BA AMEX Premium Plus or Virgin Atlantic Reward+

ccdorset

Hi,

I’m wondering if anyone has any experience of the BA Amex Premium Plus or the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Credit Cards?

I currently have the AMEX Platinum Cashback Everyday Card, but am looking to switch to an Air Miles style card.

Struggling to decide between the two cards above! I do like the AMEX offers so part of me is leaning towards the BA card so I can make use of those too. Having said that in the past I have preferred flying Virgin to BA, so I’m torn!

Thanks

WillPS

Where do you wish to fly to? Which airlines do you have status with? How much spending will you do at places which don't accept Amex?

Amex customer service is almost definitely better than Virgin Money's if that's important to you.

ccdorset

WillPS said:

Where do you wish to fly to? Which airlines do you have status with? How much spending will you do at places which don't accept Amex?

Amex customer service is almost definitely better than Virgin Money's if that's important to you.

It would mainly be the US, my first aim would be to build up points towards trips to New York and make use of a companion voucher.

I’m not a frequent flyer and am only on the bottom tier with both the Executive club and Virgin Flying Club. I’ve got about 22k points with Virgin. I think going forward I'd be looking at 1 long haul and 1 short haul a year.

Mostly everywhere I shop accepts AMEX, I spend about 10k a year on the existing Cashback card.

Sandtree

ccdorset said:
I’m not a frequent flyer and am only on the bottom tier with both the Executive club and Virgin Flying Club. I’ve got about 22k points with Virgin. I think going forward I'd be looking at 1 long haul and 1 short haul a year.

As in book those with miles? Are you spending enough to earn the points? Virgin would be a non-starter if that's your redemption requirements as they dont do short haul. 

2ilent8cho

The Virgin credit card won't let you earn more reward points from spend than your credit limit per month. See point 3 here https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/credit-cards/vaa-cards/terms/reward.jsp . The Amex does not have this weird restriction. 

Personally I have the BA Premium Amex and for those few places i cannot use Amex the Barclays Avios Reward Mastercard. Don't forget to use the eStores for extra points both BA and Virgin have them, the BA one is http://shopping.ba.com Virgin is https://shop.virgin-atlantic.com/en/ 

The_Urbanite

From the nature of the query, what you should be thinking about is which scheme is more useful for you. In terms of ease of racking up points and the routes you can redeem the points on.

Having gamed the system to the other side of the world and back, I’d say that Avios are more useful - they can be redeemed on a far more extensive route network and there are more ways to earn them. The Amex offers are nice on a occasion but think about how much they will realistically save you. I don’t think that should sway your decision. 

That said, the Virgin card has it’s uses with its own range of offers. Cashback at Burberry for example which is hard to get a decent discount on. And if you know what you’re doing you can generate the points in the tens of thousands without much effort. Not to the same magnitude as Avios mind. 

Also, what kind of spend are you intending to put through the cards? If well into 5 figures a month then you probably want the Avios card because as mentioned, Virgin Money cap how much you earn to your credit limit each month. If in the 3 or low 4 figures then it might not even be worth getting the paid cards - their free counterparts will offer better value. 

Finally, if the earn rate is of fundamental importance than instead of the Amex BAPP, have a look at the Barclaycard Avios Plus card. Both earn 1.5 Avios per £1 of spend, but the Barclaycard is a Mastercard which is accepted at more places than Amex. 

ccdorset

Sandtree said:

ccdorset said:
I’m not a frequent flyer and am only on the bottom tier with both the Executive club and Virgin Flying Club. I’ve got about 22k points with Virgin. I think going forward I'd be looking at 1 long haul and 1 short haul a year.

As in book those with miles? Are you spending enough to earn the points? Virgin would be a non-starter if that's your redemption requirements as they dont do short haul. 

Sorry the 1 long haul and 1 short haul would be what I would be looking to fly each year, but realise I won't have enough points to be able to book those with miles necessarily. I guess the main attraction for me was the companion or upgrade voucher.

I saw that with Virgin, points could be used with Air France and KLM, but it looks like short haul is still very limited.

I think I probably need to look into this a lot more!

ccdorset

2ilent8cho said:

The Virgin credit card won't let you earn more reward points from spend than your credit limit per month. See point 3 here https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/credit-cards/vaa-cards/terms/reward.jsp . The Amex does not have this weird restriction. 

Personally I have the BA Premium Amex and for those few places i cannot use Amex the Barclays Avios Reward Mastercard. Don't forget to use the eStores for extra points both BA and Virgin have them, the BA one is http://shopping.ba.com Virgin is https://shop.virgin-atlantic.com/en/ 

That is a strange restriction with the Virgin card, though I think it possibly wouldn't affect me as I don't think I'll be spending much more than £800-£1k a month, unless they give me a very low credit limit of course.

I hadn't considered the Barclaycard Avios options, I'll take a look at those. Thanks for the links to the eStores as well!

ccdorset

The_Urbanite said:

From the nature of the query, what you should be thinking about is which scheme is more useful for you. In terms of ease of racking up points and the routes you can redeem the points on.

Having gamed the system to the other side of the world and back, I’d say that Avios are more useful - they can be redeemed on a far more extensive route network and there are more ways to earn them. The Amex offers are nice on a occasion but think about how much they will realistically save you. I don’t think that should sway your decision. 

That said, the Virgin card has it’s uses with its own range of offers. Cashback at Burberry for example which is hard to get a decent discount on. And if you know what you’re doing you can generate the points in the tens of thousands without much effort. Not to the same magnitude as Avios mind. 

Also, what kind of spend are you intending to put through the cards? If well into 5 figures a month then you probably want the Avios card because as mentioned, Virgin Money cap how much you earn to your credit limit each month. If in the 3 or low 4 figures then it might not even be worth getting the paid cards - their free counterparts will offer better value. 

Finally, if the earn rate is of fundamental importance than instead of the Amex BAPP, have a look at the Barclaycard Avios Plus card. Both earn 1.5 Avios per £1 of spend, but the Barclaycard is a Mastercard which is accepted at more places than Amex. 

Thanks for your reply and all the info! Really useful. I think I definitely need to think about this a lot more.

A friend of mine has recently got a different Virgin credit card and has also told me the Virgin offers can be very good.

In terms of spend, it would be around £800 - £1000 a month, so perhaps I am looking at the wrong cards for my level of spending. I’ve been swayed by reading about the companion/upgrade voucher, but perhaps the free version will be better for me though I definitely wouldn’t hit the £20000 requirement with the free Virgin card to get the companion/upgrade voucher. I may be able to reach the £12k at a push with the free BA card, but looks like the companion voucher is then limited to economy.

Thanks for the tip on the Barclaycard too, I will take a look at that. :-)

Sandtree

ccdorset said:

I saw that with Virgin, points could be used with Air France and KLM, but it looks like short haul is still very limited.

I think its just that you can earn them with Air France and KLM but not redeem them... it was unclear on the site though and when using their "how many miles" tool then any route that would be serviced by them came up as not available.

The_Urbanite

ccdorset said:

2ilent8cho said:

The Virgin credit card won't let you earn more reward points from spend than your credit limit per month. See point 3 here https://uk.virginmoney.com/virgin/credit-cards/vaa-cards/terms/reward.jsp . The Amex does not have this weird restriction. 

Personally I have the BA Premium Amex and for those few places i cannot use Amex the Barclays Avios Reward Mastercard. Don't forget to use the eStores for extra points both BA and Virgin have them, the BA one is http://shopping.ba.com Virgin is https://shop.virgin-atlantic.com/en/ 

That is a strange restriction with the Virgin card, though I think it possibly wouldn't affect me as I don't think I'll be spending much more than £800-£1k a month, unless they give me a very low credit limit of course.

I hadn't considered the Barclaycard Avios options, I'll take a look at those. Thanks for the links to the eStores as well!

I guess it’s all about keeping the card sustainable. They have to limit the amount of points they issue, because that’s an outlay. Presumably the model relies on them earning more from interest, annual fees and forex than the amount they pay for the points.

If you get a load of savvy people running £100k+ a month through the card and rinsing hundreds from the cashback programme, which is what was happening, it soon becomes a loss maker.