Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Chase’s British Airways Visa Card has a significant new benefit: Get up to $200 credit per award booking. That sounds awesome, but there are a number of terms that limit its usefulness. Here’s what you need to know about the BA Visa $200 Award Fee Credit…
$200 credit for business and first class awards, $100 credit for economy and premium economy
Use your BA Visa to pay the taxes, fees, and charges for a reward flight on British Airways booked with British Airways Avios. Assuming the ticket meets all of the requirements (details listed separately below), you’ll earn:
- $200 statement credit for all other reward flight bookings in business (Club World) and First
- $100 statement credit per reward flight booking in economy (World Traveller) or premium economy (World Traveller Plus)
Limit 3 credits per calendar year
I think this one is pretty self explanatory.
Must pay taxes and fees with your Chase British Airways Visa Signature card
Otherwise you won’t get the credit
Award flight must include transatlantic BA operated flight departing from the United States
The specific terms state:
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.
The obvious use case for this is to book a BA flight to London (or beyond) from the US. If you have a connecting flight within the US on American Airlines (for example), that would be fine. The key requirement is that the BA flight must depart from the US and cross the Atlantic.
Technically, it should be possible to book an award that starts outside of the US as long as you have a connection within the US followed by a transatlantic flight on British Airways. For example, if you were flying from Brazil, it might be possible to book a flight to the UK via the United States and theoretically the award should meet the terms. It’s unclear what would happen if the actual taxes and fees are less than the rebate amount.
Award must be redeemed from cardmember’s BA Executive Club account
The terms do state the following:
The booking must be for a transatlantic international travel itinerary redeemed from Cardmember’s Executive Club account.
I’d be surprised if they enforce the requirement that the award is booked from your own BA account (vs. someone else’s BA account), but I’m sure they wouldn’t rebate an award booked with other types of miles (AA miles, for example).
One way transatlantic awards (going east) appear to be fair game
I don’t see anything in the terms prohibiting earning the credit on a one-way award booking. That said, one-way award flights going to the US won’t count.
Credit may take up to 45 days to post
The terms state:
The statement credit will post to the Cardmember’s credit card account within 45 days of the eligible booking being ticketed and payment received and will appear on the Cardmember’s monthly credit card billing statement within 1-2 billing cycles. Cardmembers are responsible for payment of all charges until the statement credit posts to their account. Account must be open and not in default at the time the statement credit is posted to Cardmember’s account. The statement credit will be applied at a booking level (i.e., not per ticket) and be subject to these terms and conditions.
Credit may be reversed if the award is cancelled
Chase reserves the right to claw back the credit:
If the reward flight booking is cancelled, Chase reserves the right to reverse the statement credit on the Cardmember’s credit card account.
Hat Tip to reader philco for finding the terms for the rebate online.
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Just wanted to shares that over the past few years, I have had numerous tickets cancelled and never had the credit reversed. You can max out the $600 without even flying. I am one of the few who pay the crazy fees with the companion ticket, but I have been lucky that so many schedule changes force me to cancel my tickets. Also note when you book a companion ticket you only get one credit.
Just an update. On my last cxld ticket in feb 2023, Chase charged back the $200. I don’t think you can maximize credit without flying anymore.
I downgraded my BA Visa Signature to the no-fee version. Do you know if the award fee credit would still apply?
I didn’t even know there was a fee-free version. I doubt that the fee credit would apply, but please let us know if you find out otherwise!
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When does this take affect? A couple of months ago, we booked a flight (DFW-LHR) for May 2020. Will we receive a credit for that booking?
I’m not sure of the exact date but I’d think end of August time frame. I wouldn’t expect a flight booked a couple of months ago to work unfortunately
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Neither the link from your provider or my provider or from Chase itself gets to an offer showing the $200.
I have a suspicion they did this using the logic that the carrier surcharge is an arbitrary fee and they can easily waive some of it with the credit at no cost. But flights from the UK have high air passenger duty, especially for premium classes and they probably wanted to make sure they never give credit for those as these would actually cost BA money.
Where I think this really falls down is how it conflicts with the companion pass which is a specific and fairly unique benefit of the card. Both tickets are obviously on the same reservation and as such you can only get 1 credit, despite their being 2 sets of fees, which will always be much greater than $200 together, based on past practice.
Companion pass situation aside (possibly a corner case?), does anyone have DPs/other clarity as to whether you have two people flying on the same itinerary, do you only get one credit or two? Trying to figure out if it is necessary to book separately to get this credit or if you can book one itinerary and get a credit for two. It seems crazy that if two people are booking you’d have to buy each of the two tickets separately.
Hi Greg – what’s your take on upgrades? BA premium economy can often be purchased for relatively cheap, and upgrades to business then only cost ~20-24k Avios (more from the west coast). That upgrade also results in higher fees, typically around $375 from what I’ve seen. Biting $200 out of that would make a huge difference.
Great question. I think that there’s a good chance that it would work, but the terms don’t address that scenario.
I’ll probably be trying this one way or another soon, so I’ll report back if no one else does in the meantime.
My own read of the line “redeemed from the Cardmember’s Executive Club account” suggests that if you were to book an otherwise-qualifying BA trip across the Atlantic using AA miles that the card would not reimburse those carrier surcharge fees. I agree that “Cardmember” might not actually be enforced but view this as simply emphasizing “Executive Club” over other programs.
I agree that AA miles wouldn’t work. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise
If a travel together ticket is redeemed, is there a separate rebate for the taxes/fees/surcharges for that companion ticket? In other words, is it possible to get two rebates in this scenario?
I don’t think so since the terms state that you only get one rebate per booking
I am hopeful, The single booking appears as two charges, one for each ticket.
Hi Chaser – Curious what happened. I’m considering doing the same. Did you get $400 reimbursed?
I am reluctant to pay for any flight’s fees/taxes with any card other than my CSR. What are the travel protections with the BA Visa?
Good point! It looks like it has pretty minimal coverage. It does have accident insurance and lost luggage insurance, and secondary car rental, but that’s about it as far as I know
Ridiculous! The Brits are the worst offending colonists in history and they openly show that attitude in the way they treat frequent flyers……..their humble slaves………….They can Brexit all they want as I won’t to flying in or out of London when they have nosebleed fees! Viva la France!
JS
Been there 4x that’s enough even my GI complains about the cost .France or Italy a better value for me . I wonder what would happen if u book a ticket and they change all the taxes will they demand more money ???
CHEERs
I speak as someone from mainland Southeast Asia, but the French were pretty damn bad too.
For those of us over 5/24 but who would benefit from this new benefit, is it possible to product change any other Chase cards to a BA card?
I don’t think so, but I’m not 100% sure about that
That’s what I would guess… I will call and give it a shot though
Having to leave from the US makes this benefit pointless.
Carry on.
Well, it’s a credit card aimed at US based travelers so it makes perfect sense.