British Airways Visa– US edition

Long time readers of this blog will remember that British Airways has two credit card partners in the UK: American Express UK and Barclays.  The arrival of the two new BA cards in 2022 was exciting news, given their earning rates and perks.  British Airways also offers a co-branded US credit card in partnership with Chase that earns Avios.  Unlike US-based airline co-branded credit cards, having the BA card gives you very little in terms of perks for its $95 annual fee, but I think this card can make sense in some contexts.

I provide the information here just to give readers a vague idea if the rewards offered by the card might make sense for them to consider the card.  All information should be confirmed with the card company before applying.

Welcome Offer

At the time of posting, the Chase BA card has a two-tiered welcome offer.  You can earn 75 000 Avios after you spend $5 000 on purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.  Then you can earn an additional 25 000 Avios after you spend $20 000 within the first 12 months of account opening.  Avios are generally worth around 1p/point or around 1.3 ¢/pt.  100 000 Avios is thus worth around $1 300.

For additional context, 75 000 Avios is enough for a one-way First Class ticket from the Northeast US to London, and 100 000 Avios is enough for a one-way First Class ticket from anywhere in the US to London. 

Earnings

Chase’s BA card has two bonus categories that are solid for a <$100 annual fee co-branded airline card.  The card earns 3x Avios/$ on purchases with IAG-owned (BA’s parent company) airlines: BA, Aer Lingus, Iberia, and Level.  The card earns 2x Avios/$ at hotels and 1 Avios/$ on all other purchases. 

There are definitely better cards for airfare, such as the Amex Platinum, which offers 5x MR points/$, which can be transferred for free to BA at a 1:1 ratio.  As for hotel stays, the Chase Sapphire Reserve beats out this card by offering 3x UR points/$, which can also be transferred for free to BA at a 1:1 ratio.  However, both these cards have substantially higher annual fees ($695 and $550, respectively).

Benefits

This card offers 3 main benefits for flying with British Airways but they’re all spending related, instead of passive, like you’ll find with the US carriers’ similarly-priced co-branded cards. The first key benefit of the card is being able to use the code ‘CHASEBA10’ on the BA website to get 10% off any transatlantic booking from the US to the UK/Europe sold and operated by BA.  The second benefit is to receive statement credits for booking BA award flights from the US to London.  You can earn statement credits for up to 3 bookings per year, with a $100 credit if the booking is in World Traveller/World Traveller Plus or $200 if the booking is in Club World/First.  The third benefit is only unlocked after spending $30 000 on the card in a calendar year: a travel together ticket.  The travel together ticket is effectively a two-for-one award redemption or lets you take 50% off a reward flight for one person.  If used for a First Class round trip flight to London from San Francisco, for example, it could be worth 200 000 Avios. 

How to use the points

The main use for earning any airlines’ points is to redeem them for flights on the respective airline.  British Airways is no exception.  Avios can be directly redeemed on BA, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, and, as of 2022, Qatar Airways.  They can also be redeemed for flights on partner airlines, like American Airlines, Finnair, Qantas, or JAL.

British Airways also offers a lot of redemption options in the UK for Avios, but they all represent bad value, and I don’t live in the UK any more anyway.

Examples of using the card

These examples assume you spend 50% of your flight budget on BA and exclude the statement credits.

Spend per month

	Example A		Example B		Example C		Example D
Groceries (1x)	$300	300	$200	200	$600	600	$400	400
Gas (1x)	$0	0	$100	100	$200	200	$100	100
Airfare (1x or 3x)	$700	1400	$200	400	$0	0	$400	800
Hotels (2x)	$1 000	2 000	$200	400	$0	0	$300	600
Gen Travel (1x)	$400	400	$0	0	$300	300	$100	100
Dining (1x)	$600	600	$300	300	$300	300	$0	0
General (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$500	500	$500	500	$400	400
Total	$4 000	5 700	$1 500	1 900	$1 700	1 900	$1 700	2 400
Average points/$		1.43		1.27		1.12		1.41

The BA card’s limited bonus categories means that the average points earned is 1.12 – 1.43 points/$, which is worth 1.5 – 1.9 ¢/$, with the valuation of 1.3 ¢/point for Avios. It’s not an amazing earn rate, but it’s in line with other co-branded airline cards. 

Specific examples

Card	World Traveller ($750)  (% return)	Marriott Hotel night ($230/night)	Points values (WT/Hotel)
No rewards card	2 728 (4.9%)	2 200 MP (7.3%)	$37.10 / $17.60
General 1% cashback card	2 728 + $7.50 (5.9%)	2 200 MP + $2.30 (8.3%)	$44.60 / $19.90
Chase Sapphire Preferred	2 728 Avios + 1 500 UR (7.9%)	2 200 MP + 460 UR (10.7%)	$59.60 / $24.50
Amex Green Card	2 728 Avios + 2 250 MR (9.1%)	2 200 MP + 690 MR (11.5%)	$68.60 / $27.26
Chase BA Card	4978 Avios (8.6%)	2 200 MP + 460 Avios (10.3%)	$64.71 / $23.58

Is this credit card right for you?

If you book at least one British Airways flight from the US to Europe per year, yes this card is almost certainly worth holding onto just for the statement credit and discount codes alone.  Unlike the US carriers co-branded cards, however, this card does not offer substantial passive perks with the airline (e.g. priority boarding), but I don’t think that’s strictly a problem.  I haven’t ever had any incentive yet to apply for a United credit card because I already get most of the perks from holding elite status (but that will end at the end of 2022).