Earn 1.5 Avios Per £1 After the October BA Amex Cut

On 7 October 2026, the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card stops being the effortless 1.5-Avios-per-pound machine it has been for years. From that date the standard earn rate drops to 1.25 Avios per £1, and the headline 3 Avios per £1 on British Airways and BA Holidays spend collapses to the same 1.25. Put £30,000 a year through the card and that is roughly 7,500 fewer Avios annually on general spend alone — before you count the lost bonus on flights. The good news: 1.5 Avios per £1 has not vanished. It has simply moved to other cards. Here is exactly where it went, and which option fits your spending.

What actually changes on 7 October

Two things happen to the BA Amex Premium Plus that day. The everyday earn rate falls from 1.5 to 1.25 Avios per £1, a cut of roughly 17%. More painfully, spending directly with British Airways and British Airways Holidays — which used to earn a generous 3 Avios per £1 — drops all the way to 1.25 as well. That is a 58% reduction on exactly the spend BA loyalists were most likely to funnel through the card.

The £300 annual fee is unchanged, and so is the card's real crown jewel: the 2-4-1 Companion Voucher, which you still earn after £15,000 of spend in a card year. That voucher remains the single best reason to keep the Premium Plus, because letting two people fly on one Avios balance is worth far more than a few thousand extra points a year.

There is one genuine sweetener buried in the announcement: Amex and BA are making tier points easier to earn on the card, which softens the blow for anyone chasing British Airways Club status. But if status is not your goal and you were holding the Premium Plus purely for its earn rate, the maths has shifted and it is worth shopping around. Whichever card you land on, the Avios only matter when you spend them well — before you switch anything, it is worth checking what your target trip actually costs with Pointsbot's flight insights, so you know how many Avios a year you genuinely need to earn.

Option 1: Barclaycard Avios Plus — the like-for-like swap

If you want to replace 1.5 Avios per £1 with the least friction, the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard is the obvious answer. It earns exactly 1.5 Avios per £1 on everything, with no BA-only asterisk, for a £20 monthly fee (£240 a year). New Barclaycard customers who spend £3,000 in the first three months bank a 25,000 Avios sign-up bonus, which alone can be worth more than a year of fees.

The Plus card also hands you a British Airways cabin upgrade voucher once you spend £10,000 in a card year — or, if an upgrade voucher does not suit you, 7,000 Avios instead. Run £20,000 through it and you collect 30,000 Avios plus that voucher (or an extra 7,000 Avios), which nudges your effective rate well above 1.5.

There is a second, underrated reason to carry it even if you keep an Amex in your wallet: it is a Mastercard. Plenty of places that matter — many local councils taking council tax, some tradespeople, the occasional small retailer — simply do not accept American Express. A Barclaycard Avios Plus lets you keep earning 1.5 Avios per £1 in all those gaps rather than dropping to a cashback card or, worse, earning nothing. For most UK Avios collectors, this is the first card to add after the cut.

Option 2: American Express Gold — 1.5 per £1 if you hit the targets

If you would rather stay inside the Amex ecosystem, the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Card quietly matches 1.5 Avios per £1 — you just have to reach the spend thresholds to get there. The base rate is 1 Membership Rewards point per £1, and each point converts to 1 Avios. On top of that, Amex Gold pays a 5,000-point bonus when you hit £10,000 of spend in a card year, and another 5,000 points at £20,000.

Do the arithmetic and it lands neatly. Spend exactly £10,000 and you earn 10,000 base points plus a 5,000 bonus — 15,000 points, or 1.5 per £1. Spend exactly £20,000 and you collect 30,000 points, again 1.5 per £1. That is identical to what the Premium Plus used to give on general spend.

Two features push Gold ahead of a straight swap. First, it pays double points — 2 per £1, so effectively 2 Avios — on airline tickets booked directly, including with British Airways. That is a better rate on flight spend than the Premium Plus will offer after October. Second, Membership Rewards points are a transferable currency: one point is more useful than one Avios because you can move it 1:1 into Virgin Points, Flying Blue and others, or into hotel programmes like Hilton and Marriott, rather than being locked into Avios. Gold is free for the first year and £195 thereafter. The catch: because you have held a BA Amex within the past 24 months, you will not be eligible for the Gold sign-up bonus.

Option 3: HSBC Premier World Elite — the highest earner, with a catch

For a certain kind of high spender, the HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard is arguably the strongest Avios earner on the market. It pays 3 HSBC points per £1 in the UK and 4 per £1 abroad, and points convert to airline miles at a 2:1 rate. That works out to 1.5 Avios per £1 at home and a full 2 Avios per £1 overseas.

The upside gets better in the periods when HSBC runs one of its Avios transfer bonuses. Its most recent, a 25% deal in early 2026, effectively lifted UK earning to about 1.875 Avios per £1 — comfortably beyond anything the Premium Plus ever offered. These bonuses are not guaranteed, but they have appeared regularly for years. HSBC points are also flexible, transferring at 2:1 into nine airline schemes including Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, Qatar Airways Privilege Club, Flying Blue and Singapore KrisFlyer.

The catch is real, though. The card is only available to HSBC Premier current-account holders, and Premier eligibility is demanding: you generally need £100,000 invested or saved with HSBC, or a salary above £100,000 paid into the account. The World Elite card carries a £290 annual fee, partly offset by a 40,000-point welcome bonus in year one. If you already bank with HSBC Premier, this is a superb Avios engine. If you do not, it is probably not worth restructuring your finances around.

Option 4: Nectar Amex and the free-card route — the low-cost backups

Not everyone wants to pay a monthly fee, and there are two cheaper ways to get close to 1.5 Avios per £1.

The Nectar Credit Card from American Express earns 2 Nectar points per £1, which is equivalent to 1.25 Avios per £1 at the standard Nectar-to-Avios conversion. On its own that only matches the reduced Premium Plus rate — but Sainsbury's regularly runs 20% Nectar-to-Avios conversion bonuses, and if you hold your points and convert only during one of those windows, your effective rate climbs to 1.5 Avios per £1. The trick is patience: never auto-convert, and let the Nectar points sit until a bonus lands. The card is free in year one and £30 a year after that.

The other cheap route is the free Barclaycard Avios Mastercard, which earns 1 Avios per £1 with no fee. After £20,000 of spend it lets you choose a cabin upgrade voucher or a 7,000 Avios bonus. Take the 7,000 Avios and you have earned 27,000 Avios for £20,000 of spend — 1.35 Avios per £1, from a card that costs nothing. It is not quite 1.5, but for a fee-free Mastercard that is a strong floor, and it is easier to hit a £20,000 target on a widely accepted Mastercard than on an Amex.

Pro tip: You do not have to choose. Keep the Premium Plus if you can reliably hit £15,000 a year for its 2-4-1 Companion Voucher — but from 7 October, stop routing everyday and BA spend through it. Pair it with a Barclaycard Avios Plus and put your general spending there at 1.5 Avios per £1, including everywhere Amex is declined. You keep the voucher and stop leaking Avios on the earn.

The bottom line

The 7 October cut makes the BA Amex Premium Plus a weaker earning card, but it does not end 1.5 Avios per £1. The cleanest replacement is the Barclaycard Avios Plus, which matches the old rate outright and works where Amex does not. Amex Gold gets you there through spend bonuses and adds valuable flexibility; HSBC Premier World Elite beats it if you qualify; and the Nectar and free Barclaycard routes keep you close for little or no fee. The smart move for most people is not to cancel the Premium Plus at all, but to demote it to a voucher-and-status card and let a cheaper Mastercard do the everyday earning. Work out your annual spend, match it to one of these cards, and you will barely notice the cut.