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GAME OVER: You can no longer extend 2-4-1 vouchers by claiming a Future Travel Voucher

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In October 2021, British Airways started expiring American Express 2-4-1 companion vouchers again, after a number of pandemic extensions.

Luckily for Head for Points readers, we found a way to stop them expiring. You could book a random short haul flight using your voucher and immediately cancel it for a Future Travel Voucher.

This had the effect of ‘freezing’ your 2-4-1 voucher, allowing you to rebook for your choice of route at any point to 30th September 2023.

No more.

You can no longer get a Future Travel Voucher for an Avios booking

British Airways has, with no notice, made two changes to Future Travel Vouchers.

The key one is that you can no longer get a Future Travel Voucher on an Avios booking. Your booking will be automatically refunded instead.

If you have a 2-4-1 coming up to expiry, use it or lose it

This change of policy means that there is now no way of protecting a companion voucher which is approaching expiry.

You need to start looking for somewhere to fly to, or accept that it is going to be lost.

On the upside, online Avios cancellations are now possible

There is some upside here, of course.

For the first time in almost two years, you can now cancel an Avios booking online without having to speak to the BA call centre.

This only applies to travel up to 30th September 2023, however.

‘Book With Confidence’ is extended to 30th September 2023

There is some other good news.

British Airways has extended its ‘Book With Confidence’ deadline to 30th September 2022.

The previous deadline was 31st August 2022. If you book any British Airways travel for completion by 30th September 2022, you can cancel it at any point for a Future Travel Voucher.

The voucher will act as credit against a new booking which must be made for travel by 30th September 2023. Your Future Travel Voucher will be sent as an eVoucher, as there won’t be any Avios element, meaning that you can use it online at ba.com without having to call.

Summary

To summarise these changes:

  • If you have a 2-4-1 companion voucher coming up for expiry, it now appears to be too late to artificially extend it by turning it into a Future Travel Voucher. This game is over.
  • There is good news for everyone else – you can now cancel Avios redemption bookings online again, at least for travel before 30th September 2023, and the ‘Book With Confidence’ guarantee has been pushed out to 30th September, allowing you to book cash tickets for travel in September with no worries.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (206)

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

  • Cranzle says:
    2 Mar2 March 06:48

    Rob – do you ever receive official comment or confirmation about this type of change? Or do BA feel PR notifications are not important given their dominance in the market?

  • masaccio says:
    2 Mar2 March 06:49

    Went to a booking using a companion voucher that had been rebooked through a FTV and the website says “ Please get in touch / Sorry, we can’t cancel your booking online”. BA IT win again

  • IanT says:
    2 Mar2 March 06:59

    Slightly off topic, but BA related:
    Does anyone know how long it takes for a UK261 compensation payment to be made after BA have agreed to pay it and asked for bank details?

    • Cathy says:
      2 Mar2 March 07:14

      We had this very recently and once they asked for bank details it was just a few days, definitely within the week.

    • NorthernLass says:
      2 Mar2 March 07:16

      I went to CEDR for this about 3 years ago and BA paid up pretty much straight away, though things are probably busier just now. They did ask me via CEDR which payment method I wanted, so you might need to check any messages, it seems they don’t automatically credit to a payment card (which is much better, of course).

      • meta says:
        2 Mar2 March 07:27

        Max 1 week in my experience. Don’t close the case though until you have received the payment.

    • Rui N. says:
      2 Mar2 March 07:32

      When I claimed (and won) via CEDR, they asked for bank details and never paid. After a few weeks I asked where my money was, they paid the next day.

  • JB says:
    2 Mar2 March 07:06

    This doesn’t work to just cancel an avios booking online. Just tried it and right away got an email saying I don’t qualify for a FTV (travel is after 30 Sep 2022) and so nothing is happening.

    Seriously starting to find Avios too difficult to use!

  • Harry T says:
    2 Mar2 March 07:09

    Oh dear – I was waiting to see if BA offered any further voucher extensions, as I was concerned that BA was cancelling and refunding FTVs willy nilly, so vouchering my 241 might not work for long anyway. But now they have closed this avenue for extending the lifespan of my old 241, which seems mean.

    • Spurs drive me mad says:
      2 Mar2 March 11:15

      Why mean? You were playing the system and this time you lost! It was quite clear they wouldn’t extend 241 vouchers any more, the people who had already lost vouchers would have been screaming how unfair that was.

  • SteveJ says:
    2 Mar2 March 07:17

    Is there no cancellation fee for a reward bookings under book with confidence? I.e. Previously the FTV was no cost, whereas refund of cash and Avios involved calling and forfeiting upto £35 pp.

    Are we now saying that reward in effect reward bookings between now and Sept 2022 have no cancellation fee following this change?

    • SamG says:
      2 Mar2 March 07:21

      Yes. They’ve also been refunding existing vouchers in batches. These have to be redeemed by the call centre and it is a simple way to reduce the number of people calling and take some of the pressure off

      • PGW says:
        2 Mar2 March 07:27

        I’m not certain if my question is the same as that posted by SteveJ but I’m not clear whether I can now cancel a non voucher avios booking online and without a fee (provided I do it before September 2022).

        • tiriavpo says:
          2 Mar2 March 07:45

          PGW – yes effectively any reward booking cancelled using the form is now refunded not FTVd. It is not that you have to do it before Sep 22 – but that the flexible cancellation policy only applies for bookings where the travel itself will be complete by 30 Sep 22.

          For bookings for travel after that date I guess we are back to the £35pp cancellation fee.

      • Lady London says:
        2 Mar2 March 09:45

        It might be more open, honest and fair if BA would simply switch back on the standard refund request and avios booking cancellation and refund option that was a longstanding pre-existing functionality every customer had access to on the site. It was working fine but BA specifically switched it off.

        What’s so hard for BA about simply switching on access to this functionality that they took away?

        • SamG says:
          2 Mar2 March 12:21

          They might have broken it doing something else in the meantime (if it hasn’t been part of the regression testing they do during releases if it wasn’t internally considered part of the ba.com functionality anymore) – but I agree, seems ridiculous that this isn’t back yet

  • Mouse says:
    2 Mar2 March 07:21

    Did it two weeks ago – phew!

  • NorthernLass says:
    2 Mar2 March 07:26

    I’ve just tried to cancel a flight for December and got the message that I’ll get a voucher! As I’ve tried this before, I assume I’ll get an email later saying that I’m not entitled to a voucher and still have to call BA to try and cancel 😫

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

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