British Airways Credit Card Statement Credit For Award Bookings
Well Chase, I was really hopeful that you would knock it out of the park with the Chase British Airways credit card statement credit on award bookings. I shared my excitement about the potential yesterday but said I was tempering my excitement. It looks like that my trepidation was warranted. Although I will say that you met us half way, well maybe 30% of the way to greatness. You blew me away when you relaunched the World of Hyatt card but this change just left me bitter and thinking of what could have been.
British Airways Credit Card Statement Credit Details
Chase released the info on the credits this morning. They gave us a few things I was hoping for but missed the mark on the biggest one. Here are the details we already knew about:
- Pay for your reward flight taxes and fees using your Chase British Airways credit card and you’ll automatically receive a statement credit of
- $100 for an economy or premium economy booking
- $200 for a business or first class booking.
- You can receive one statement credit per reservation, up to 3 times per calendar year.
- You have to pay the award taxes and fees with the Chase British Airways Visa to get the credit.
Here are the new details:
- The statement credit will post to the Cardmember’s credit card account within 45 days of the eligible booking being ticketed
- The booking must be for a transatlantic international travel itinerary redeemed from Cardmember’s Executive Club account with the transatlantic portion departing from the United States solely on aircraft operated by British Airways.
- The booking may include a connecting flight on a code share partner for the non-transatlantic portion of the itinerary.
- If the reward flight booking is cancelled, Chase reserves the right to reverse the statement credit on the Cardmember’s credit card account.
Why Chase Missed the Mark
One of the things that I was hoping for was that this would work on one way bookings. They did give us that but only for flights departing the US. The taxes and fees are usually much higher on these flights versus coming back from Europe. That is why I was hopeful this credit would work in both directions. Even with the $200 credit on first class tickets the fees could still run you in the $400+ range on flights to Europe. That is still way too high when US carriers will charge $5.60 in taxes and fees for that same flight to Europe.
The part about the flight needing to be booked from the cardmember’s Executive Club account doesn’t bother me since British Airways allows family pooling. So you can still make it work if you wanted to use someone else’s miles to book the flight etc. I am not sure if you can book a flight for someone else using your account or not. I assume that would work but the terms don’t really specify.
What Chase Got Right
I do like that the credit works on one way flights. Booking two one way flights on BA will usually save you money on taxes and fees versus booking roundtrip. Don’t ask me why, it doesn’t make any sense.
It appears that taking on a positioning flight on American Airlines or Alaska etc. is allowed. You just need to fly British Airways as you depart the United States to Europe. Coming from other countries like Canada or Mexico etc. should also work in theory.
Final Thoughts
Dang, I was really excited about this. I was even planning on grabbing one when my wife dropped below 5/24 to give us another option for flights home from Europe. Chase had the chance to take the British Airways Visa from an afterthought to a long term keeper. It is shortsighted on their part to limit the credit to only US departing flights. Fees are fees and if it is on British Airways metal it should work. That is my take on it at least.
Share your thoughts below. Do you think this would ever be useful to you?
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Will this credyalso be for people who currently have the card or is it only new card application??
Yes it should work for current cardholders as well
I have a feeling it’ll still work even for one way flights originating out of the US. Call me optimistic, but sometimes what’s on paper and what actually happens in real life are different, as I’m sure you know.
“The taxes and fees are usually much higher on these flights versus coming back from Europe.”
True for Business/First. For Economy, though, they’ve dropped fees to about $94 for one-ways to LHR.
Good to know George – the credit would be perfect for that then. I may need to reconsider this some.
Meh. The fuel surcharges are still insane. Pass.
Agree – could have been useful flying to the US from Europe but going the other way even with the credit they want way too much money.
And what hurts is they offer a Travel Together ticket after spending 30k but this only works for round trips (you can do one way but then then you can’t use it for the return).
So two people flying NYC to LHR in First
– Travel together > higher fees/surcharges and one $200 credit
– Booking each person separate and doing two one ways > less fees/surcharges and two times the $200 credit
>> devaluation of the the travel together ticket
Good point Marc – it does devalue the value some. But silver lining you can skip putting that spend on the card 🙂