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Good morning.
Apologies in advance if this has been answered before but as I have been getting conflicting answers from BA and Amex, I would appreciate your views.
I have a BAPP card, which I no longer actively use and therefore inclined to cancel. I have received my companion voucher and intend to use this within the next 12 months but Amex claim that should I cancel my card I will then also lose my voucher. According to the T&Cs that is indeed the case but is it being enforced?
Many thanks in advance.
All the best
Vas
You don’t lose the voucher despite t&c. However it could happen if BA tighten their grip
Currently you dont lose the voucher
but
with the announcement yesterday of the ending of pro-rata refunds of the BAPP annual fee I think there is a distinct possibility that in the future BA might ask to see the Amex card at check in. Or the IT gets tweaked and it won’t allow you to book a flight unless you use the underlying Amex card (this is somewhat of a stretch given BA’s consistency with IT meltdowns) but you never know.
Currently you dont lose the voucher
but
with the announcement yesterday of the ending of pro-rata refunds of the BAPP annual fee I think there is a distinct possibility that in the future BA might ask to see the Amex card at check in. Or the IT gets tweaked and it won’t allow you to book a flight unless you use the underlying Amex card (this is somewhat of a stretch given BA’s consistency with IT meltdowns) but you never know.
no way in hell the former will occur, the latter, very likely.
Currently you dont lose the voucher
but
with the announcement yesterday of the ending of pro-rata refunds of the BAPP annual fee I think there is a distinct possibility that in the future BA might ask to see the Amex card at check in. Or the IT gets tweaked and it won’t allow you to book a flight unless you use the underlying Amex card (this is somewhat of a stretch given BA’s consistency with IT meltdowns) but you never know.
no way in hell the former will occur, the latter, very likely.
The former used to apply and so, while unlikely, I wouldn’t be so definitive. The latter is more likely and doesn’t really require much from BA as they already need to identify and parse the BIN data.
For all the justified criticism re BA’s IT they can identify old vs new vouchers for pricing, the extra availability for new vouchers and to restrict that when attempting to book for three people with one voucher and they managed the covid voucher extensions, so they have more capabilities around vouchers than some aspects of their IT might suggest.
Obviously people need to make their own judgements about these things.
My understanding and reading of the terms is:
1) It’s currently perfectly within the rules to downgrade the card and use that downgraded card to pay for the voucher travel. The Amex customer services team are also known to state this.
2) Any changes to the terms requires 3 months notice
3) Vouchers already issued at the time of that change will not have their terms changed retrospectively.
I think the recently announced tightening on ‘the other side’ (Amex) should address any problems here. I don’t see why BA would care that you continue to pay fees to Amex in order to use a voucher they are already paid for, especially now Amex is going to hold onto the full annual fee from October.
@baVID, BA’s rules are very clear that the payment of the cash element must be with the card which earned the voucher, regardless of what anyone at Amex says. BA could decide to start insisting on this if they wanted to.
The safest options are to use the card with which you earned the voucher to pay the surcharges, if you still have it, and if you cancel it hang on to the physical card and take it on the trip with you.
All Taxes, Fees and Charges must be paid for using the British Airways American Express Card
This is under the terms section:
All British Airways American Express Cardmembers
The terms are worded such that “British Airways American Express Card” means either card or the cardmember, whilst specific cards are referred to as “British Airways American Express Credit Card” and “British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card”.
I note that Amex could but presumably chose not to specify that the same card/product that earned the voucher must be used to pay the TFCs. To do that would have been trivial, but instead they use the collective term for the products. This reflects the discussion I had with an Amex Brighton advisor when discussing the merits of cancelling Vs downgrading. It was made quite clear to me that because I downloaded and retained the British Airways American Express Card (and continued to remain eligible for the voucher programme) after downgrade this was fine.
Do you read those terms differently? I think there are alternative readings of those terms but I don’t think it’s as clear as you make out.
I think it’s pretty clear – the use of the term “the” instead of “a” is a good indicator, plus the consensus on here has been that this is the case since forever! I imagine they are using one set of Ts and Cs to cover bookings made with both the free and paid card, and would say that a reasonable person would understand that.
You could try to argue it, I guess, but that wouldn’t stop BA just cancelling your flight if they felt that way out, which would likely cause no end of inconvenience.
I would never rely 100% on anything an Amex advisor told me because they are not experts on the intricacies of their own products but you might want to get a recording of that call in case you ever need to refer back to it!
I think it’s pretty clear – the use of the term “the” instead of “a” is a good indicator, plus the consensus on here has been that this is the case since forever! I imagine they are using one set of Ts and Cs to cover bookings made with both the free and paid card, and would say that a reasonable person would understand that.
You could try to argue it, I guess, but that wouldn’t stop BA just cancelling your flight if they felt that way out, which would likely cause no end of inconvenience.
I would never rely 100% on anything an Amex advisor told me because they are not experts on the intricacies of their own products but you might want to get a recording of that call in case you ever need to refer back to it!
I don’t think using “the” instead of “a” is relevant in this context, as the term is explicitly defined to mean both the free version of the card and the BAPP.
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