Should you cancel your British Airways Premium Plus Amex card if you can’t spend £15,000?

As most HfP readers know, you need to spend £15,000 per year to receive a 2-4-1 Companion Voucher on either of the British Airways American Express credit cards.

Yesterday, I looked at what holders of the free British Airways American Express Credit Card should do if they can’t spend £15,000 per year – click to read.

Today I want to look at what holders of the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card should do if they can’t spend £15,000 per year.

It’s actually a very simple answer.

If you can’t spend £15,000 on the Premium Plus card, get rid of it and save the £300 fee. No ifs and no buts.

It’s not up for debate.

In this scenario, why are you holding the card? There are two better options open to you:

• Get the £20 per month Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard – you earn the same rate (1.5 Avios per £1) and, as a Mastercard, it is accepted in more places than American Express. You save £60 per year in annual fees. You are reducing the cards in your wallet or purse, because everyone needs a back-up Visa or Mastercard for their Amex anyway. You won’t struggle to hit £10,000 to trigger the annual upgrade voucher, especially as you can add your annual non-Amex spending to what you currently spend on your Premium Plus Amex.

or

• Get the free American Express Rewards Credit Card – you earn at a lower rate (1 Avios per £1, if you choose to convert the Membership Rewards points into Avios) but you can also convert your points into many other airline or hotel loyalty programmes. The lower earning rate EASILY justifies the £300 you’re saving on the Premium Plus annual fee.

I do not recommend downgrading to the free British Airways American Express card for reasons I will explain.

Option 1: Should you swap to the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard?

If you can’t spend £15,000 on the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card, there are a LOT of good reasons to switch to the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard. For example:

• ALL Amex cardholders need a back-up Visa or Mastercard, and if you have a British Airways American Express then one of the two Barclaycard Avios Mastercards has ALWAYS been your obvious companion

• The annual fee is lower – £240 per year vs £300 per year on the Premium Plus Amex – even though the earning rate on non-BA spending is the same (1.5 Avios per £1)

• After two years away you’d be able to apply for American Express cards again and start picking up fresh sign-up bonuses

• Whilst you may not be able to spend £15,000 to earn the voucher on the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card, you should be able to spend £10,000 for the upgrade voucher on the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard. You can add all of your non-Amex card spend to what you were already putting on your Amex.

• The upgrade voucher on the Barclaycard Avios Mastercard isn’t as good as the 2-4-1 Companion Voucher on the American Express Premium Plus – but if you can’t spend £15,000 to trigger the latter, who cares? This article shows how the Barclaycard Avios upgrade voucher works.

• If you’ve not applied for a Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard before, you would qualify for a 25,000 Avios sign-up bonus

One thing to remember ….

If you have an existing unused 2-4-1 Companion Voucher, you will need access to an American Express card to pay the taxes and charges when you use it.

It doesn’t need to be in your name (Amex doesn’t do name verification so your name can still go in as cardholder) and it doesn’t need to be a British Airways American Express card (the rules changed a couple of years ago to make this clear, although it was always the case) but you will need access to an Amex card of some sort to book.

Option 2: Should you swap to the free American Express Rewards Credit Card?

You may want to remain within the American Express ecosystem. Perhaps you like the referral bonuses or the cashback offers?

Your initial thought was probably to downgrade to the free British Airways American Express Credit Card. I don’t recommend that, since you aren’t spending enough to trigger the 2-4-1 Companion Voucher.

(Under no circumstances should you keep your Premium Plus card if you can’t spend £15,000. OK, you earn an extra 0.5 Avios per £1 spent, but as you’re spending under £15,000 then logically this benefit gets you fewer than 7,500 extra Avios per year. You’d be crazy to pay a £300 annual fee just for that.)

Instead, I suggest that you swap to the American Express Rewards Credit Card. It’s free for life and earns 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent.

What you get with the American Express Rewards Credit Card is flexibility.

Yes, you can use your points for Avios.  You can send them over to BA via the Amex website and they will arrive within 24 hours.

However, you have other options.  Membership Rewards points can also be sent to Virgin Atlantic, Air France KLM, Emirates, Etihad, Singapore Airlines or Delta among other airline partners.  You can also send them to Hilton (1:2), Marriott (2:3) and Radisson (1:3).  You can convert them to Eurostar points (15:1).  You can even use them for shopping vouchers.  You can see the airline partners here.

The American Express Rewards Credit Card gives you more choice.  You can still take Avios if you want, and at the same 1 Avios per £1 earning rate.  If you suddenly decide that you want hotel points, or that Virgin Points make more sense, or even that you want to abandon Avios altogether, you can.  Simply move your Amex points somewhere else instead.

If you downgrade to the free BA Amex card, your points are sitting in Avios from Day 1 and you can’t do anything else with them.  If Avios devalues its rewards, if BA stops flying your preferred route, if reward availability suddenly gets a lot harder to find, if Reward Flight Saver fees jump up, if new surcharges get added …. you’re stuck. Your only way out is via a transfer to Nectar points at a poor rate of 0.5p per Avios.

There is literally no area where the free British Airways American Express Credit Card outperforms the Amex Rewards Credit Card if you are not triggering the 2-4-1 Companion Voucher. You don’t even get bonus Avios when paying with the free BA Amex at ba.com or tier points in The British Airways Club – these are benefits that only comes with the British Airways Premium Plus Card.

And, of course, after two years without a British Airways American Express card you’d be able to re-apply for Premium Plus and pick up a hefty sign-up bonus.

Even better, this card gets Amex cashback offers for other airlines such as the recent £300 United Airlines deal. British Airways American Express cards are blocked from getting cashback deals with other carriers.

Conclusion

It is always good to take stock occasionally and decide if the credit cards you are using are still right for you.

You can have a healthy salary but knock out rent / mortgage payments, non-Sterling holiday payments (avoid Amex’s 3% fee!) etc and you can still struggle to hit £15,000 of American Express spending to trigger your Companion Voucher.

Whether you get the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard at £20 per month:

• usable everywhere

• upgrade voucher if you can spend £10,000 (which should be easy as you were previously spending £10,000 on your Amex)

• opens the door to returning to Amex in 24 months to get a fresh sign-up bonus

• thins out your wallet or purse, since you need a Visa or Mastercard anyway as a fall back

• keeps earning Avios at 1.5 per £1 spent with a £60 annual fee saving – albeit you don’t get double Avios on BA spending

…. or the free American Express Rewards Credit Card:

• free for life, saving a whopping £300 on the Premium Plus annual fee

• earns Avios at a lower rate (1 per £1 spent) but more than generous enough given the £300 you’re saving on fees

• opens the door to returning to British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card in 24 months to get a fresh sign-up bonus

• gives you FAR more flexibility in using your points, as you can also move them to many other airline schemes, plus various hotel programmes, Club Eurostar and for shopping vouchers

…. either is a better choice than the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card if you spend under £15,000 per year and will not receive a 2-4-1 Companion Voucher.

Our full review of the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard is here and you can apply here.

The representative APR is 80.1% APR variable, including the annual fee.  The representative APR on purchases is 29.9% variable.

Our full review of the American Express Rewards Credit Card is here and you can apply here.

The representative APR is 29.1% variable.

We did an article on the core benefits of the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card here. You can apply here.

If you don’t want to pay an annual fee, a similar article on the benefits of the free British Airways American Express Credit Card is here. You can apply here.