Update: One or more card offers in this post are no longer available. Check our Hot Deals for the latest offers.
If you like British Airways Avios points, the best-ever public offer on the Chase British Airways Visa Signature Card has returned!
Via Doctor of Credit, you’ll earn a total of 100,000 British Airways Avios points when you meet tiered minimum spending requirements. But to get the full bonus, you’ll have to spend $20,000 in your first year.
That’s enough for 4 round-trip coach tickets from the West Coast to Hawaii on Alaska Airlines or American Airlines. Or, when you include the points you earn from meeting minimum spending, enough for 4 round-trip coach flights to Ireland from 6 US cities on Aer Lingus.
I’ll share the details!
British Airways 100,000 Point Bonus
Link: Chase British Airways Visa Signature Card
Link: My Review of the Previous British Airways 100,000 Point Offer
The 100,000 point bonus on the Chase British Airways card hasn’t come around for ~18 months. It’s the best offer I’ve ever seen for this card!
This is a fantastic deal, because the usual sign-up bonus is 50,000 British Airways Avios points after meeting minimum spending requirements. So this is double the usual bonus!
With this offer, you’ll earn a total of 100,000 British Airways Avios points when you meet tiered minimum spending requirements. You’ll have to spend:
- $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months of opening your account (earn 50,000 British Airways Avios points)
- $10,000 (total) on purchases in the first year of opening your account (earn an additional 25,000 British Airways Avios points)
- $20,000 (total) on purchases in the first year of opening your account (earn another 25,000 British Airways Avios points)
So you’ll have to make $20,000 in purchases during the first year to earn all 100,000 British Airways Avios points. Here’s a post with ideas on how to meet this large spending requirement.
With this card, you’ll also get:
- 3 British Airways Avios points per $1 you spend on British Airways, Iberia, and OpenSkies purchases
- 1 British Airways Avios point per $1 you spend on everything else
- Earn a Travel Together Ticket (your companion flies with you on a British Airways award flight for just the cost of taxes and fees) when you spend $30,000 on the card in a calendar year
- No foreign transaction fees
The $95 annual fee is NOT waived for the first year. But it’s worth it for 100,000 British Airways Avios points!
If you’ve had this card in the past, Chase typically allows folks to earn the sign-up bonus again as long as it’s been at least 24 months since you last received the bonus.
And the Chase British Airways is NOT affected by the Chase “5/24” rule! So if you’ve opened ~5 or more credit cards (from any bank) in the past 24 months (excluding certain business cards) you could still qualify.
Check out my series on how to earn and use British Airways Avios points for ideas on how to use the sign-up bonus!
Bottom Line
With the highest-ever offer on the Chase British Airways card, you’ll earn a total of 100,000 British Airways Avios points after meeting tiered minimum spending requirements.
But to unlock the full bonus, you’ll need to spend $20,000 on purchases in the first year of opening your account. If you can manage the spending, this is a terrific deal, because it’s double the usual 50,000 point bonus.
I don’t personally know about BA award travel to Europe, but I found avios to be great for flying from the US to South American (redeeming on LAN before the merger.) And I used it for round trip from mainland South America to Easter Island for only a $25 gas surcharge (typically a $650+ flight.)
I don’t recommend this offer. BA charges outrageous fuel surcharges for award tickets so the “free” companion fair you can earn with this chard is actually $1250 for business class. It’s really dishonest of Chase and BA. Using avios for alaska or American domestic flights is a better deal but if that’s what you want to do other cards are a better deal.
Had this card (BA Visa) from 12/2015 to 11/2016, and it was basically the first credit card I signed up for to start playing the mileage/points game. It’s an “okay” card for a beginner and helped me rack up 120K Avios ($20K spend => 20K Avios plus 50K 1st bonus + 25K 2nd bonus + 25K 3rd bonus). With no bonus categories for spending and recurring $95 annual fees, however, the British Airways Visa is almost certainly a card that you’ll cancel before the end of year 1.
British Airways generally isn’t the best airline to fly except to London Heathrow, where they have a huge share of the seats and gates. Their premium cabin seats are cramped, they are notorious for tacking on large fuel surcharges on award redemptions, and BA’s CEO seems to be trying to make the airline more like a discount carrier. The best use for BA Avios may be to redeem them for award tickets on American Airlines on U.S./domestic flights.
If I had to do it over again, the Chase Sapphire Preferred (followed by maybe the Marriott Visa or SPG Amex card) would be better alternatives for $20K worth of credit card spending. That’s my 2 cents.
I was denied this card last year because I was over 5/24 so I don’t necessarily agree with the statement that this card is not affected by 5/24.
Oh well… I guess I cannot get this card due to that 5/24 rule that no one will blog about negativly.
….maybe I’ll get the SPG Card – I heard it has a 35k points with signup – or so I read somewhere!
🙂