Cancelling BA Amex Premium – Still able to use 2-4-1 Vouchers?

[timmyg]

Hello,

I’m sure this must have been asked before but have been unable to quickly find an answer using ‘search’ so hoping someone can reassure me.

I have just called Amex to cancel my BA Amex Premium Card. I no longer need mine as my wife now has this card and I’am an additional card holder on that account.

Amex told me that if I cancel, I can’t use any of my 2-4-1 vouchers as the T&C’s that I agreed to state that the card account used to pay the taxes must be in my name. I have read somewhere on here that I can ignore that and still cancel as Amex doesn’t do any name checking when the taxes are paid (just as long as I use an Amex).

I’m sure that as this is the advice on here, many people must have already done this without issue. I guess my concern is the risk of Amex suddenly deciding to start name checking when my two 2-4-1 vouchers are redeemed (I have one ‘old-style’ and one new in my BA Executive Club account).

Amex did offer me two options to ‘compensate’. Firstly they would downgrade me to the free BA Amex so I could use that (refunding pro-rata the outstanding card fee). Secondly they offered by a bonus of 10,000 Avios if I keep my Premium card and spend £3k in the next 3 months. To be honest, I’d rather just cancel and spend on my wife’s account.

Can anyone help advise or provide reassurance regarding cancelling my account?

Thanks in advance!

[Rhys]

In practice, it has never worked that way. It has always been possible to cancel the card and retain the voucher in your BA account. You just need to make sure you have an Amex (any Amex, doesn’t even have to be yours) to pay when you want to redeem the voucher. There is a (very small, I would argue) risk that this changes.

Note that it takes a couple of days for the voucher to hit your BA account but when it does you should be fine.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Rob]

Frankly it’s pathetic that Amex stil tells its phone agents to spout this garbage. Most of them must know its a lie. 100% certain that Amex phone agents know that their cards do not do name verification.

[timmyg]

Thanks Rhys – I already have the vouchers in my BA account so no issues there. The concern really is around Amex changing what they do by starting to insist on the vouchers being redeemed using a card in the voucher-owners name….. It seems from the various posts in this forum that Amex are prone to changing how they do things from time to time!

Downgrading to the free BA Amex seems like the safest option as I really do not want to take any risks with my earned vouchers as they are clearly valuable. I just don’t like the idea of retaining a card that I have no intentions of using.

[timmyg]

Thanks Rob. I realise there must be plenty of evidence to suggest that AMEX don’t name-check today. Presumably however they could start doing this in the future and the concern is that happens before my vouchers expire in June 2024.

[Rob]

timmyg wrote:

Thanks Rob. I realise there must be plenty of evidence to suggest that AMEX don’t name-check today. Presumably however they could start doing this in the future and the concern is that happens before my vouchers expire in June 2024.

This would require the entire global American Express payment verification system to change ….

You can prove this yourself, by the way. Next time you buy something online and pay with Amex, stick Boris Johnson or similar into the ‘Cardholder name’ box. It will process just fine. Visa and Mastercard would not process.

[Reney]

In case helpful. I used my 2 for 1 last week, paid using an Amex in my name but definitely not the one that earned the voucher (closed almost 2 years). BA call centre asked me to pay with an Amex but did not specify which one it had to be.

To be clear I am not disagreeing with Rob about the name thing, I needed to pay with a card on my card account to qualify for amex plat insurance.

[SteveJ]

This needs to be a sticky

[timmyg]

Reney wrote:

In case helpful. I used my 2 for 1 last week, paid using an Amex in my name but definitely not the one that earned the voucher (closed almost 2 years). BA call centre asked me to pay with an Amex but did not specify which one it had to be.

To be clear I am not disagreeing with Rob about the name thing, I needed to pay with a card on my card account to qualify for amex plat insurance.

Thanks Reney. The AMEX agent made it clear that it did NOT need to be the same AMEX as used to earn the 2-4-1 voucher, but according to the T&C’s, the card used to redeem the 2-4-1 did need to come from an AMEX account in the same name.

… when I asked if it would be acceptable to redeem the 2-4-1 using an Amex account where I am an additional card holder (i.e. the Amex card has my name on it but the account has someone else’s name on it), I was explicitly told that would be in contravention of the T&C’s.

If I was planning to redeem my two vouchers in the next few weeks I’d probably take the risk and cancel the card. It is highly likely that this won’t happen however until sometime next year and I know things can change pretty quickly! I’m therefore heavily leaning towards downgrading to the Free AMEX and keeping it just in case.

[timmyg]

Thought it might be a good idea to review the T&C’s! I think the following is the relevant bit:

– The Cardmember is responsible for paying any Taxes, Fees and Charges relating to their Companion Voucher booking. All Taxes, Fees and Charges must be paid for using the British Airways American Express Card.

I’m certainly no legalese expert, but that reads to me as if the exact same card that earned the voucher needs to pay the taxes, fees and charges when redeeming the voucher. This actually contradicts what I was verbally told by the AMEX phone agent who said I could ‘downgrade’ to the free BA AMEX and use that when required!

Am I missing anything?

[SteveJ]

That’s what the agreement says, but they have zero way of enforcing it so it’s irrelevant.

[e14]

Rob Burgess wrote:

Frankly it’s pathetic that Amex stil tells its phone agents to spout this garbage. Most of them must know its a lie. 100% certain that Amex phone agents know that their cards do not do name verification.

They might well know it, but it’s in the script to read about card cancellation as it in the terms and conditions of the card, so the agent is going to read it out, whether you want them to or not, its the same as BA read out some disclosures to you when booking over the phone. I’m still surprised that there isn’t at least any partial (even 3 first character) validation on Amex, but hey it’s their network.

[timmyg]

SteveJ wrote:

That’s what the agreement says, but they have zero way of enforcing it so it’s irrelevant.

I recognise that they currently don’t check the name used at the point of sale, but they certainly take the card number which is presumably all that is needed to check that the taxes, fees and charges have been paid for using the same British Airways American Express Card (or account holder!) that earned the voucher as is written in the T&C’s?

My point is that whilst they don’t do this name validation today, with a change in process they presumably could when I choose to eventually redeem the two vouchers I have sitting in my BA account.

[Rob]

timmyg wrote:

My point is that whilst they don’t do this name validation today, with a change in process they presumably could when I choose to eventually redeem the two vouchers I have sitting in my BA account.

BA has no access to Amex data about who owns a card. BA doesn’t even know what your card number is.

You need to understand how restrictive data sharing is. Virgin never knew who held its MBNA cards, except for seeing who got credited miles. IHG still thinks my wife has her IHG (cancelled 3 years ago) because she is sent offers for stays where she pays with it.

[timmyg]

Rob Burgess wrote:

BA has no access to Amex data about who owns a card. BA doesn’t even know what your card number is.

You need to understand how restrictive data sharing is. Virgin never knew who held its MBNA cards, except for seeing who got credited miles. IHG still thinks my wife has her IHG (cancelled 3 years ago) because she is sent offers for stays where she pays with it.

Thank you. I was wondering about how much data sharing went on (or could go on) between BA and AMEX.

Am I therefore correct to presume that BA must be the party that is doing the existing validation at the point of voucher redemption? i.e. Simply confirming that an AMEX has been used to pay the taxes and fees by validating the card number (i.e. start with a 37 or 34 and are 15 characters?)

On that basis, I also presume that AMEX have no idea whether a BA payment transaction that hits their system is related to a voucher redemption or a ‘normal’ sale?

[Rob]

Try to redeem online and you see how it works. All payment options except Amex are greyed out. Your name is hardcoded in the cardholder name box.

Any Amex is accepted, and even though your name is in the cardholder box you can still use someone else’s Amex because there is no name verification. You need the address of the holder of the Amex card you use though.

[timmyg]

Just to close the loop on this. I finally cancelled my bapp card today. Received the same scare tactics (‘do you want to downgrade to the free card so you can continue to use your vouchers?’) from the agent. I stood my ground and cancelled.

…. Fingers crossed that nothing changed between now and me redeeming my two saved vouchers!

[JohnTh]

OH had the usual spiel about needing a BA Amex Premium in their name for 241 redemption, but also the offer of 10k for 3k spend. Have a large payment coming up soon, so decided worth sticking for now but will still canx before renewal date.

[CarpalTravel]

SteveJ wrote:

This needs to be a sticky

That was my first thought before opening this thread, or have some kind of HfP wiki, but then that is largely what all the articles are about. Perhaps a FAQ wiki page? Not sure how user friendly it’d be.

We could perhaps all contribute to it with Rhys/Rob etc.. maintaining editorial approvals etc..

[watsonjg77]

Howdy – not to tray and Lazarus this thread but I am in a similar situation with my wife – we over the last couple of years taken out BA Premium Plus, i did it this year to get the bonus miles. My wife’s annual fee is due in December. (We don’t need both as she is a second car d holder on my account)

She chatted to Amex yesterday and had the same thing said that she would loose the companion vouchers we have and we wouldn’t be able to make a booking without that card. (The vouchers are registered on my BA exec family account).

Has anyone that has downgraded or cancelled run in to problems? (I have had a look around for something recent but only something from March this year popped up.

Thanks in advance.
James

[watsonjg77]

Hi all, not to Lazarus this but i was hoping to hear if anyone has an update. Amex appear to be spinning the same narrative and encouraging a downgrade with a thread of being unable to book and or uses the CV for bookings.

Any updates really welcome.
Jim

[Anna]

There’s a thread in the BA/241 section where a few readers (possibly 4) posted that their vouchers disappeared when they cancelled their BAPPs. To my knowledge none of them have ever return to give any more info. This was maybe 2 months ago?

[JDB]

@watsonjg77 – while it’s no longer an issue to pay the charges on any old Amex, there is the small risk that has been highlighted in previous posts that in cancelling your BAPP rather than downgrading it to the free card you are falling foul of the term that requires you to remain eligible for the promotion.

Amex will tell you this is the case (and we have seen reports of removed vouchers), but HfP will beg to differ. In view of Amex’s general tightening up, and continued instructions by management to warn cardholders, the past is perhaps no guide to the future so there is some risk even if it is low. The main disadvantage of downgrading is that it doesn’t reset your two year SUB clock but you probably shouldn’t rely on that anyway.

[StanTheMan]

watsonjg77 wrote:

Howdy – not to tray and Lazarus this thread but I am in a similar situation with my wife – we over the last couple of years taken out BA Premium Plus, i did it this year to get the bonus miles. My wife’s annual fee is due in December. (We don’t need both as she is a second car d holder on my account)

She chatted to Amex yesterday and had the same thing said that she would loose the companion vouchers we have and we wouldn’t be able to make a booking without that card. (The vouchers are registered on my BA exec family account).

Has anyone that has downgraded or cancelled run in to problems? (I have had a look around for something recent but only something from March this year popped up.

Thanks in advance.
James

I told them not to worry because i had already used it – now, if they could see it in the BAEC account they would have said something. As they just said “OK” I assumed they couldnt see it, let alone yank it back….

[JDB]

@StanTheMan – if they wish to (not saying they necessarily do) they can “yank it back” by a variety of means, including expiring it, removing it or cancelling it. They can also change it from the PP voucher to the free one as they do in reverse when people upgrade the card but end up getting the lesser voucher. The ability to change validity during covid and how the new vouchers are programmed to access extra inventory while say blocking a third person on the booking for accessing it, ought to be clues that Amex and BA can do plenty. The suggestion they can’t do anything is truly nonsense and not borne out by the evidence.

If you rile Amex, they can be quite unpleasant and I think that blithely to say, carry on it will be fine as it has in the past is to misunderstand what is going on at Amex UK the moment.