Cancelling BA Avios Premium Plus Card

[hs1987]

I’ve been sent a BA companion voucher for this year. When I called to cancel the card I was told that doing so would remove the voucher from my BA account. Is this true? In the meantime I’ve downgraded to the free BA card.

Many thanks

[Guernsey Globetrotter]

No – it’s not true – neither I nor Mrs GT have any form of BA Amex card at present yet we still have several 2-4-1 vouchers happily sitting on our BAEC accounts 🙂

[SteveJ]

https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/which-card-to-start-2-year-timer-but-still-use-241/

[JDB]

Well, you have had one standard response, so I will give you the other one. The above poster is simply guessing that past behaviour guarantees that the same will pertain in the future.

If you cancel the card you are technically in breach of terms 1 and 16 and possibly others, but hitherto these terms have not been applied. Also, the terms of your booking will state in the confirmation that you need to bring the payment card with you at the time of travel. Those that say Amex can’t remove the voucher from your BA account may be correct in the strictest sense, but there are a number of other obvious ways in which the voucher could be invalidated or cancelled at any stage. Someone reported here recently being caught out when paying for an amendment over there phone and the agent spotted the wrong sort of card was being used, so he had to pay an extra 100k Avios.

Maybe nothing will change, maybe it will; the risk is yours to weigh.

[anolan128]

My wife called Amex today to downgrade her BA Premium Plus card.

She was told she cannot downgrade, a feature that was apparently including in the contract she signed?

She was also told she will lose her existing companion vouchers, which already sit in her BAEC account.

Can someone please provide clarity here? I have my own BA Premium Plus card, with my wife an supplementary card holder. Should I push for them to enable a downgrade? Or just cancel, knowing she has another BA prem plus card in her name, that she can use when making any booking using the companion voucher?

Thanks

[SteveJ]

SteveJ wrote:

https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/which-card-to-start-2-year-timer-but-still-use-241/

@anolan128 I suggest you read the above thread and make your own risk based decision

[Luca M]

It is evident from recent reports that Amex CS has been instructed to being stricter and potentially this is in advance of stricter implementation of the T&C.

However, there are still the occasional reports of a downgrade, so I start wondering if the people getting the stricter feedback from Amex (two examples in this thread) are customers that have earned the companion voucher in a very short timeframe and any downgrade / cancellation would mean that they have even paid one year worth of full fee? Could you clarify if this is the case?

When I last upgraded before the fee increase just over a year ago, I was initially told that no upgrade option was available on my account, and after requesting an escalation, a supervisor took the phone and manually processed the upgrade, but was clear to me when she read the T&C over the phone that I may not be able to downgrade back to my previous fee free product in the future.

[RK228]

Luca M wrote:

When I last upgraded before the fee increase just over a year ago, I was initially told that no upgrade option was available on my account, and after requesting an escalation, a supervisor took the phone and manually processed the upgrade, but was clear to me when she read the T&C over the phone that I may not be able to downgrade back to my previous fee free product in the future.

Reflecting what you were told, when I accepted a downgrade offer yesterday to the free BA card (I initially called wanting to cancel), the CS agent made clear to me that it may not be possible to upgrade back to the BAPP.

[truthbetold]

What about avios accrued on the card account that are not yet transferred to BA? Will they be saved or are they lost upon closing?

[AJA]

truthbetold wrote:

What about avios accrued on the card account that are not yet transferred to BA? Will they be saved or are they lost upon closing?

Technically you forfeit the points upon cancellation like you do with any other Amex MR earning card.

If you want to be certain that they transfer don’t cancel the card until they have transferred to your BAEC on the isual day of the month.

Just stop spending in the interim. Another 1/12 of the annual fee on the BAPP seems worth it (until later this year when you won’t get a pro-rata refund anyway) in which case I don’t see the point in cancelling unless you are going for the 24 month reset.