I’ve written another article about how Amex has changed the way we travel, with that one focusing on the Platinum Card. But there’s another Amex card which we always have in our wallets. The American Express British Airways Premium Plus card. Let’s just refer to that as the Amex BAPP like everyone else. The Amex BAPP has a £300 annual fee. Which means we spend an outrageous £950 a year just to hold our Amex cards! Yet once you run the numbers it becomes a no-brainer.
If you’re ready to apply for the Amex BAPP card you can get a 31,000 point sign up bonus by using our link.
Why get the Amex BAPP card?
Like the Platinum card the main reason we first got the Amex BAPP card was to help build up our balance of air miles. Air miles can refer to a number of different programmes where you earn points for various actions (think spending on a credit card, or buying a cash flight ticket). For instance, when you spend £1 on the Platinum card you earn 1 Amex Membership Reward point, which can be transferred to a bunch of air miles programmes including British Airways, Virgin, and many others. As you might expect, with the British Airways card you only earn air miles with their programme (called Avios). But you can use Avios to book reward flights not just with BA but also Aer Lingus, Iberia, Finnair, Qatar and more. Still pretty generous. Spending on the Amex BAPP we earn 1.5 Avios per £1 spent.
What is the Amex BAPP sign up bonus?
There are two ways the Amex BAPP card directly boosted our Avios balance. First, it has the best points earning rate of any of our travel reward credit cards, so we put most of our day-to-day spend on it and our points balance will rise 50% faster. Secondly, the bonus! If you are eligible (which means you can’t have had this card in the last two years) you can earn a bonus of 31,000 Avios if you spend a certain amount within the first few months. Once you receive your card you can add free supplementary cards to family, friends, or your partner. This not only means more opportunities to earn at that higher rate, but also you receive a further 3,000 bonus Avios.
So let’s do some quick maths.
- The annual fee for the card is £300
- We value an Avios at 1p
- £6k spend to hit the Sign-Up Bonus = 9,000 Avios
- Sign-Up Bonus = 31,000 Avios
- Supplementary Card Bonus = 3,000 Avios
Once you’ve hit your targets you have a minimum of 43,000 Avios (which we would value at £430). That is enough for a return reward flight to the furthest reaches of Europe. Think Athens, Istanbul, even Marrakech. That in itself is a pretty good deal. But wait, there’s more, we can do much better…
The Amex BAPP 2-4-1 Voucher
Once you hit a target spend within a year (currently £15k) you will receive what is officially called a Companion Voucher. This entitles you to book another seat on your reward flight but without any further Avios cost.
Allow me to run the numbers again…
- The annual fee for the card is £300
- We value an Avios at 1p
- £15k spend to hit the Sign-Up Bonus and the 2-4-1 target = 22,500 Avios
- Sign-Up Bonus = 31,000 Avios
- Supplementary Card Bonus = 3,000 Avios
That’s 56,000 Avios in the bank, and you’re about to get double the value. Now TWO of you can fly return to New York, Toronto, or Dubai!
A Real World Example – Long Haul Economy
With plans to hit up both of North America’s Thanksgivings in 2025, we flew from London to Toronto in October then made our way to New York to fly back home in December.
In true Hustle Around The World style we also booked these flights during an Avios Sale! Meaning we got a further discount on the already ridiculous price. Here’s the maths….
In cash terms, we paid £200 in taxes and the cheapest equivalent cash ticket around that time would have been £800. So by collecting Avios we have saved £600 cash on that journey. Thats double the annual fee of the card in cash savings.
In Avios terms – what did the 2-4-1 voucher do for us? Well like we say we value an Avios at 1p. And the standard redemption for two people on this route is 100,000 Avios. But our 2-4-1 brought it down to 50,000 and the Avios Sale brought it down a further 40% to 30,000.
Now this was a bit of a use-it-or-lose-it situation. The voucher was a bonus to us left over from Covid and was about to expire. The cash savings aren’t incredible this time. But we are already on our way to earning our next voucher and these are our plans and the math for 2026…
A Real World Example – Long Haul Premium / Business
Time for some 4D chess.
Next year we are planning a trip from Madrid to Buenos Airies. Using Madrid as a base to fly from is great not just because we love the place! The Iberia reward flight pricing is considerably more favourable than British Airways and by avoiding London we can also avoid some of the nastier taxes applied to flights from there. We can still use the 2-4-1 voucher by booking an Iberia flight from the British Airways website. Using a 2-4-1 voucher, Madrid to Buenos Aires in Iberia Business Class costs 121,000 Avios and £469 for two people. Using our valuation of 1p per Avios these flights have a notional value of £840 each. If we elect to drop to Premium Economy it would cost 88,000 Avios and £399 for two people, therefore a value of £640 each.
Now we don’t pay much attention to headline cash prices in premium classes because we don’t think the prices are anything near good value. In this example cash tickets are available per-person for:
- Economy – £918 per person
- Premium Economy – £1696 (85% higher than Economy)
- Business – £3956 (430% higher than Economy)
If you can’t find a better way to spend £778 or £3038 in Buenos Aires instead of on the airplane then frankly you have more money than imagination. Which I guess isn’t the end of the world for you. But that’s not how I will determine the value of this booking. My value is based on that cash Economy price. We know we want to make the trip. We will always prioritise saving money on travel. But the difference in value shrinks when you switch to a reward booking, and even more so when you cut your Avios spend in half using a 2-4-1 voucher. This is the NOTIONAL value of these flights valuing an Avios at 1p:
- Economy – 48000 Avios + £364 = £422 per person
- Premium Economy – 88000 Avios + £399 = £639 (51% higher than Economy)
- Business – 121000 + £469 = £839 (199% higher than Economy)
But wait. We didn’t pay anything for those Avios. The example above is a good way of looking at things to ensure you get good value when spending Avios. They have value. But they were free. All of these Avios are earned by putting our daily spend on our Amex BAPP rather than a debit card. So this is the real money spent, the credit card annual fee and the taxes:
- Economy – £300 BAPP annual fee + £364 = £332 per person
- Premium Economy – £300 BAPP annual fee + £399 = £350 (5% higher than Economy)
- Business – £300 BAPP annual fee + £469 = £385 (20% higher than Economy)
Now those are some real savings. Like I said it would be hard for us to justify not having the Amex BAPP. And when you look at the real cash spend, or even the notional value, even us thrifty travellers find it hard to not justifying the premium classes. On a 13 hour flight like this one, I would absolutely pay an extra £17 per hour to fly Premium Economy. And maybe, just once a year, we’ll pay even a little more to fly Business.
If you’re ready to apply for the Amex BAPP card you can get a 31,000 point sign up bonus by using our link.