If I had to recommend exactly one credit card to someone who flies even occasionally and doesn't want to pay an annual fee, it would be the British Airways American Express. I score it 9/10 and call it the best free credit card in the UK, and I don't think that's an exaggeration.
The pitch is simple: no annual fee, ever, and you earn Avios on everything you spend. That alone would make it worth having. What pushes it from "good" to "genuinely excellent" is the companion voucher, which is one of the most valuable perks in the entire UK credit card market if you use it properly.
No fee changes everything
Most rewards credit cards ask you to do some mental arithmetic: does the annual fee get covered by the perks and points I'll actually use? With the BA Amex, that question doesn't exist. There's no annual fee at all, so every Avios point you earn is pure upside with nothing to offset against it.
This is the single biggest reason I rank it so highly. A card with brilliant rewards but a high fee only works for people who use it heavily enough to clear that fee. A free card with decent rewards works for almost everyone, because there's no threshold to clear in the first place.
Earning Avios on everyday spend
You earn Avios on every purchase made with the card, and there's a welcome bonus on top when you're approved. The exact ongoing earn rate and the size of the current welcome bonus shift periodically, as Amex adjusts the offer, so it's worth checking the live terms when you apply rather than going off a number that might have moved since this was written.
What doesn't change is the broad value proposition: combined with the welcome bonus, the points you accumulate on spending you're already doing are typically worth hundreds of pounds in flight value, provided you redeem them sensibly. Avios are generally worth somewhere in the region of 1p to 2p or more per point when redeemed for flights, with the strongest value usually coming from premium cabin redemptions or using the companion voucher. Redeeming Avios for things like statement credit or shopping gives noticeably worse value, so flights are where this card earns its keep.
The companion voucher: the real headline feature
The 2-for-1 companion voucher is, in my view, the standout perk of this entire card, and arguably one of the best perks available on any UK credit card.
Here's how it works in principle: meet a spending threshold on the card within a set period, usually your first year of holding it, and BA issues you a voucher that lets a second person fly with you for free, beyond paying the taxes and charges on their seat. The spend requirement needed to earn it has changed over time, so rather than quote a number that might be stale by the time you read this, check the current terms when you apply or call the offer line.
Where the voucher really delivers is on long haul flights. On a short European hop, the saving is real but modest. On a long haul business class redemption to somewhere like the US or further afield, the taxes-and-charges-only second seat can represent an enormous saving compared to buying two full-price tickets, easily running into four figures depending on the route and cabin. If you're going to use this card for one thing, structure your spending to hit the voucher threshold and then plan a trip around it.
Who this card is for
If you fly with British Airways, or even just fly internationally a couple of times a year and don't mind redeeming through the Avios programme, this card is close to a no-brainer given there's no fee attached. Families and couples benefit especially from the companion voucher, since the saving doubles up on every trip you use it for.
If you never fly, or you have no interest in collecting Avios at all, the rewards here won't mean much to you, and you'd be better served by a card whose rewards match how you actually spend, like the Nectar Amex for everyday shopping.
Acceptance: the one thing to plan around
Like any American Express card, the BA Amex isn't accepted absolutely everywhere in the UK. Certain merchants, including Subway, Home Bargains and KFC among others, don't take Amex at all, and you'll occasionally hit smaller independent shops with the same limitation. This isn't a flaw specific to this card; it's true of Amex generally in the UK market, where Visa and Mastercard acceptance is simply broader.
The practical fix is straightforward: carry a fee-free Visa or Mastercard as a backup for the rare merchant that won't take Amex, such as Monzo Flex, which also happens to charge 0% on foreign transactions, making it a sensible travel companion alongside the BA Amex rather than a competitor to it. Use the BA Amex as your primary card for the Avios earning, and lean on the backup only when you have to.
How this compares to paid alternatives
It's worth a brief mention of where this card sits relative to its paid siblings, since BA and Amex also offer premium tiers with their own annual fees, like BA Premium Plus, which also carries access to the 2-4-1 companion voucher. The paid tiers generally offer a faster route to the spending threshold needed for the voucher, plus other perks like additional Avios on spend, but they come with a real annual cost that needs to be weighed against how much you'll actually use those extras.
For most people who aren't extremely frequent flyers, the free BA Amex strikes the better balance: you still get a credible path to the companion voucher through normal spending, you still earn Avios on everything, and you're not paying anything for the privilege. The paid cards only start to make sense once your spending and travel frequency are high enough that the extra perks clearly outweigh the fee, which is a smaller group of people than you might think.
My take
A free card that earns genuinely valuable points on spending you'd be doing anyway, with one of the best perks in UK credit cards sitting on top of it, is an easy recommendation. The BA Amex doesn't try to be everything — it's built for people who fly, and it does that job better than almost anything else available without an annual fee attached.