Chase has re-launched the British Airways credit card which will give you 100,000 miles – 50,000 after the first purchase and another 50,000 miles after you spend $2,500 within 3 months of activating the card.
This offer was last available in late 2009 and is not expected to last very long. You can do a lot of free traveling with 100,000 BA miles!
Apply now because here’s what 100,000 BA miles gets you:
- 4 free roundtrips in economy within the US on American Airlines
- 1 free business class ticket on British Airways to Western Europe
- 1 free business class ticket to South America or 2 free economy tickets to Western Europe + 20,000 miles left over
- 2 free coach or 1 free business class ticket to the Far East
If you and your spouse apply for the card, that’s double the free travel!
Additional benefits of the card include:
- No foreign transaction fees
- A companion certificate which will let you redeem BA miles for 2 tickets on British Airways metal (i.e. flight must be a British Airways flight – no partner flights allowed) once you spend $30,000 on the card.
- You earn 1.25 miles per $1 spent on all purchases (higher than most other airlines); purchases on British Airways earn $2.5.
The card has a $95 annual fee which is a steal compared to the $1000 (or more) worth of free miles which you are getting. I took a very conservative estimate of valuing each mile at 1 penny ($100,000 X 1 penny) = $1,000.
You would likely see a value far greater than $1,000 – particularly if you redeem for international travel. That’s because a business class ticket to London would cost much more than $1,000!
$6830 for a one way ticket on British Airways from Chicago to London. You could get this ticket for free by applying for the Chase British Airways Card!
British Airways charges fuel surcharges so the “free” ticket will end up costing you a little out-of-pocket. Taxes for a Business Class trip to London should be approximately $270 each way. This will be a total of 50,000 miles + $270 versus the $6, 380 for which British Airways was selling a one-way Business Class ticket to London when I checked today. Still quite the deal – even with the taxes & fuel surcharges!
I’ve flown British Airways First Class before and it was awesome. Don’t worry, I’ll be posting a full trip-report soon!
If you do decide to apply, don’t forget to:
- Verify that the link has taken you to the offer for a 100,000 miles
- Print out the offer details.
- Apply for a British Airways Executive Club Number and enter that in your credit card application
This is a top 5 travel deal and you should GRAB it QUICKLY.
I have earned and redeemed millions of airline miles and hotel points to travel the world for free. Now I'm blogging to help more people do the same! 
How do I spend $2500 in 3 months? I mean I could pay all of my bills with the credit card and IMMEDIATELY send cash from my bank to the credit card to pay it off. But instead of that would using something like Paypal work? In other words, both my wife and I have Paypal accounts. Could I use the credit card to send her $2500 through Paypal and then when she gets the money we of course just send it right back to the credit card. Would that work? Thanks!
Michael,
You are on the right path. There are quite a few ways to accelerate the spend on your card, and I will write a more detailed post later, but here are a few ways to get the spend on your card:
1) Pay EVERY expense using your card. Remember that you will get at least 25 days to pay off your card (without being charged interest) so you don’t have to transfer money immediately to pay off the card. You can even earn (measly) interest on the float. You don’t have to pay off the charges on the card immediately!
We manage to spend at least $1000 a month via card and I consider myself very thrifty. Using your card for utilities, cable, groceries, gas, insurance adds up quickly!
2) You can send money via PayPal to your wife and she can send it back to you. Paypal charges a 2.9% commission to send money so you would have to pay the $72.5 fee. Be careful while doing this since PayPal doesn’t really like these types of transactions. I would start off with a low amount (say $750) and space them out.
3) You and your wife can set up an Amazon payments account and send upto $1000 to each other, per month, without a fee. Once again, start with small amounts and work your way up.
4) Buy $1 coins from the US mint using your credit card and deposit them into your bank. I don’t recommend this unless you absolutely have too, because it is cumbersome to unroll the coins and Chase doesn’t look too kindly towards lots of these transactions.
In summary, a combination of PayPal, Amazon Payments, and putting all your expenses on the card should be able to help you meet the spend!
Fantastic! I’ve applied for the card. How do I know if the application actually submitted? Will I receive an email confirmation?
By the way, this deal is amazing! My wife’s sister is moving to Portlan, OR in just a few weeks and this will make it SO much easier (and less costly!!) to visit her there. You are a true genius, sir!!!!!!
Did you reach a confirmation screen? You should have gotten either an instant approval screen or a a “We will contact you within 7-10 business days” screen? Chase doesn’t usually send out email confirmations. This offer ends on May 6 so please submit your application before then!
You’re welcome! Check back often for lots of ways to get free hotels and cheap airfare.
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Has this offer expired?
@tkuper05 – Unfortunately, it has. Chase had this offer in late 2009 and again this year. The current offer is for 50K miles, so it doesn’t hurt to wait (if you don’t need the points right away!)
Hi Daraius,
I’m wondering if you can help me understand how to best use (or, use at all) the 100K miles that I got from this credit card.
When I search BA.com for a flight, it seems like all too often, the cost of the taxes alone is the same as what the flight would cost if I just bought it from Expedia. For example: I searched for a 2-week trip from NYC-Cairo at random dates in February/March and got 80,000 points + $831 in taxes. I then searched Expedia for the same kind of trip and found it for total cost of about $800 as well! So why would I spend points to get that?
The only positive experience I have had so far in searching for flights on BA that seemed like a good deal was a domestic USA routing, which I was able to find for 25K roundtrip, with only a $5 surcharge, through partner Continental (also it seemed to not have the $75 fee that Continental usually would post for a booking that is within 21 days of departure). But, the flight dates were extremely, extremely limited so I couldn’t take advantage of this.
This is something else that I was wondering about – when you redeem BA awards for partners like Continental, it seems that the availability is extremely limited. Continental.com had flights available on the dates I wanted (for domestic travel), but BA.com did not have those Continental dates. I called BA and the agent told me that Continental does not release all these flight dates to them – they limit what they give BA for partner redemption. Is that true? How can I best take advantage of BA awards for partner travel? I heard something about SAAver awards – do I have to somehow figure out which flights are SAAver and then ask the BA reps to find them? How would I figure that out?
Many thanks for your help!
Rachel
Hi Daraius, oops – I said Continental but I meant American in the post above!
@Rachel – You’re right that BA flights charge a lot of taxes and fees, so it doesn’t make sense to redeem BA miles for coach flights on BA metal (or aircrafts). But you would pay approximately the same fees for business or first redemption which are a much better value.
Another great use of BA miles is to fly on Cathay Pacific from the US or Canada to Asia (only 50K in coach or 100K in business). The fees are much lower, but you do have to get to Cathay departure city on your own. Another great use is to use them for American flights from the US to South America or on American flights within the US.
Any AA flight at the MileSAAver level can be booked by BA. The best way to do that is to use the AA website and search for Award Travel at the sAAver level (the light green box). Write down the flight numbers and call BA and ask them to book say. Tell them that another agent gave you those flights but you couldn’t book them because you had to check with your partner, or had another call coming through etc.
Another good use of BA miles is for travel on LAN to South America, but you do have to get to the LAN departure city on your own.
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