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Just curious as to whether anyone is planning to splash the cash before 1st November to get a companion voucher or whether you will just ignore and go for the £15k afterwards?
I guess that even if you had a refund in November the voucher is safe – you will simply be in a negative Avios position.
For me, I will buy some hotel points to use on a winter holiday instead of paying cash
Yes. Top up energy account, buy some Amazon gift cards, pop to COOP a few times to pay down council tax. I.e. bring forward as much normal spend as possible.
But then I’m only a few K off. Depends how much gap you have to cover.
For me, yes, I am. I’ve got £50 left to spend and I wasn’t really sure if I’d hit the £10K pretty much a month early. I also need to decide if I want to hit £15K spending at the end of April instead so that there’s an additional 5-6 months where I can book.
Yes. Will hit it with forward spending due bills, then will downgrade for fee refund.
Link for those interested: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/apply/downgrade/personal/credit-cards/ba-classicMy year end March, will hit £10k with a BA Holiday balance payment on 25 Oct. The card will then go into deep freeze while I ponder ‘continue or downgrade’.
Yep already hit and got the voucher. Had held back on purchasing travel and a few other big purchases in anticipation and then went for it. Would’ve liked to have waited until end of October but couldn’t as had to make the purchases.
@points_warrior – if I downgrade now is upgrading back fairly straight forward or another headache? My voucher year resets in September.
Sorry above is meant for @points_worrier …apologies for getting the name wrong.
I’m on target to hit mu 10k spend and 4 months into my card year. If I downgrade afterwards do they still give the pro rate refund?
I’m the odd one out then, should be
£9.9k by the end of the month. I see it as 7500 extra Avios but I am only halfway through the year. At about £18.5k on the free Barclaycard with 5 months to go. Should easily hit both.@lonjams your upgrade would be contingent on Amex accepting it. There’s increasing evidence Amex are clamping down on this, so I wouldn’t aim to do it too much. If you’re not keeping the card solely to pay voucher taxes, it may well be worth cancelling to reset your 2 year clock. And this may well annoy Amex less.
Had put the wife’s BAPP on ice with a view to triggering in Jan, but have now deliberately triggered it to book 6 of us with 2 x 241s next October.
The next challenge is to get 3 more vouchers by spring ’27. I’ve mapped this out and it is contingent on me being accepted for a new BAPP next winter.
However, the increased spend target certainly makes the overall target more challenging. 45k total spend vs 30k plus the fee increase too.
as the stupidest risk taker, we have a big payment due that we cannot pay before Oct 31st, and that will take us over the 10k spend. If all goes well, we’ll get the voucher soon, but if something goes wrong, it’ll all tank!
living life on the edge!
Sadly my year started last week of September, so won’t be rushing to spend…
What is the last safe date to put the spending on the card to ensure the threshold is reached? Does the transaction need to settle before 1 November?
The counter only seems to update once the transaction’s gone through and processed, so I think you’ll want to do it soon. It can depend on the merchant/shop/company on how quick they process.
I think transactions need to clear on 31Oct or before.
My issue is that I have done several transactions since Saturday 19th and none have appeared as cleared on my account. Even more weirdly they don’t even appear as pending though ny available credit balance is lower.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Amex’s systems are in meltdown and that I will not hit the 10k spend threshold in time.
Its done that for me and eventually clears but you’ve timed it well with 8 days to go. Theyll soon be people asking if a purchase on 31 Oct 23:58 will count before the 1 Nov deadline.
I out through £10k spend last week and the voucher showed up 2 days afer the transaction from pending to final.
I out through £10k spend last week and the voucher showed up 2 days afer the transaction from pending to final.
Is the voucher expiry based on date of issue or the date that the 10k spend target was hit?
They should be one and the same but it can take 24-48 house to get from Amex to BA.
Oh dear. I seem to not be able to make my fully flexible business class booking to the states. Fortunately the refund rules seem quite generous so I don’t have to worry about getting my money back though. I wonder how many of us are in the same unfortunate position?
Better off making tentative plans for a lovely hotel booked via hotels.com paid in full upfront. If you unfortunately cannot make it the full refunds are very simple and prompt
Better off making tentative plans for a lovely hotel booked via hotels.com paid in full upfront. If you unfortunately cannot make it the full refunds are very simple and prompt
It is unclear whether I should be pre-paying for my hotel or flight for my highly tentative, yet highly expensive trip. Are there any benefits to booking the hotel rather than the flight??
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