Should you trigger your next British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher early?

Back in early March, British Airways extended all British Airways American Express 2-4-1 Avios companion vouchers by six months.

This didn’t just apply to unused vouchers.  The extension was also applied to used vouchers too, so if you end up cancelling an existing redemption flight you will still have an extra six months to rebook.

The ‘six months extension’ rule also applies to all newly issued vouchers, which will now be valid for 2.5 years (or 1.5 years if generated on the free BA Amex card).

Here is the interesting point I wanted to flag again today:

The six month extension is only valid on 2-4-1 vouchers issued by 30th September 2020.

This creates a situation where it may be advisable to trigger your next 2-4-1 voucher early.

Let me explain:

A 2-4-1 voucher issued on 20th September 2020 will expire on 20th March 2023

A 2-4-1 voucher issued on 20th December 2020 will expire on 20th December 2022

Anyone who triggers their next voucher in October, November or December 2020 or January, February or early March 2021 will be worse off than someone who triggers their next voucher in late September 2020.

There could be real benefits in triggering your voucher early to get the extra six months.  It would allow anyone who has a card year ending in October or November to get a voucher covering Christmas and New Year 2022 for example.

What does this mean for me?

If your next British Airways Premium Plus American Express card year ends between October and early March, you may want to think about pushing forward spending so that you trigger the voucher later this month.

This will maximise the life of the voucher by giving you a validity period which runs until late March 2023

(Remember that the expiry date is the date by which you must take your outbound flight and not the deadline to book.)

Of course, British Airways could change the rules again and continue to grant extensions beyond 30th September.  They have already done this once.  You are taking a gamble.

Your bigger problem is how you generate the spending.   There is always Billhop, reviewed here, although this is not a free service so you need to weigh up the pros and cons.

More information

If you want to learn more about how to use your voucher now you have the extension, this Head for Points artice is the definitive guide on everything you need to know about the British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher.

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

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (February 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

If you have a small business, we especially recommend Capital On Cap’s Visa card which comes with a generous bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)