Help with BA Companion voucher

[Deangtv]

Bear with as I'm new to this.

I have a BA Amex card and have manage to acquire my first companion voucher and have around 65k avios points.
Looking to take the wife and daughter to NYC around christmas and just checked the prices with using some avios and my voucher. All in its coming out a whooping 1,400 pound.

A quick look on sky scanner, the same flight on there is coming out at 1,100 pound.

Am I missing something here??

[Imasurv]

Are you booking it as a reward flight? If using the voucher it has to be a reward flight - usually much cheaper as you are using the avios and only paying taxes and ‘fees’. You get the option to use less avios and pay more cash, but you should still be cheaper. The difficulty is finding the reward flights in the first place…. If you can actually get the BA website to work in the first place - I’ve never known a website down due to excess demand ALL the time - not just at peak times…

[omniflow]

With Virgin you have to phone them to use a companion voucher - which is fine because it's easy to get through and the people you speak to are really helpful. It might be the same with BA - the fact that you need to phone them.

[visitinglondon]

Use reward flight finder to find flights. Have to pay £3/month subscription but it pays for itself.

[Tim330]

What class of travel are you looking to book?
It's not good value to use the voucher for economy or PE.

Some good info here
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/03/how-do-br...

[PD9]

Tim330 said:

What class of travel are you looking to book?
It's not good value to use the voucher for economy or PE.

Some good info here
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/03/how-do-br...

Thanks so sharing. Incredibly useful!

[abzmike]

I just booked BA flights to Washington with a companion voucher and Avios. Didn’t have enough Avios to cover the whole fare so was 850 each plus 100k Avios, in business. Would have been 4500 if booked with cash.
Use the reward flight finder on BA.com and select the Companion Voucher option - obvs depends what is available, but it wasn’t bad for our trip in October.

[SaulGoodman]

LHR to JFK business class return for two is usually 170k Avios, £700 and a voucher. Economy is 60k, a voucher and £200. They changed things recently so more points but less money. Had a look a some dates over Christmas and there are flights for those prices. Maybe it's because you are booking three people, I've not tried that. Worth giving them a call, I think that's easier than using the website for more complicated stuff.

I think the best value from Avios is getting the business class flight cheap so we stack up the points and go in the second year of the voucher. I see that AmEx have changed the thresholds on the Avios card we use and bumped the price up, so I'll have to look at that.

One tip if you are calling - use Skype and call one of the international numbers outside of the working day - US, Singapore etc - and you normally find it's much less of a wait.

[yellowbentines]

Tim330 said:

What class of travel are you looking to book?
It's not good value to use the voucher for economy or PE.

Some good info here
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/03/how-do-br...

Depending on what BA AMEX card he has the OP might only be able to use the voucher in economy.

AFAIK you need the premium plus card to be able to use your voucher in other cabins, and to get 24 month validity on your voucher.

[2 GKC]

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

[fat80b]

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

Fairly easily if you put your mind to it - I see it as a bit of a game and more fun than collecting a few quid cashback
My approach is:

• I use a BA black Amex which comes with an annual cost. The wife is an additional card holder. We put our entire household spend through it (e.g. Tesco, Petrol, Bills, paypal etc). This alone probably gets me half way there!

• I click through the shops away links for any Internet purchases. Everything from white goods down to screwfix orders.

• We buy our wine through the BA wine flyer (but only when there is a bumper miles offer). This morning I received £150 worth of white wine that gained me 6500 air miles.

• I regularly look at the offers and use these if the deal gets me lots of miles (e.g. a hotel night away etc)

• In the past I put anything work expenses wise through the card as well. As well as most work travel going BA if I could. (although haven't really done this since covid)

If you are really bothered, there are other tricks - bouncing between cards and recommending friends and family etc, that can get you half the amount again in the first year. (And for when places don't accept amex, We have the free Virgin Atlantic Mastercard - Have 496K Virgin miles over there).


I did NY last year (with the daughter), and NY this year (with the mrs), and still have 2 x companion tickets and 526K BA airmiles in my account. We've done NY twice, Boston, Vegas, and Tokyo on miles over the years.

[Audis5b9]

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

it suits business travel pretty well, who are flying long haul return flight in business 12+ times a year. The Avios haul piles up pretty quickly like that.

There are a few other ways to earn Avios, I suggest taking a look at the headforpoints website. Lots of info on there

[abzmike]

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

I put big things on my Amex Premium, like holidays, but most come from work expenses - Depends on your usuage but doable to rack up if you're charging flights and hotels over a period - my 100,000 avios took a couple of years to accumulate. If your employer flys you business it helps - mine doesn't!
Companion vouchers take (I think 15K) spend and I have two accumulated over the past 3 or 4 years.

[Shiv_P]

visitinglondon said:

Use reward flight finder to find flights. Have to pay £3/month subscription but it pays for itself.

This is not always that useful, as using a companion voucher opens further seats that you cannot book without a companion voucher.

[Audis5b9]

Shiv_P said:

This is not always that useful, as using a companion voucher opens further seats that you cannot book without a companion voucher.

Thats not right, you can only use a companion voucher on reward seats, Reward Flight Finder (or Seatspy - better) only shows reward seat availability.

Being a gold card holder can open up other seats, but nothing to do with companion vouchers.

[InitialDave]

My recommendation would be to check out the BAEC section of the FlyerTalk forum, that will get you the most up to date and detailed information on how best to make use of your voucher.

[InitialDave]

Audis5b9 said:

Shiv_P said:

This is not always that useful, as using a companion voucher opens further seats that you cannot book without a companion voucher.

Thats not right, you can only use a companion voucher on reward seats, Reward Flight Finder (or Seatspy - better) only shows reward seat availability.

Being a gold card holder can open up other seats, but nothing to do with companion vouchers.

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.

[The G Kid]

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

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.

[Sport_Turismo_GTS]

fat80b said:

• I use a BA black Amex which comes with an annual cost.

I assume this is invitation only and has higher cost / benefits than the BA Premium Plus Amex or are you referring to the (dark grey) BA Premium Plus card?

Edited by Sport_Turismo_GTS on Wednesday 8th May 14:05

[The G Kid]

Audis5b9 said:

Thats not right, you can only use a companion voucher on reward seats, Reward Flight Finder (or Seatspy - better) only shows reward seat availability.

Being a gold card holder can open up other seats, but nothing to do with companion vouchers.

It's slightly right...if there are 2 reward seats available there may/will actually be 4 available if using 2x companion vouchers.