Help with BA Companion voucher
Discussion
InitialDave said:
AFAIK, yes, there is slightly better reward seat availability shown if you have a voucher and search with the "use voucher" box ticked on BA's search, I don't know if Seatspy is able to do it though.
I find the ‘Reward flights’ section of the BA app much easier to use and find suitable flights than the BA website.InitialDave said:
AFAIK, yes, there is slightly better reward seat availability shown if you have a voucher and search with the "use voucher" box ticked on BA's search, I don't know if Seatspy is able to do it though.
There is greater availability with a voucher - I was looking to use a voucher (one of the paid for Amex ones if it makes a difference) and definitely got a message that the voucher was providing greater availability - can't tell you whether that stacked with BA status or notsleepezy said:
InitialDave said:
AFAIK, yes, there is slightly better reward seat availability shown if you have a voucher and search with the "use voucher" box ticked on BA's search, I don't know if Seatspy is able to do it though.
There is greater availability with a voucher - I was looking to use a voucher (one of the paid for Amex ones if it makes a difference) and definitely got a message that the voucher was providing greater availability - can't tell you whether that stacked with BA status or notIf he can find one set in standard avios availability bucket and two in the enhanced using the voucher that could work but he still end up having to make separate bookings. You can use the voucher for 3 persons if there are the regular reward seats available.
The G Kid said:
We stick pretty much every bit of household spending on our BA Amex when possible. My wife also has her own card, so we get 2x companion vouchers each year. I think we generally get about 120K points a year. Used 380K a few weeks ago booking a trip to LA/Vegas (plus 1800 quid) for 4 of us, and 80Kish (plus 4 quid!) for flights to Greece this summer.
I'm always amazed how people use cards that don't give them benefits of some sort.
Two Prem Amex cards are costing the best part of a grand these days with £300 fee each and lost cash back on the spending. I’ve got one, just not yet fully convinced it’s worth it, unless you’re absolutely hung up on flying club. I'm always amazed how people use cards that don't give them benefits of some sort.
Re points collection.. I bought my BMW from a main dealer with my Amex card a few years ago, its big items that pile up the points quickly, ask friends and family if they are buying anything expensive and offer to pay for it and sort out the repayment between you. Also consider the Barclaycard credit card with avios, the same 1.5 point per pound spend as the BA premier/top tier Amex card, if a retailer doesn't take Amex they take Mastercard. You can go to the BA website and click through the collecting Avios section, subscribing at £200 per month gives you 200000 Avios at the end of the twelve months, send money via PayPal earns you Avios as well, I think things will go squirrely pretty quickly if you start sending £10000 chunks too frequently. I sent £5000 once via PayPal and nothing was said.
2 GKC said:
The G Kid said:
We stick pretty much every bit of household spending on our BA Amex when possible. My wife also has her own card, so we get 2x companion vouchers each year. I think we generally get about 120K points a year. Used 380K a few weeks ago booking a trip to LA/Vegas (plus 1800 quid) for 4 of us, and 80Kish (plus 4 quid!) for flights to Greece this summer.
I'm always amazed how people use cards that don't give them benefits of some sort.
Don't forget the main card holder has to earn over £35000 for get the BA Premier Plus card, that's still out of reach for a lot of people, plus from November?? the card is £300 and to get the companion voucher its £15000 spend not the previous £10000. I'm always amazed how people use cards that don't give them benefits of some sort.
Two Prem Amex cards are costing the best part of a grand these days with £300 fee each and lost cash back on the spending. I’ve got one, just not yet fully convinced it’s worth it, unless you’re absolutely hung up on flying club.
gtidriver said:
Re points collection.. I bought my BMW from a main dealer with my Amex card a few years ago, its big items that pile up the points quickly, ask friends and family if they are buying anything expensive and offer to pay for it and sort out the repayment between you. Also consider the Barclaycard credit card with avios, the same 1.5 point per pound spend as the BA premier/top tier Amex card, if a retailer doesn't take Amex they take Mastercard. You can go to the BA website and click through the collecting Avios section, subscribing at £200 per month gives you 200000 Avios at the end of the twelve months, send money via PayPal earns you Avios as well, I think things will go squirrely pretty quickly if you start sending £10000 chunks too frequently. I sent £5000 once via PayPal and nothing was said.
I also collect points through HSBC premier credit card although it's a 1for 2 exchange so not that great, free lounge access though at airports, lots of financial hoops to jump through to get that card though. gtidriver said:
I recently booked LHR to CPT, three people, two companion voucher, 300000 avios and £350 x3 this would be a £13000, I calculated around £60000 saving using companion vouchers and avios over the last two years/four trips.
In terms of BA reward seats / 2-for-1 vouchers, I think these work well in two scenarios:1) where you have a preferred destination and can plan well in advance (i.e 360 days ahead), potentially booking the outbound leg and then waiting a week or two to grab the return leg when it is released.
2) where you have flexibility on destination
In the former case we’ve done First Class to various destinations (Japan, Singapore, New York, South Africa etc) for (from memory) <£1000 between us plus Avios.
In the latter case, we recently did Club to Turks & Caicos earlier this year.
Without the vouchers we would probably not contemplate travelling First / Business class.
Sport_Turismo_GTS said:
potentially booking the outbound leg and then waiting a week or two to grab the return leg when it is released.
Ah, you may be able to give me some insight if you've successfully done this.My understanding was that it was a bit of a risk due to how BA manage it.
In that to use the voucher "properly", it has to be a return booking, and the voucher applied at the time of making the booking - that you can't take two single legs, later add on two return legs to build a pair of returns, and then apply the voucher.
So you'd have to use the first booking to "hold" the outbound reward seats, then effectively cancel them when the returns are available, and book the whole shebang in one hit with the voucher applied.
But the risk is that cancelling the initial reward flights doesn't necessarily put them back in the reward "bucket" for you to then have them available for making the full double-round-trip-with-voucher booking.
If you've made it work, I'd be keen to know how reliable you've found the approach? Has it ever snookered you in this manner?
I've currently got both an Amex 2-4-1 and a Barclaycard "upgrade" voucher (they sort of aren't really upgrades due to how they function, but close enough) that I'm intending to apply for some future trips, but as I have specific destinations and periods of the year in mind, I may need to do it a specific way.
InitialDave said:
Ah, you may be able to give me some insight if you've successfully done this.
My understanding was that it was a bit of a risk due to how BA manage it.
In that to use the voucher "properly", it has to be a return booking, and the voucher applied at the time of making the booking - that you can't take two single legs, later add on two return legs to build a pair of returns, and then apply the voucher.
So you'd have to use the first booking to "hold" the outbound reward seats, then effectively cancel them when the returns are available, and book the whole shebang in one hit with the voucher applied.
But the risk is that cancelling the initial reward flights doesn't necessarily put them back in the reward "bucket" for you to then have them available for making the full double-round-trip-with-voucher booking.
If you've made it work, I'd be keen to know how reliable you've found the approach? Has it ever snookered you in this manner?
I've currently got both an Amex 2-4-1 and a Barclaycard "upgrade" voucher (they sort of aren't really upgrades due to how they function, but close enough) that I'm intending to apply for some future trips, but as I have specific destinations and periods of the year in mind, I may need to do it a specific way.
I've done this twice, its straight forward and very little risk. You book the outbound flight online when the seats are released, and to book the return, you just need to ring up a BA call centre at Midnight (USA or Japan dependent on time of year) and they will link the two together for you. They do not cancel your outbound or anything like that. The only risk is someone else might be calling at the same time for the same seats, so there is small chance you wont get the return seats, but you could then always try the next night. My understanding was that it was a bit of a risk due to how BA manage it.
In that to use the voucher "properly", it has to be a return booking, and the voucher applied at the time of making the booking - that you can't take two single legs, later add on two return legs to build a pair of returns, and then apply the voucher.
So you'd have to use the first booking to "hold" the outbound reward seats, then effectively cancel them when the returns are available, and book the whole shebang in one hit with the voucher applied.
But the risk is that cancelling the initial reward flights doesn't necessarily put them back in the reward "bucket" for you to then have them available for making the full double-round-trip-with-voucher booking.
If you've made it work, I'd be keen to know how reliable you've found the approach? Has it ever snookered you in this manner?
I've currently got both an Amex 2-4-1 and a Barclaycard "upgrade" voucher (they sort of aren't really upgrades due to how they function, but close enough) that I'm intending to apply for some future trips, but as I have specific destinations and periods of the year in mind, I may need to do it a specific way.
Audis5b9 said:
I've done this twice, its straight forward and very little risk. You book the outbound flight online when the seats are released, and to book the return, you just need to ring up a BA call centre at Midnight (USA or Japan dependent on time of year) and they will link the two together for you. They do not cancel your outbound or anything like that. The only risk is someone else might be calling at the same time for the same seats, so there is small chance you wont get the return seats, but you could then always try the next night.
This is pretty much what we did - for Japan we were happy to make the trip last 17,18 or 19 days so had a bit of flexibility for the return leg, which could have been in First or Club.Audis5b9 said:
I've done this twice, its straight forward and very little risk. You book the outbound flight online when the seats are released, and to book the return, you just need to ring up a BA call centre at Midnight (USA or Japan dependent on time of year) and they will link the two together for you. They do not cancel your outbound or anything like that. The only risk is someone else might be calling at the same time for the same seats, so there is small chance you wont get the return seats, but you could then always try the next night.
Hmm, OK, that's a lot better than I was concerned it might be, thanks.So to be clear, you:
- book two outbound reward flights when those are first available
- book two inbound reward flights as soon as those become available
- phone up BA and have them stitch them together into two reward returns, and apply the 2-4-1 voucher
- get refunded the Avios now no longer needed due to the voucher being applied.
InitialDave said:
Hmm, OK, that's a lot better than I was concerned it might be, thanks.
So to be clear, you:
- book two outbound reward flights when those are first available
- book two inbound reward flights as soon as those become available
- phone up BA and have them stitch them together into two reward returns, and apply the 2-4-1 voucher
- get refunded the Avios now no longer needed due to the voucher being applied.
No, I think you book the outgoing flight, when available. Then at the appropriate time, you call up and get them to book the return flight and link it to your existing booking.So to be clear, you:
- book two outbound reward flights when those are first available
- book two inbound reward flights as soon as those become available
- phone up BA and have them stitch them together into two reward returns, and apply the 2-4-1 voucher
- get refunded the Avios now no longer needed due to the voucher being applied.
At least that’s how I remember it.
2 GKC said:
How do people amass the Avios to make these vouchers worth having? 160k Avios for a club return to NYC takes some collecting if you’re getting a voucher each year
Easy peasey........- fly a lot in premium classes
- Use BA holidays to book the flights
- use BA Amex to pay for flights
- have status with BA
gtidriver said:
When I booked NYC march 2023 every flight every day had slots for 2-4-1 usage. Booking CPT was very few seats available, I had to book a few days later than I wanted to come back.
Yes, there are so many BA flights going to New York each day that we found it very easy to find slots in First or Club to use with vouchers.Sport_Turismo_GTS said:
InitialDave said:
Hmm, OK, that's a lot better than I was concerned it might be, thanks.
So to be clear, you:
- book two outbound reward flights when those are first available
- book two inbound reward flights as soon as those become available
- phone up BA and have them stitch them together into two reward returns, and apply the 2-4-1 voucher
- get refunded the Avios now no longer needed due to the voucher being applied.
No, I think you book the outgoing flight, when available. Then at the appropriate time, you call up and get them to book the return flight and link it to your existing booking.So to be clear, you:
- book two outbound reward flights when those are first available
- book two inbound reward flights as soon as those become available
- phone up BA and have them stitch them together into two reward returns, and apply the 2-4-1 voucher
- get refunded the Avios now no longer needed due to the voucher being applied.
At least that’s how I remember it.
Audis5b9 said:
This plus when you book the outbound you need to use your companion voucher. (You do need to have enough Avios for both legs individually for this method to work, of which you will then get the excess Avios refunded)
Having done this half a dozen times I’m struggling with what you mean by excess avios?If you book the outbound using the companion voucher it’s half of the avios needed for a return, when you phone to book the return you just need the other 50% because the companion voucher is instantly applied to the full booking. The adjustments that appear on your account are just BA’s silly system doing its thing, you don’t actually need any additional avios over and above your planned itinerary.
djc206 said:
Having done this half a dozen times I’m struggling with what you mean by excess avios?
If you book the outbound using the companion voucher it’s half of the avios needed for a return, when you phone to book the return you just need the other 50% because the companion voucher is instantly applied to the full booking. The adjustments that appear on your account are just BA’s silly system doing its thing, you don’t actually need any additional avios over and above your planned itinerary.
you're quite right. If you book the outbound using the companion voucher it’s half of the avios needed for a return, when you phone to book the return you just need the other 50% because the companion voucher is instantly applied to the full booking. The adjustments that appear on your account are just BA’s silly system doing its thing, you don’t actually need any additional avios over and above your planned itinerary.
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