I’ve just booked BA business class return flights to the USA for the MSF and I, for a total of £600; the cash price is £4,500. Sadly, this isn’t a deal anyone can grab hold of, as it was with BA Miles and it’s made me re-evaluate the British Airways American Express credit card as an even better deal.
The BA Amex card.
Put simply, use the card and you earn British Airways miles. Yet, most importantly, spend above a certain limit of c. £20,000 (depends which incarnation of the card), and you get a “companion pass”. This means that whatever you use your points for (provided you pay completely in points), you get the same for another person, thus effectively doubling the value.
Better than a cashback card?
In general, I’m a fan of cashback cards (paid off in full of course), and until about 18 months ago I used the Amex Platinum card (see top cashback card guide) as my primary card.
Yet then my expenditure on the card started to increase. This is because as well as using it for ALL personal expenditure (i never pay any other way if I can help it) I started using it for work expenses (and travelling around filming, being out of the office a lot means that speedily adds up), getting close to £50,000 a year on the card. At these high levels the BA Amex starts to come into its own. Especially as my intro 5% cashback Amex Platinum period was long gone.
Yet I must admit, even I’m surprised at the value I’ve got for my points. I redeemed them last week, when as noted in the weekly email, there was a promotion on, so you only needed half the number of points for the flight. As such, I couldn’t resist going business clas s… a little luxury isn’t a bad thing, especially as the only cost if you use the points is the taxes and charges, so the excess isn’t really that different.
We’re currently starting the process of reviewing the rewards cards and reward checker study for the site, and BA Amex has always done very well. Yet I am going to double-check the methodology, to ensure that this type of deal is adequately reflected for others who put lots of expenditure (work and pleasure) on the card.
