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What will British Airways do about expiring BA American Express 2-4-1 companion vouchers?

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One of our other articles today looks at the new Virgin Atlantic policy for extending your Virgin Flying Club status and vouchers due to coronavirus – read here.

We have, unsurprisingly, had a lof of emails and discussion in our comments section about what is happening with British Airways Executive Club status years and British Airways American Express 2-4-1 vouchers.

There is no official publicly-stated policy as yet.  However, I wouldn’t be too concerned.

British Airways is going to need every bit of customer goodwill it can get when flying starts to return to normal.  It would be foolish to remove status from good customers and give them an excuse to run off to Virgin Atlantic, Star Alliance or SkyTeam.

Will British Airways extend your American Express 241 voucher?

I have been told, unofficially, that there is a policy in place to extend 2-4-1 vouchers by six months on request.

There is a specific email address to get this done.  I am NOT sharing the email address because, frankly, you should be ashamed of yourself if you are planning to waste the time of BA Customer Services today with a query over a 241 voucher which isn’t going to expire for months.

There are literally thousands of people who desperately need to contact BA at the moment and 99% of them have a more pressing need than the extension of a 241 voucher.

In any event, I fully expect that, at some point, British Airways will automatically extend all unused 241 vouchers by six months.  As well as being the right thing to do, it will take the pressure off the call centre.  Like Virgin Atlantic, I imagine that an email will pop up out of the blue at some point.

You can learn more about how the British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher works in this ‘Avios Redemption University’ article.

Will British Airways extend your Executive Club status?

Will British Airways extend your Executive Club Gold, Silver or Bronze status?

This is a little trickier, although it should not be a hugely difficult IT task to extend all current membership years by a few months.

If you are at risk of dropping at the end of March, remember British Airways has a soft landing policy.  A Gold will only drop to Silver and a Silver will only drop to Bronze.

Again, please do not call British Airways to discuss this.  Frankly, it doesn’t matter if your status drops at the end of March because you are unlikely to be doing much flying in April anyway.

I fully expect British Airways to make a formal announcement soon.  For now, don’t worry about it and don’t block the telephone lines with questions about it.  Rest assured that British Airways will need your custom more than ever once things return to normal.

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Category

British Airways American Express, British Airways and Avios

Comments (130)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • JamesR says:
    16 Mar16 March 11:42

    Slightly OT – Virgin has moved my Sao Paulo upper class in August to Club World. I’m assuming I’m now good to earn Avios and Tier points on this flight? Will I have to call (later in the year) to add the flight to my Executive club account?

    • Rob says:
      16 Mar16 March 11:50

      Yes, should do. You can add it to your BA account now if you have the booking reference.

  • ParaM says:
    16 Mar16 March 11:49

    We had to cancel our BA flight last week due to Coronavirus (our ex-US cruise was cancelled) and our 241 expires in May. I’m hoping BA will be able to extend the voucher so we can re-use it for the dates we rebook.

  • Graham says:
    16 Mar16 March 12:05

    I had to cancel a 2-4-1 avios booking a couple of weeks ago (not CV related). I’ve had the financial refund on the 3rd March but the points and 2-4-1 voucher have still not been refunded.
    Im holding off contacting BA as I’m hoping the system is just running slow on the points refund.
    Anyone else having similar issues?

    • ParaM says:
      16 Mar16 March 12:17

      We had to cancel last week – both Avios and voucher back in account.

    • Spursdebs says:
      16 Mar16 March 12:43

      If you cancel online it’s slower than phoning up …it’s IT glitch so they told me few weeks ago.

    • Alex says:
      16 Mar16 March 12:53

      Yes, I’ve cancelled my 241 booking last Friday because I wanted to move it for September, but neither the Avios or the voucher are back on my account. The reason I cancelled is because I wanted to take advantage of current availability for September before it runs out, but now I can’t book if I don’t at least get the voucher back.

    • Rantallion says:
      16 Mar16 March 16:13

      I cancelled online a 2-4-1 voucher trip this morning. The Avios and voucher were immediately returned to, and visible in, my BAEC account.

  • Anna says:
    16 Mar16 March 12:28

    BA is removing the facility to cancel online from some Avios bookings due to travel in the next few weeks. Options now rather more restricted. Don’t leave it too late!

    • Michael C says:
      16 Mar16 March 16:13

      Anna, if you do that online, is the 35 GBP per sector being waived?

      • Anna says:
        16 Mar16 March 17:06

        I don’t think so but I can’t actually find out at the moment as the option to cancel has been greyed out in my account.

        • Michael C says:
          16 Mar16 March 19:14

          Thanks anyway – just had an email saying “Your flight is still on but you can cancel online for vouchers” – except its a reward flight! (Osaka next week). Guess they mean the taxes.

          • Shoestring says:
            16 Mar16 March 19:22

            no – for the full amount in voucher format

            a bit more complicated as Avios are kept in suspense but still available to use with the voucher

  • sam says:
    16 Mar16 March 14:05

    anyone heard anything about a similar extension policy on the lloyds upgrade voucher? I’ve got the last one still to use, exp. end March…

  • Charlie says:
    16 Mar16 March 14:45

    Any idea what will happen to those of us with a 241 booking, thats likely to get cancelled? The voucher is now expired.

    • Anna says:
      16 Mar16 March 16:08

      That’s what the article is about, but your voucher can’t have expired if you haven’t even flown the outbound leg yet.

  • Ian S says:
    16 Mar16 March 16:00

    My wife and I were due to travel to Mumbai BA/CW on 29 March. Flights were paid for using a BA AmEx 241 voucher & BA Avios. As India has cancelled all tourist visas we can’t go, but BA is still operating the flight.
    We wouldn’t mind moving our trip to Dec but there’s no reward bookings available on the dates we want to go.
    What are our options?
    (BA Goldcardholder if it makes any difference)

  • Adrian says:
    16 Mar16 March 18:15

    OK update for anyone with a 2-4-1, fresh off the phone with BA. I’m supposed to travel Thursday.
    BA will only re-book you to the 1st August (no exceptions) and if Avios seats are available, which for most of us they won’t be, they will not use “A” class for First for example, there have to be avios seats available, which quite frankly is laughable. I had managed after searching for months on a daily basis and paying change fees to upgrade both the o/b and return to find 3 F tickets into LAX and out of LAS, this was in April last year. The call centre said the seats will go back into availability (which is irrelevant anyway as the dates are different and no-one can fly), when when i said it was F then she did agree that BA don’t open up F on all flights. I would have been happy to take PHX, they have A9, F9 and no seats allocated, but there is no avios availability.
    YOU HAVE TO PAY THE £35pp CHANGE FEE IT IS NOT BEING WAIVED. The advice was phone tomorrow it might be different.
    If your 2-4-1 voucher has expired it will come back to your account, but you have to ring the accounts team and they will breathe life into it for 6 months. If your voucher is still in date it will come back automatically and you can use it soon as, as mine was dated until next year, they will not add 6 months on to the expiry.
    Voucher was offered as a form of refund, but must be used within 12 months, even though they have no idea when they will start flying again. Word of caution, the fees and avios are held in suspense and any not used will expire. I specifically asked as the best i can hope to do is find 3x CW seats, so this would be less than the 470k avios i have shelled out, if i take the voucher and only spend 370K for example i will lose the rest of the avios they will not be returned!
    My take on it, BA are in difficult spot but have literally done nothing to help me, i’m only gold, but my status did not help and given the volume of calls a manager was not available (which if fair enough).

    • Gin and Tonic Please says:
      16 Mar16 March 18:38

      I’m just off the phone too. Was due to fly to Buenos Aires on Fri, but the flight is now cancelled. Booked with Avios and 241 voucher. If I tried to use links in MMB to get the refund, it just took me to the voucher request form (as others have reported) So after a long time on hold, I got the full refund of the fees, Avios and voucher but no extension. Mine is still valid until Sep, though – and the BA advisor said (without me asking) that I could ask to speak to the Accounts team in the future to request an extension if I needed it.

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