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Chase has brought back the very popular 100,000 Mile British Airways card. I took advantage of this offer a few years back and used the miles to take a business class trip to Machu Picchu, Easter Island, and Santiago, Chile!
The current offer, gives you 50,000 Avios (the British Airways miles) after you spend $2000 in first 3 months, then 25,000 more when you spend $10,000 within the first year, then a further 25,000 when you spend $10,000 more within the first year. $20,000 is a fair amount of spend in one year, but there are a number of ways to get qualified spend without necessarily spending the money. If you follow the advice in that article you could get the whole 100K bonus in as little as 4 months without really spending much!
The card has several great features, including a number specifically for international travel.
- First, it has no foreign transaction fees. Most credit cards tack on an extra 3% onto any charge not made in US Dollars so if you use those cards for international travel, you effectively just spent 3% more than you would with this card.
- Second, it has smart chip technology for use in Europe. Many European merchants won’t accept charges that don’t include a physical chip on the card. This is one of the only US available cards that has this technology available.
- You also earn 1.25 Avios for each $1 spent on the card and 2.5 Avios for each $1 spent with British Airways.
- Another great feature, particularly if you are going to go for the full 100,000 Avios bonus, is if you spend $30,000 in a calendar year you get a travel together ticket which allows a companion to travel with you on either a paid or an award ticket if they just pay the taxes. It is a bit limited in that it has to be on British Airways flights only(which have high fuel surcharges) but especially if you are planning on using your Avios for a flight to Europe in business class, it can provide a good value. And if you spend $20,000 in the first year to get the full 100,000 Avios bonus, you are 2/3 of the way to the free ticket so it might make sense to go ahead and complete the extra spend. See this link for details on the travel together benefit.
What could you use 100,000 Avios for?
- 5 round trip tickets to Colombia from Miami (or vice versa)?
- 11 trips to Cancun, Mexico from Miami?
- A trip for you and 10 of your friends to BPM? 🙂
Since British Airways uses a distance based chart, the best way to get value is by finding trips that are normally expensive tickets but are not that far from each other. Here is a link to a calculator that will tell you how many Avios are required for a city pair.
There is an annual fee of $95 that is assessed immediately, but trading $95 for 100,000 Avios is something I would do all day long. So what are you waiting for, click here to sign up for the Chase British Airways Visa and start planning your trip! I also updated the Top Credit Card page with this new offer.
