Review: British Airways American Express Credit Card

This article provides a full guide to the American Express British Airways credit card, the benefits it brings and how to maximise its value.

This review is the second in a series of several looking at UK credit cards and comparisons between them to give you an idea of which one is best suited to your needs, and how to maximise the benefits they bring to provide you with the most value. All articles can be found under the ‘Credit Cards & Air Miles’ tab on the menu bar.

What does the card offer?

Here are they key features of the BA Amex credit card:

Annual Fee = £0 – This is a free credit card provided by Amex for Avios collection. There is a fee carrying ‘premium’ version of this card with greater benefits that can be found here.

Rewards:

• 1 Avios earned for every £1 spent
• 1 ‘Companion Voucher’ per membership year upon reaching £12,000 spent

The companion voucher is valid for 2 years, and you must travel on the return leg before the date of the expiry. The voucher gives you a couple of different options depending on your preferences:

• Redeem the voucher as a reward booking on British Airways, Iberia or Aer Lingus airlines, and get a ‘2-for-1’ redemption, meaning that you get 2 tickets for the price of 1 Avios fare, plus carrier charges, taxes and fees.
• Redeem for a ‘solo traveller discount’, giving you the option to receive an Avios redemption of 50%.

This companion voucher for this card is only redeemable on an economy fare ticket (also known as Euro Traveller and World Traveller on British Airways) but also on Iberia or Aer Lingus flights.

Upon reaching the £12,000 eligible spend, you will receive an e-mail notification and the voucher will appear in your British Airways Executive Club account as shown below:

This is diffierent to the BA Premium Plus companion voucher which is pbtained from the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card, and is redeemable on any cabin class – including first class. 

Sign-up Bonus – 5,000 Avios if you spend £1,000 in the first 3 months of membership.

Cardholders also get travel insurance and inconvenience protection when travelling on journeys booked using the credit card. There are conditions that need to be met for this, so be sure to refer to your policy for more detail.

Purchase and refund protection also guarantees protection for eligible purchases using your credit card. An excess may apply so once again, refer to your policy.

How much is the sign-up bonus worth?

You receive this once you meet the threshold of £1,000 of eligible spend, you don’t have to wait for the 3-month time frame to elapse before seeing the Avios deposited into your account.

With the ability to convert Avios to Nectar points at roughly 0.8p per Avios, this means that the sign up bonus is worth £40. That alone provides value for simply owning the card, without factoring in the Avios generated from every day spend, and the potential savings of the companion voucher.

How much is the companion voucher worth?

It depends what flight you choose to redeem it for, as British Airways has a tier-structure of several zones when determining how many Avios are required to fly to a destination. The further away it is, the more Avios required. The number of Avios also changes depending on if the flight is deemed to be during ‘peak’ or ‘off-peak’ times.

Let’s take Corfu as an example. To fly there in economy on British Airways during peak season, each leg costs 15,250 Avios and 50 pence.

Using the companion voucher for a return flight and assuming the 0.8p per Avios baseline, the savings would translate into:

• £244 when redeeming a ‘2-for-1’ trip for 2 people. This would cost 30,500 Avios.
• £122 when redeeming for a ‘solo traveller’ discount of 50%. This would cost 15,250 Avios.

It’s clear that the ‘2-for-1’ redemption on a reward flight saver is more valuable, as British Airways does not charge high surcharges and fees when flying within Europe.

A better example of the savings realised would be to take the cost of a going flight to Corfu in peak times. During summer times you can find a return flight for around £260. Taking to 30,500 Avios for the cost of a return flight, this gives us a saving of 0.85 pence Avios, higher than the baseline of 0.8p.

You should aim for higher if possible, but with the voucher limited to economy fares, it’s hard to achieve an incredible return on Avios.

I’ve had instances where I’ve achieved 5p per Avios when redeeming the Premium Plus Companion Voucher on British Airways First Class. Read this article for a step-by-step guide on how I did this.

Conclusion

All in all I think the British Airways American Express is a good ‘starter’ card for anyone looking to get into the Avios collection game.

I do however think that there are better alternatives for Avios collection, such as the Premium Plus version of this card, which has the better companion voucher of the 2, as well as higher Avios earning rates.

I also think that the Barclaycard Avios Mastercard is a better option as it is more widely accepted than American Express. For more reviews, guides and comparison articles, head to the ‘Credit Cards & Air Miles’ section on the menu at the top.