Changing from BA Blue card to BAPP – £11,500 spend in Blue

[NeilP57]

Today I upgraded my BA Blue card to a BAPP by calling the Amex call centre. Unlike some others posting on this forum, this was processed and approved without any issues. The spend in the current card year on the Blue card was £11,500.

I would be very interested to know what Companion Voucher will be issued, has anybody else been in this situation? Obviously, I would want the 2 year voucher, with the enhanced availability of Club World seats.

After upgrading via the call centre, I found some T&C’s on the Amex website that covers this situation. Theses say:

“8. If you have already reached the £10,000 spend threshold, you may receive a Companion Voucher that is valid for 12 months, rather than 24 months. If you would like to extend the validity of the Companion Voucher to 24 months, please contact British Airways customer service directly and they will look into extending the validity of the Companion Voucher for you”

These specific conditions were not mentioned during the (recorded by Amex) telephone call. All that was mentioned during the call regarding the Companion Voucher was that the BAPP Companion Voucher was valid for 24 month with the enhanced availability.

Whilst I will just have to wait to see what Voucher gets issued, I would be keen to hear of any experience on how this has been dealt with in the past. This forum has many posts recommending that the upgrade is done before the £10k spend is reached, but what happens when the spend at upgrade is between £10k and £12k?

[Luca M]

I di not think you will find many in this situation as the general advice for years has been to upgrade before hitting the £10k spend.

The T&C you have found suggest that they are open to potentially negotiate the validity of the voucher and/or maybe ask you to hit £12k to have the full 2 years for example.

I last upgraded in September 2021, just before the fee increase to £250 and hit the spend weeks later, triggering the new voucher type, so it was all good.

[NorthernLass]

I think there was some kind of Amex IT glitch which resulted in quite a few people getting the 12 month voucher instead of 24 after upgrading to BAPP. AFAIK they all got the enhanced voucher after contacting BA. It’s not clear whether Amex has now introduced this clause so that they don’t have to tweak their IT, or because they think people won’t want the hassle of calling BA about it!
Amex CS agents often get things wrong, but you would just get referred back to the Ts and Cs, I think, if you pushed this. There’s no reason to think that you’ll have any issues getting BA to amend your voucher if it does arrive with only 12 months on it, I even think Rob might have written about this in one of the HFP articles about the changes to the BAPP last year.

[northernline]

Hi Neil, I’m in a similar position. Recently upgraded to the BAPP from Blue between £10-12k spend. I was advised by Amex on the phone that I would get the BAPP voucher within a few days.
I got the notification on my Amex app that I had earned the voucher, but around a month later it still hasn’t appeared in my Executive Club account. After phone calls to both Amex and BA they seem to be just passing the blame back and forth for why it hasn’t appeared. Amex give me a reference number for the voucher (not the evoucher code that appears on BA website), but BA say they can’t see it.
No idea if this is related to the upgrade, it might just be a glitch on my account. Will now probably have to try and escalate it with BA, but getting in touch with them is usually a painful experience!

[Rob]

I expect you to, accidentally but its a long running IT issue, be issued with a 1-year BA voucher (Economy only).

Amex knows about this glitch and will fix it on request.

[NeilP57]

Thought I would update this tread with what actually happened. Maybe somebody else will learn a lesson from my mistake.

I spent sufficient to take the spend on the BAPP card (recently upgraded from the standard Blue card). I then couldn’t work out why a voucher had not posted to my BAPP account. In fact all the above was in my wife’s name, as in our family I manage personal finances for both of us. So using the on line chat as it’s easier to impersonate your wife, I contacted Amex Customer services.

After a short wait, I was reminded that a voucher had already been earned on her account back in February, which I had used to book flights straight away, and I had then downgraded the BAPP to a free Blue card and received my pro rata refund. So I had upgraded the Blue card to BAPP for no purpose but fortunately I was to down grade it once more back to a Blue card and receive another pro rata refund on the £250 fee.

This was all made worse, because at the same time as recently upgrading my wife’s card to BAPP, I also cancelled all my Amex cards. Whereas what I should have done is cancel my wife’s Amex cards and upgrade my Blue Card to BAPP.

So with a degree of trepidation, I applied on line for a BAPP (decided against seeking a referral bonus for my wife) and fortunately it was approved, albeit with a significantly reduced credit limit (£17,000 down to £4,500).

All this reminds us of the need to keep detailed records of the various strategies we are pursuing.

Thought I would share the story, as like some others, it is always frustrating to read half the story of others seeking advice and then not knowing the outcome.