British Airways / Chase VISA - 100,000 Exec Club miles signup bonus

American Express in 2008 offered a gold card at no fee for the first year and 50,000 miles if one charged $500 in the first six weeks. Sure did jump on that one.

This offer does look interesting.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm checking it out now. That is a great offer!

awesome

One correction: apparently it's $75 annual fee.

I 'm not sure, but I think this offer is accompanied by a doubling in the number of miles required to get a free ticket. We just joined the British mileage plan last June, and used the bonus miles (then only 20,000 miles for signing up for the credit card) for upgrades.I thought it was 50,000 miles for a business class ticket then---now it's 100,000.

That bonus makes it a lot easier to get those miles, except for those of us who already have a card! Maybe I should ditch my old card and get a new one.

BA makes it almost impossible to redeem miles for tickets lately. I have 100,000 miles in my account and have not been able to use them for the past 6 months!

will you post the link here when it is available to sign up...pretty please
PJ

I've been an Executive Club member with BA for years, but whenever I try to use my miles to upgrade it's extremely difficult to find available flights given even a generous time frame and using various departure and arrival dates. At the begining of October (the absolute earliest I coud do so), I managed to get upgraded for a flight this coming September, but I'm almost certain it would have been a problem had I waited much longer. I still plan on sticking with BA, but one should realize it's not easy to redeem miles, and it can also be costly since for Club World ( business class) you need to purchase a ticket for World Traveller Plus, no cheap fares/tickets. BA adds quite a hefty sum in taxes etc. A good offer but one should be aware of these problems.

Just another side of the 'miles to upgrade' story - I disagree with historytraveler and avalon. I travel several times each year to Europe and onward on BA and have never had a problem using miles to upgrade, provided I can be a bit flexible with dates.

In the past two years I've done Seattle-Heathrow-Johannesburg, with open-jaw return from Cape Town; Seattle-Heathrow-Marrakech; Seattle-Heathrow-Istanbul; Seattle-Heathrow-Rome; and Seattle-Heathrow-Prague. Upcoming I have bookings for Seattle-Heathrow-Dubai in January and Seattle-Heathrow-Rome in May.

In each case, travel for the entire route were upgrades to Club (business class). Most of these trips were with my husband, and in each case I used miles for free travel in Club for him. The only trip we booked 10 months out was to South Africa, and then we had to adjust our dates by a few days.

And thanks to advice from Julia1, I was able to get 4 business class tickets for our family trip to Italy next June. Two were mileage tickets and 2 were upgrades. So it is possible to book award flights.

But maybe now that they are making so many miles available it will be more difficult.

Julia1, am I correct in thinking they have doubled the number of miles required to book award flights? Wasn't it previously (as of last June) only 25000 for an upgrade, or 50000 for a business class ticket?

Thanks Rex for posting this and to those who replied. I received this offer by email, but will probably pass now that I have read about the difficulty of finding flights.

The consensus on flyertalk.com is that the 2-for-1 voucher is what makes this really worthwhile. Whether we'll make that spending threshold remains to be seen.

But even without it, NYC-HNL in first class can (sometimes?) be had for only 70,000 miles from a BA Exec club account.
Not bad for what could ne (very nearly) a freebie.

I took advantage of the 50K for the new AmEx card and that was a great deal. I will look into this immediately. Thanks Rex.

The offer is available on Friday and I will definitely apply. I joined BA's FF club in 1997 and I used it for about 10 years until they made some new rules I didn't like. I kept the membership anyway and I'm glad I did.

enzian, I do remember when you were posting for help about getting your family to Italy next year in business class. Congratulations on scoring 2 mileage tix and 2 upgrades! Glad I could be of help.

I believe an upgrade to Club World (business class) is still 25,000. There was a time or two in the past 6-8 years when the offer was 2-for-1 upgrades, 2 people travelling together upgraded for 25,000. My husband and I took advantage of that to spend a week in Paris in February about 5-6 years ago or so. And as I remember, the upgradeable Traveller Plus fare was about $900!

As far as getting an award ticket in Club for 50,000 miles, I can remember a few times in the past 10 years or so when this might have been offered as a special promotion, in the middle of winter or after 9/11 perhaps. But other than a special promotion, it's been 100,000 for some years now.

I looked through my desk for an old BA Miles Table and found one dated July 1, 2003, and it lists miles required for a Club award ticket at 100,000. I think I remember it being 80,000 back before they added the first generation lie-flat beds in Club. I took my husband and kids to London for the holidays in 2000, and I'm pretty sure the upgrades were 80,000 miles each then.

I applied for my BA Visa this morning. Thanks again Rex, you are the coolest Fodorite of the day.

Can someone tell me how to apply. I've looked on Chase's website and on the BA Executive Club site but haven't seen anything about this promotion. Thanks, Kathy

I'm with Avalon and Historytraveler. Booking reward miles thru British Airways is difficult, even when one is flexible as to one's dates. I've been trying for LIS and CDG for May 2010 for the last couple of months without success. Return flights are usually not available.

In addition, their fees do tend to run a bit high, compared to other airlines, I believe. A R/T to CDG would run 50K miles and $289, last I checked. Considering I flew from PHX to Buenos Aires via AA for 40K and $140 earlier this year, this doesn't seem like much of a deal.

RedStater, I can't imagine why you're not having success booking reward flights on BA from Phoenix to CDG - I checked and found availability on 20 of the 31 days in May 2010. For the return, there is reward availability on 29 of the 31 days in May 2010. The same, more or less, for Phoenix - Lisbon. Perhaps you need some assistance? You might want to telephone BA.

Curious, Julia. I rechecked the BA website seconds ago....PHX-CDG I'm seeing 18 dates available only, and no return flights available at all in May 2010. PHX-LIS it shows three outbound dates available and one date inbound only.

Perhaps it would be worth a call to BA, as you suggest.

how are you getting the 100.000 bonus please post link, thank you!

I logged into my Executive Club (frequent flyer) account and it brought me to the 100K offer. Maybe you have to join first to get that offer. Click Executive Club, then Join the Executive Club and go from there.

Or if you prefer call first and ask. 1-800-452-1201 They might not be open today as it's Sunday.

Just FYI--I called the number above and they are open today.

has anyone gotten this, I called and they said it starts tommorow...just curious
thanks pj

According to the article rex provided it opened first to existing members of the Executive Club. That's probably why I was able to apply on Saturday but non-members were not.

I can now see the offer on the website, but it says 30,000 miles, not 100,000. Perhaps becasue I already have a BA Visa card?

That could be the problen enzian, I think it's only being offered to new cardholders. When I applied it distinctly said 100K.

It took me about 5min to become an ExecClub member, then I could take advantage of the 100k offer.

It looks like I can use the BA miles on partners as well, including AA domestic US - not sure about the 2fer offer that comes later.

For those who care about such things, every time you apply for a new credit card it dings your credit score.

hopefully it works, I am excited!

Got my offer in the mail Saturday and filled out the form tonight. I've been a BA FF member since 1994 and I've managed to pass up every offer until this one--too good!

Also, I've used my miles many times to upgrade and never had a problem with my chosen dates.

I applied for the FF program and was then able to apply for the card. Actually I applied for one for myself and one for DH so that we can both take advantage of the 100k each. Haven't received any in the mail yet but hopefully soon! I, too am excited!

Got my cards today. Won't take me more than a few weeks to get the 100,000 bonus. The 2fer is for $30,000 in a calendar year - QED.