Firstly - I am new to this and so fell into a bit of a novice trap because I didn't read the full terms and conditions - my bad. Anyway since I was doing I bit of travelling I opened a British Airways American Express Credit Card. Once I reached £10,000 spend I qualified for a companion voucher. It was issued on 22nd June 2017 and I have used that to book a flight. Since then I continued spending and when I viewed my account, it showed a slider (reset to zero) on a scale upto £10,000, saying that if I spent £10,000 by 31 March 2018 I would qualify for another companion voucher. I brought forward some intended purchases and put more expenses on my amex card to hit the target and in December 2017, the slider showed that I was about £600 short of the £10,000 spend target and qualifying for another companion voucher. However, when I logged in in the New Year, the slider and any mention of the companion voucher was missing so I rang Amex support to see what had happened. It was then I was told that "I am afraid you only earn 1 voucher in a companion voucher cycle which starts from 1st April and ends on 31st march of the corresponding year." and that spending only counts to another companion voucher after next year's voucher progress on or after 01-Apr-2018 and therefore the £10k I had spent chasing the second companion voucher would not count towards it. If I had read the conditions carefully I would have known that but the display of a slider right up until 31/12/2017 promising that I was on my way to another companion voucher if I spent £10k by 31 Mar 2018 was false information. I'm not bothered about the companion voucher but the attitude of Amex support was that if I didn't have a screenshot of what was displayed then they are not willing to do anything. I am posting this because it just appears to be a flaw in the website that they do not want to address and to just alert anybody else who like me never reads the full terms and conditions. My fault for not reading all the conditions but I am closing all my amex accounts because a) the message displayed up until 31/12/2017 on my account was misleading and b) support seemed uninterested.
Hi Leighton, that really sucks that the site was misleading. A word of warning though, if you have yet to use your original companion voucher, please don’t cancel the account until you have as this could jeopardise your voucher. A better option, as I presume you have the premium card is to ring them and downgrade to the blue card at which point you will get a partial refund of your annual fee,
Bit of a nightmare that one - sorry to hear it! Particularly bad because Amex customer service has traditionally been very good. I've noticed a few things slipping a bit recently too - I hate not being able to send a secure message and having to use the live chat (if it's working) or phoning instead.
Are you sure about this? I've generally cancelled accounts after generating a Companion Voucher (and referring my partner for the next card!). My understanding was that once the CV appeared on your BA account, you couldn't lose it by cancelling the credit card account. I'm sure I've confirmed that verbally with BA in the past?
This appears the general with CV, I have read concerns about cancelling the account the voucher was issues to but numerous replies appear to confirm the CV does not get removed against what Amex CS will tell you.
Yep - it's been a few years since I last bothered with the CV, but back then at least it was always fine, though I do seem to remember you needed to have some sort of Amex (Gold/Nectar/SPG etc) when you wanted to book though?
I can confirm that; once the voucher is in your BAEC account, you can safely cancel the card. As Adam says, you have to pay taxes & fees with Amex, the website only presents that as an option when redeeming. As I recall, our last 2-4-1 flights were booked using a voucher earned in my wife's name, and taxes paid with my new BAPP that she referred me for.
Thanks for the confirmation. I called Amex and they mentioned to me that the voucher will get cancelled even if I dod not ask the question. I will proceed to cancel my card.
I've had the BAPP since the beginning of the year and am only about £2k short of hitting the target for the companion voucher. But from what Leighton has said, if the CV cycle finishes at the end of March, then I may fall foul of this, as I am unlikely to hit the threshold before then. So I have taken a screenshot now, just in case and I will give them a call, because my message says that I have until January 2019 to hit that target. On an additional note, would I be right in saying that once I have the CV, then I could downgrade to the Blue card and get a partial refund of the annual fee?
The cycle is per-account, and not during any pre-defined period. It's 12 months from when you took the card out; mine shows I have until 4th September to earn mine. If your slider shows January, then you're fine. To your other point; yes, you can downgrade or cancel the card once the voucher is safely in your BAEC account. You just need to pay taxes and fees for your redemption with ANY American Express card, not necessarily a BA co-branded one.
Hard to say for definite. The terms and conditions of the card state you will lose all benefits of the card on cancelling which seems pretty black and white. However I too have cancelled the card and not had issues but I’d already used the voucher.
If your considering the BAPP card it may be wise to jump in now. I completed a survey last weekend on a number of newly proposed avios earning credit cards in the UK. The BAPP card was included and two options were put forward, one is you will need to spend 20k to get a 241 voucher or 2nd option will be no 241 but 2 x avios per £1 spent.
How easy to use are CV's? Do you just go to BA's website and have the option of setting aside two tickets, then pay for one with CV code and the rest with you credit card? Sorry for the newbie question.
