How does the British Airways American Express Credit Card Work?

It’s George again with another look at some of my top tips on using rewards credit cards, and in some of recent articles, I’ve talked about the Amex Preferred Rewards Gold card as a great option for a first Amex credit card. The main reason is that it comes with good benefits and it’s free for the first year. In some ways this gives an opportunity to ‘try before you buy’.  

Amex also offer several other credit cards, and two of these are issued in partnership with British Airways. As these offer some interesting and valuable rewards, I thought I’d discuss these cards in this article. 

In case you missed the previous ones I have written, you can check these out below:

• A Beginner’s Guide to Earning Credit Card Rewards (click to read)

• How Does The American Express Gold Card Work? (click to read)

• How to Maximise Value from Rewards Points when Redeeming for Flights (click to read)

The Basics of British Airways American Express Cards

The first thing to note about the British Airways Amex cards is that rather than earning you membership rewards points (MR points) like the Gold card does, they instead earn Avios points. I explained in my previous article how Avios points are the reward currency of the British Airways loyalty program and the programs of several other airlines.  

The main reason to get a BA Amex is because if you spend above a certain amount over a year using the card, you will earn a Companion Voucher. The Companion Voucher entitles you to a 50% discount to the number of Avios required when booking reward flights on British Airways. It’s called a Companion Voucher as the idea is that you can take a companion when you travel. So two people can fly when you only have the Avios required for one. But if you travel solo, it just gives a 50% discount on the Avios required for one person. 

This can be a really valuable reward, as it can potentially save you hundreds of thousands of Avios when you book reward flights. 

What British Airways American Express Cards Can You Get in the UK? 

The British Airways Amex cards come in two varieties, a standard BA card and a premium card called the BA Priority Plus credit card (or BAPP for short).  

British Airways American Express Card UK

The standard card has no annual fee and earns you 1 Avios point per £ spent. If you spend £15,000 in a year, you will earn the Companion Voucher. As I mentioned above, this entitles you to a 50% discount to the Avios required for a British Airways reward booking. So, if you and a friend book a return reward flight to New York from London in economy, that would usually cost 100,000 Avios and £200 in cash for taxes. But with the Companion Voucher, it’s only 50,000 Avios and £200 in taxes. Note that the standard Companion Voucher can only be redeemed when booking economy tickets. 

British Airways Priority Plus Card UK

The BAPP card has a £300 annual fee and earns you 1.5 Avios point per £ spent. So, you pay a chunky annual fee, but here’s the benefit. The BAPP Companion Voucher allows you a 50% discount to the Avios when flying in any class of travel, even first class! So, suppose we book our return for two to New York in business class. That reward booking typically requires 320,000 Avios and £750 in cash for taxes. But with the voucher the booking requires 160,000 Avios and £750. That means that the voucher has saved us from having to collect 160,000 Avios for that booking. 

I hope that in that one example, you can see how the BAPP Companion Voucher can be a valuable reward. In the above example, it has an effective value of 160,000 Avios. If you value an Avios at 1p each, then the voucher saves us from having to collect £1,600 of Avios. The Companion Voucher can bring once in a lifetime business class flights a step closer for many of us who ordinarily cannot afford them. 

British Airways AMEX Sign-Up Bonus

Both cards come with a sign-up bonus for spending a certain amount in the first few months, just like the Gold card. Anyone who signs up for a BA Amex is eligible for a sign-up bonus, as long as they have not had a BA Amex in the last two years. Crucially, this means that if you have the Gold Amex card and then decide to sign up for a BA Amex several months later, you will receive a sign-up bonus on both cards.  

The sign-up bonus on the BAPP card is usually 30,000 Avios points, but British Airways periodically boost this to 50-60,000 through offers on their website. So you’re probably best waiting for British Airways to run this promotion to sign up for the card to get the maximum sign up bonus. 

Remember that you can obtain the sign up bonus on both the BAPP and Gold card if you have the Gold card first. Right now, you can earn a 35,000 MR points sign up bonus on the Gold card using our referral link below. 

https://americanexpress.com/en-gb/referral/gold-credit?ref=gRACEC2gkn&XLINK=MYCP