BA Amex 25th birthday bonus offer ends today – but Avios are not posting properly
Back in February, American Express kicked off a year of events to celebrate 25 years of the British Airways American Express cards with an Avios bonus.
It hasn’t gone to plan.
You may have forgotten that you registered – I know I did – but if you did sign up, you probably haven’t had the bonus Avios you were due.
This is what holders of the Premium Plus card were offered:
This was not strictly accurate. You did NOT get ‘25% more Avios based on your spending up to 8th April’. Instead, you got a flat 1,500 Avios.
If you spent EXACTLY £4,000 in total on your Premium Plus card then, yes, you will have earned 6,000 Avios and the bonus 1,500 Avios will represent 25% extra.
For anyone who spent over £4,000 in the period, the bonus will represent less than 25%.
(If you have the free British Airways American Express Credit Card, the offer was slightly different. You gott 500 bonus Avios for cumulatively spending £2,000+ by 8th April, which was also advertised as ‘25% more’.)
The other bit of small print was that supplementary card spending did not count. The offer was only available to primary cardholders and it was only their cumulative spend which counted towards the £4,000 target.
You had to register for this offer in the usual way, by clicking ‘Save to Card’ in the ‘Offers’ section of the American Express app or website.
The bonus Avios were not posting
Whilst I’ve spent well over £4,000 on my Premium Plus card since February, I haven’t received my bonus.
A reader dropped me a note yesterday who had contacted American Express to see what was going on. This is what he was told:
What I think this means is that only spend made via Apply Pay or Google Pay was counting towards the £4,000. Any other spending – either by using your physical card or online – has not counted.
American Express does seem aware of the issue, so if you registered and have spent over £4,000 by the end of today on a Premium Plus card, your 1,500 Avios should arrive at some point.