BAPP before the annual fee hike. That also allows you use the voucher in Business class flights.
BAPP card gives 50% more miles. So each month you can get 2000 more Avios, which is something. With the voucher it may give you a short haul Club/Business flight.
In the meantime educate yourself about Gold and Plat, and decide once you are confident about their earning rates and pro/cons.
Super helpful advice. Thank you so so much!!
I’ll do exactly that. <3
How much fees are you willing to pay and do you ‘need’ to go business? I think these are important questions before jumping from paying no fees.
If you are happy in economy, I would be tempted to keep one of you on the free card and the other on premium. Two premium card is £500 together just in fees, that’s a lot of increase from paying nothing. business class for european flights might not justify the fees. I would be tempted to suggest get one premium card to try out, spend £20k on free for one voucher and £10k plus left over on the premium and see if it is worth it for you.
Worth looking into the Barclays card. I think you need to be a bit clearer about your travel patterns /travel aspirations and how much work are you willing to do before jumping into cards with three figures fees.
Go step by step.
First get the BAPP before the annual fee hike. That also allows you use the voucher in Business class flights.
The OP says they already both hold the free card, so they will pay the new higher fee on upgrade. The £300 fee and £15,000 voucher threshold applies immediately for new applicants and upgraders.
Also worth thinking about how many avios you have and what you are aiming to be able to redeem them for.
If you’re happy with annual redemption to Europe in economy then stay with what you’ve got if you collect enough points annually for that.
If you have aspirations to use them long haul in club or first then you’ll need a decent stack of avios. Paying for the premium BA Amex may not be worth it initially if you can’t make use of the voucher while you’re accumulating the avios.
The OP says they already both hold the free card, so they will pay the new higher fee on upgrade. The £300 fee and £15,000 voucher threshold applies immediately for new applicants and upgraders.
The 15k spend requirement doesn’t apply until 1st Nov, for new or existing accounts.
Hello everyone, husband here 🙂 so nice to get all your insights. Thank you
Sounds like the platinum fee isn’t necessarily worth it for us apart from the lounge access. We fly 8-10 times a year so that would be most welcome. But the avios we would make would be the same as it’s still 1 for £1…
Our current 2 separate free BA Amex cards gives us 2 free return journeys a year which is quite a nice upside.
The BAPP £300 fee negates the companion voucher upside imo so not sure that’s worth it. Appreciate there is an increased rate of return at 1.5 avios per £ but what can we do this really…
The final consideration I suppose would be whether we get 2 BAPP or 1 platinum card. Honestly, I can’t see the benefits for either…we can afford and we spend plenty to gain points now but the reality is all our points are used each year for the companion voucher flights.
Not sure we’ve got any clarity on what we should do. Wish there was a clear winner!
Just to throw in my 2 penn’orth, another option would be for one of you to have the 24 month break from Amex then apply for the BAPP, preferably when there’s a bumper SUB going. I would personally consider this preferable to getting 2 economy-only vouchers during the wait period.
Hello everyone, husband here 🙂 so nice to get all your insights. Thank you
Sounds like the platinum fee isn’t necessarily worth it for us apart from the lounge access. We fly 8-10 times a year so that would be most welcome. But the avios we would make would be the same as it’s still 1 for £1…
Our current 2 separate free BA Amex cards gives us 2 free return journeys a year which is quite a nice upside.
The BAPP £300 fee negates the companion voucher upside imo so not sure that’s worth it. Appreciate there is an increased rate of return at 1.5 avios per £ but what can we do this really…
The final consideration I suppose would be whether we get 2 BAPP or 1 platinum card. Honestly, I can’t see the benefits for either…we can afford and we spend plenty to gain points now but the reality is all our points are used each year for the companion voucher flights.
Not sure we’ve got any clarity on what we should do. Wish there was a clear winner!
If I were in your shoes I’d consider a gold card to provide you with lounge access for most of your trips and convertible MR points, and one BAPP with a supplementary card, as it obviously will give you a shot at business class. You’re not tied in forever — try it for a year and see if it improves your life.
A platinum card fee costs 60k Avios in fees alone — so you could spend some of your planned fee on Avios boosting instead to get you closer to your new goal.
And don’t discredit the value of the Barclaycard Avios plus sign up bonus for you both + pro rata refund…
Yeah, but you don’t seem to know what you want to do.
If Econ flights are good enough for you, don’t bother changing anything.
Most people here use the miles and vouchers to fly in Club/Biz. If that’s not your thing, carry on with your set up.
There is a general agreement that Plat is not worth it unless you play the game well and truly need their insurance etc.
Gold is reputed, you may consider that.
After all, to fly in Club with vouchers you’ll need miles. BAPP makes your job easier to get the miles you need. I maintain my point, for Club Europe flights, 20k Avios makes a difference.
You invest a bit. But (try to) get much back in return.
That IS the game :))
I think the BAPP is still worth it even at £300 and £15k annual spend to get the voucher. Remember that the free card will also require £15k spend so there seems to be little incentive to go for the free card when spending the same amount would get you a much more flexible voucher. Given that OP states they are spending £4k per month split equally on each card that means that the free cards will earn them 48k Avios while the BAPP cards would earn at least an additional 24k Avios ignoring any double Avios from BA spend but gives 2 vouchers with far more flexibility (Club / First and also valid for 2 years). Effectively those extra 24k Avios are costing 2.5p each which is not great value in isolation but not so bad for the extra flexibility. This assumes that they would each be eligible for the BAPP given the increasing income thresholds.
But if OP never travels in Club (on reward flights) I’d just stick with the free BA Amexs. I don’t see the point of paying for the Platinum card given the fee and the fact that they seem to be only using points for BA.
“Also, platinum would be better for us as would accumulate more points with our level of spend compared to a gold card and have unlimited lounge access…right”
Nope, you’ll get more Amex points by each holding Gold cards.
You won’t be eligible for a sign-up bonus, but if you’re each putting £2k a month through your card you’ll both earn c. 34k MR points annually on Gold Vs 24k with Platinum.
Plus there are recurring comments that out of the Amex cards Gold gets better spend offers so depending what your £4k is spent on you may be able to get more out of it.
Have also just noticed they’ve said they fly 8-10 times a year, so holding Gold would get them double points on all their airline spend, which is another plus vs the Platinum.
Sounds like BAPP x 1 at would be a good idea as we would still earn the companion voucher whilst boosting our avios earning potential. Alongside the free BA Amex, we would continue with 2 free return economy flights and perhaps even 1 at club.
Gold is good for 4 x lounge access which would be cool but that’s only 2 return trips a year. Points earned would be the same as BA free Amex.
Platinum has unlimited lounge access and other perks like insurance. But for the price and points return, not really worth it apart from lounge access each and every trip. No free flights.
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