British Airways Visa Signature® Card Review (2024.9 Update: 85k Offer) – US Credit Card Guide

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2024.9 Update: Current offer is 85k points after $5000 spend within 3 months of account opening.

Application Link

Benefits

1. 85k offer: earn 85,000 bonus Avios miles after spending $5,000 in 3 months. The recent best offer is 100k.
2. We value BA Avios at 1.2 cents (Airline Miles Value), so the 100k highest sign-up bonus is worth about $1,200. BA Avios, IB Avios and EI Avios can be transferred to each other at a 1:1 ratio (both accounts need to be at least 90 days old). See A Beginner’s Guide to BA Miles to check for details about BA Avios.
3. Earn 3 Avios per $1 spent on purchases with British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia, and Level. Earn 2 Avios per $1 spent on hotel accommodations. And earn 1 Avios per $1 spent on all other purchases.
4. [New] Every calendar year you make $30,000 in purchases on your British Airways Visa card, you’ll earn a Travel Together Ticket good for two years.
5. [New] Up to $200*3 credit on statement credit on Reward Flight bookings: Pay for your reward flight taxes and fees using your Chase British Airways Visa Signature^® and you’ll automatically receive a statement credit of $100 for an economy or premium economy booking or $200 for a business or first class booking. You can receive one statement credit per reservation, up to 3 times per calendar year. It can only be used when redeeming Avios for a reward flight on British Airways, so it’s rather limited. See here for the official terms.
6. No foreign transaction fee.

Disadvantage

1. Annual fee $95, NOT waived first year.

Recommended Application Time

1. [5/24 Rule] If you have 5 or more new accounts opened in the past 24 months, Chase will not approve your application on this card, no matter how high your credit score is. The number of new accounts includes all credit card accounts, not only Chase accounts. See this post for details about how to possibly bypass this rule.
2. This product is available to you if you do not have this card and have not received a new cardmember bonus for this card in the past 24 months. Note that what matters here is the time you got the sign-up bonus, not the time you open the account or close the account.
3. Don’t apply for more than 2 Chase credit cards within 30 days, or it’s highly likely that you will get rejected.
4. We recommend you to apply for this card after you have a credit history for more than a year.

Summary

BA miles used to be great for short-haul AA tickets in U.S. While they still main good value, a devaluations by BA and American Airlines have rendered the points less valuable than in the past. The sign-up bonus on this card is quite decent. BA Avios, IB Avios and EI Avios can be transferred to each other at a 1:1 ratio, so Chase IB and Chase EI are good complimentary cards to earn Avios quickly together with this Chase BA card. Each of these mileage programs have their own unique advantages. The earning structure for daily spend is not attractive at all, so if you do not fly BA frequently then this is a product to get for the signup bonus and then close after the first year.

Related Credit Cards

Recommended Downgrade Options

• There’s a hidden no fee Chase BA card that you can downgrade to.

After Applying

• Call 800-436-7927 to check Chase application status. This is an automated telephone line, and the information has the following meanings: Receive decision in 2 weeks means your application is probably approved; Receive decision in 7-10 days means your application is probably rejected; Receive decision in 30 days simply means your application requires further review and there’s nothing to tell you for now.
• Chase reconsideration backdoor number: 888-270-2127 or 888-609-7805. Call it if you didn’t get approve immediately. Your personal information will be acquired and they will then review it. You seldom answer questions, instead, just enjoy the music and then you get approved or rejected, or further information is needed to be hand in to the branch or faxed.

Historical Offers Chart

Note: Sometimes there are offers such as 100k or 75k on this card, but the spending requirements after the first 50k are huge. Therefore, we don’t treat them as sign-up bonus. Similarly, the 4x up to 100k offer is also not counted.

Application Link

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