How to fly in Business Class using your British Airways Amex card

The British Airways American Express Premium Plus card makes flying business or first class a more affordable option for people spending more than £10,000 a year on their credit card.

I’ll share my experience of capturing those coveted British Airways business class seats, armed with Avios (airmiles) and a companion voucher (giving two Avios flights for the price of one).

Why choose this card?

For me, the main attraction of this card is the possibility of booking tickets in Business and First Class cabins with a significant discount compared to the cash price. For the past few years, we’ve used our companion vouchers to book first and business class award flights to New York, Boston and Tampa for a family of four.

However, it’s not a cheap option given the minimum annual expenditure of £10,000 needed to earn a companion voucher, annual fees of £250 and high taxes on long-haul flights. Finding award flights can be time consuming and requires flexibility on dates and destinations.

How do the costs compare to booking in cash?

To illustrate the potential savings, I have priced two Club World return flights to LA in August 2022, at a total cost of 75,000 Avios (with companion voucher) and £689 tax per person, a significant discount on cash fare of £2,714 pp. However, given that the same Economy flights cost £990, the taxes charged on award flights in premium cabins are significant.

Best ways to earn Avios points

Booking award flights requires Avios points, so here are my top 3 ways to earn Avios:

1. Welcome offer: currently 40,000 bonus Avios (until 28 Feb 2022, normally 25,000 Avios) when you spend £3,000 on the card in the first three months.
2. General rate: Earn 1.5 Avios for every £1 spent (3 Avios for every £1 on BA).
3. Earn extra Avios: The BA eStore works in the same way as cashback websites such as Quidco, by visiting the site before clicking on the retailer’s website. I’ve collected around 15,000 Avios a year through the eStore, with some purchases earning up to 15 Avios for £1.

How to earn side vouchers

Cardholders receive a companion voucher when they spend £10,000 on the card in a membership year. The vouchers are valid for two years. But they can only be used on ‘reward flights’ – flights booked with Avios, not cash. We’ve pooled our family’s Avios into a family account (including those under 18) to redeem for award flights.

The person winning the companion voucher must be traveling on the reservation. However, their “companion” doesn’t have to be a family member. Additional cardholders do not earn their own companion voucher, although their spending does count towards the £10,000 minimum spend calculation.

How to book award flights

Reward seats are released 355 days in advance, although more may be added later. I found it easier to find award seats since BA doubled the number of award seats to four Club World (Business Class) seats for each flight.

In my experience, it’s easier to find reward flights to destinations with multiple flights per day (like New York and Chicago) than to destinations like the Caribbean and Australia. It is also more difficult to find award flights during school holidays.

It is worth watching the taxes. BA has introduced the Reward Flight Saver (with reduced taxes from £1) to tackle the problem of disproportionately high taxes on short-haul economy reward flights, although these are not always available for booking accompanying vouchers.

Using companion vouchers on long-haul flights maximizes the value of your two-for-one companion voucher. If I booked a business class return flight to Johannesburg in November 2022, I would get the equivalent of 125,000 “free” Avios for the person using the correct companion, compared to 40,000 Avios for Madrid.

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What are the cancellation options?

Given the uncertainty surrounding overseas travel during the pandemic, I like the flexibility of being able to cancel award flights up to 24 hours before the outbound flight (for a cancellation fee of £35 per person ).

An alternative option is a Future Travel Voucher which ‘freezes’ the Companion Voucher, taxes paid and Avios to be used against a future award flight booking with no cancellation fees. We opted for the voucher when we recently canceled an award flight booking as our companion vouchers were due to expire. This extended their validity until September 2023.

About the Author

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