Double the bonus on your BA AMEX Premium card with this fabulous hack

In last week’s post ‘how has the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card become more rewarding?, I talked about why the £250 annual fee on the British Airways American Express Premium Plus is worth the cost. I also mentioned that if you cancel part way through the year you get a pro-rata refund of the annual fee. So this week I am going to show you a quick hack to allow you to double your sign up bonus on the BA AMEX Premium Plus card.

Warning!

Note, this will only work if you can team up with someone and each person has not held a personal British Airways American Express card in the last 24 months. If you have held a British Airways card in the last 24 months, you will need to wait until 2 years have elapsed since you cancelled the card before this hack will work.

Read on if you have not held a personal British airways American Express card in the last 24 months to discover how to double your sign up bonus.

Step by step guide to double your sign up bonus

For ease, I’m going to assume I’m talking about couples but if you have a close friend you would like to travel with, this will work just as well if you team up.

Step one

Sign up for the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card using this link. This link means the sign up bonus increases by 1,000 AVIOS to 26,000 when you spend £3,000 in the first three months of membership.

Be sure you can meet this minimum spend before signing up otherwise this will all be for nothing.

Step two

Satisfy the £3,000 minimum spend in the first three months. If you do not normally spend this amount on cards, you may wish to consider the following;

• Switch your payment method for any possible bills onto your card. Ensure you pay off the balance in full each month
• Make an early pay off any major planned outlay (assuming you can afford to pay off the balance in full that month)
• When you go out to eat or drink with friends, pay the full bill and get them to transfer their share afterwards (as long as your friends are reliable and trustworthy)
• Put any business expenses on your card (subject to your company expense policy)

Step three (bonus earnings potential)

Talk to your friends about the amazing potential of the card. Share ‘how has the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card become more rewarding? which explains how you can save money or upgrade your travel plans. Encourage your friends to get in on the game using your referral link. This means they earn the 26,000 sign up bonus instead of 25,000 and you earn 9,000 for each referral.

Once you satisfy the minimum spend, bank the points in your BA Executive Club account, and refer your friend, partner or spouse. This will give you an additional 9,000 AVIOS.

Step four

You now have two options:

1. Either cancel your card and obtain a pro rata refund of the annual fee which will be applied to your card. You will then have to ask American Express to refund this to your account. They usually need some ID confirmation to do this and details of your bank account which you should have provided when you set up the account.
2. Alternatively, keep the card until you hit annual spend of £10,000 as this will entitle you to a companion ticket which will make those AVIOS go much further.

Step five

Your partner or friend repeats the above process minus the referral to you. Remember you will not become eligible for the sign up bonus for another 2 years. My advice is to diary the date when you become eligible again and then you can repeat this process.

Total AVIOS earnings

Assuming you both satisfy the minimum spend in three months, you will earn;

Sign up bonus	26,000
Referral points for your friend/partner	9,000
Sign up bonus for your friend/partner	26,000
AVIOS earnings on £6,000 of spend assuming 1.5 x £1	9,000
Plus any other referral bonuses (note, there is a maximum of 90,000 AVIOS you can earn in this way each year so if you have a big friend circle be sure to spread them across the two cards)	??
Minimum AVIOS earned	70,000

Annual card fee cost

You will only pay the card fee for the time you hold the card. If you cancel after 4 months therefore 2/3 of the fee will be refunded and likewise for your friend or partner. You should receive a refund each of circa £166. However note the point regarding companion tickets.

Quick hack

So there you have it, there is a simple plan to follow to earn 70,000 AVIOS in 6 – 8 months. That’s more than enough to fund a long haul economy trip, however note that this approach will not earn either party a companion ticket. At least one of you would need to retain the card and spend £10,000 in the year to earn that. The post ‘how has the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card become more rewarding? explains how beneficial that ticket can be for you so it might be worth you retaining your card and your partner cancelling theirs.