Applicable to UK residents only.
In this series, I’m taking a look at the best cards to have in your wallet to rack up air-miles in the UK. Let’s take a look at the British Airways Premium Plus Credit Card, an American Express card. This is an ‘enhanced version’ of the free British Airways Credit Card (review here).
Key facts:
Sign-up bonus: 18,000 Avios is yours when you spend £3,000 in the first 3 months. An increased bonus of 19,000 Avios is available if you’re referred by an existing cardholder. Email me at thatairlineguybusiness (at) gmail.com if you’d like a referral link.
You will not receive this bonus if you’ve held another Amex-issued credit card in the six months prior to applying for the card. Any Amex charge card (i.e. Gold, Platinum or Green) or Amex credit card issued by a third party (e.g. Lloyds or MBNA) will NOT void the bonus.
Annual fee: £195. This is quite steep, though, with the perks offered below, you may be able to justify it.
Earning rate:
The card earns an impressive 1.5 Avios per pound spent on virtually any purchase, and 3 Avios per pound spent with British Airways Travel. This is a decent earning rate indeed.
Other benefits:
There is only one added perk to this card, but it’s a daddy perk! If you spend £10,000 in 12 months, you will receive a British Airways 2-4-1 companion voucher. This entitles you to book any two seats using air-miles for the price of one seat! This easily justifies the £195 fee if used correctly.
Remember, the more miles you have, the more valuable this voucher will be. Two Club World seats London to New York would normally cost 240,000 Avios, but using the voucher, it would be just 120,000. This is superb value, especially seeing as the ticket would cost ~£2,800 regularly. You have effectively saved 120,000 Avios, or £2,800, depending on how you want to think about it. This definitely offsets the annual fee. However, if you were to use the same voucher on a short-haul European hop, costing, say, 15,000 Avios, you would of course be getting far less value. Remember, you still have to pay the taxes on each ticket. For the New York example, taxes would still be ~£450 pp.
Buy one get one free on Business Class
seats? Yes please!
The voucher is valid for two years, so you’ll need some idea of how you’re going to redeem it before you set off. Also, the voucher is cancelled if you cancel the card, so if you aren’t willing to pay for a 2nd year, consider signing up for the free version of the British Airways American Express Card before you cancel, which will ensure it stays valid for the full time.
Final thoughts
The British Airways Premium Plus Credit Card is more of a ‘high level’ card than the others featured. I wouldn’t recommend getting it if you don’t already have a fair knowledge of miles. The card is also just wasting money if you can’t hit the 3 month and annual spending targets above. However, provided you can be sure you’ll hit the 2-4-1 voucher, you can expect some seriously lucrative redemption options.
