American Express British Airways card

[JonV8V]

tuffer said:

The best use of Avios I have found is exchange them for wine, flights can be a bit hit and miss regards availability. Managed to get Business to Houston earlier this year along with a companion voucher and then grabbed an internal flight to Vegas which was the intended destination. Managed a few 1st class returns to the Caribbean and West Coast USA over the years and the AMEX insurance picked up the tab for a 10 day hospital stay in Moscow so can't complain. Just traded my remaining Avios for some cases of Veuve and a couple of bottles of Hendricks.

I need to check out the wine...

[bad company]

SilverSixer said:

I've just started using the Lloyds Avios Amex, my local corner shop takes it but I went to Game the other day to get something for my son and they don't take it. I suppose that's why you get a Lloyds Avios MasterCard supplied automatically as well as the Amex, same account and PIN and all that jazz, but to use just in case you're somewhere non-Amexy. Was surprised Johnny Corner Shop took it.

AND as I said previously no overseas usage charges.

[Mr Trophy]

I've read people's comments on here and whilst I did say it was a ball ache, I've applied for one myself as I've got a few big purchases coming up

When people applied - how long did it take for a decision to be made?

[tuffer]

JonV8V said:

I need to check out the wine...

You can either transfer your points to the Avios website or just purchase direct from BA. I went for the latter as I had forgotten my Avios login, very simple and delivery arrived within 3 days.......hick.

[jonnykerm]

I decided to go for the free BA card as I have a few big Christmas purchases coming up, may as well get some sort of reward for my spending. I just applied online and the decision was pretty much instant. The card came today so from applying to receiving card, it was about 7 working days.

[Mr Trophy]

jonnykerm said:

I decided to go for the free BA card as I have a few big Christmas purchases coming up, may as well get some sort of reward for my spending. I just applied online and the decision was pretty much instant. The card came today so from applying to receiving card, it was about 7 working days.

Very interesting. I applied last week (week today) and I've phoned twice and I am stuck on the last stage apparently...

[GCH]

jonnykerm said:

I decided to go for the free BA card as I have a few big Christmas purchases coming up, may as well get some sort of reward for my spending. I just applied online and the decision was pretty much instant. The card came today so from applying to receiving card, it was about 7 working days.

My bonus for referring you posted today so thanks for that


Anyone else need a referral? Happy to help - lots of bonus avios for you & me

[jonnykerm]

GCH said:

jonnykerm said:

I decided to go for the free BA card as I have a few big Christmas purchases coming up, may as well get some sort of reward for my spending. I just applied online and the decision was pretty much instant. The card came today so from applying to receiving card, it was about 7 working days.

My bonus for referring you posted today so thanks for that


Anyone else need a referral? Happy to help - lots of bonus avios for you & me

No worries at all. My card arrived today so will start buying Christmas presents to be my bonus! Thanks for the refer :-)

[Mr Trophy]

I seem to be having a nightmare for some reason. Called again yesterday, "Will be sorted today"

Came into the office this morning with no email....

[Mr Trophy]

Bought some stuff this weekend... How long does it take for the points to be added onto your card? Or does it automatically go to your BA account?

[GT03ROB]

Mr Trophy said:

Bought some stuff this weekend... How long does it take for the points to be added onto your card? Or does it automatically go to your BA account?

If you are transferring to your BA account they do it once a month.

[Alex L]

Mr Trophy said:

Bought some stuff this weekend... How long does it take for the points to be added onto your card? Or does it automatically go to your BA account?

If you bought through Gate365 to multiply your points then you should get an email within a couple of days to say they've been tracked

[sumo69]

GCH said:

My bonus for referring you posted today so thanks for that


Anyone else need a referral? Happy to help - lots of bonus avios for you & me

I am thinking about 1 of these - Pm me the details and if I proceed I will use them.

David

[GCH]

sumo69 said:

GCH said:

My bonus for referring you posted today so thanks for that


Anyone else need a referral? Happy to help - lots of bonus avios for you & me

I am thinking about 1 of these - Pm me the details and if I proceed I will use them.

David

Doesn't work like that - need name, email address and which card you want, which the existing cardholder then logs in and inputs into a referral form, and then amex send you a personal and unique referral link for you to apply through.

Referral bonus for the applicant is currently:
Premium plus card: 26,000 bonus for a £3000 spend within three months.
Free card: 10,000 for a £1000 spend within the first three months.

[kryten22uk]

SilverSixer said:

I've just started using the Lloyds Avios Amex, my local corner shop takes it but I went to Game the other day to get something for my son and they don't take it. Was surprised Johnny Corner Shop took it.

Probably because the corner shop has way more mark-up on their prices/products than Game could ever do, so can afford the high processing fee.

[towser44]

As a little bit of an aside to this, I have a BA Amex Card and also swap my Tesco Clubcard and Shell points to Avios/BA points. I very rarely use V-Power diesel, but will do the minimum 20 litres when Shell have a bonus offer on. Anyway, had an email from Shell last week saying that as a thank you for using V Power they were giving me 5,000 bonus points. I was quite pleased with that!

[///Mike]

Interesting thread. I have been using an Amex Gold for over a year now and have got 150k points.

Naively I booked us to go to Mexico next week back in November and paid for premium economy hoping to use my points to upgrade to club but ba.com tells me there is no abailability for this. Wishing I had a ba amex as I have spent a lot of money to accrue my 150k points and it sounds like I could have just of booked a single return club ticket and used a conpanion voucher for the Mrs which would have been a similar cost to what we are paying for prem economy.

Anyone else switched from an amex gold to ba plus? Sounds worth it from a quick glance through his thread?

[The Leaper]

Just because you have the card does not mean that you can get the seats on the flight you want...much more likely that you will have to be flexible about dates etc in order to use your points.

I suspect that BA have told you, literally, that there is no club upgrade available by using points because they have all been used by other card holders. They have a limit on the number of people using points for each flight anyway.

In your own case, it may have been possible to use the points to get the premium economy seats and then to use cash to upgrade to club.

R.

[Alex L]

Just had a quick search on the BA Exec Club website and there are outgoing Business Class seats available using Avios on the 30th Dec (although won't tell me how many seats) and the soonest inbound Business seats are on the 11th Jan, of which there are 3 seats available.

This assumes you're flying from London to Mexico City

[Mr Trophy]

Sorry to sound extremely dim, but can someone please explain this Companion voucher?

I can fly anywhere in the world, any class and at any time within the next 12 months?