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A BA Amex 241 companion voucher question I can’t answer – any takers?

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My email inbox is a decent guide to what is currently causing issues in the travel loyalty industry, and it’s also a way of teasing out problems which we hadn’t previously considered.

Over the last few weeks, three people have emailed me with the same question about the ‘new’ British Airways American Express 2-4-1 companion vouchers.

I have no idea about the answer, so I’m turning it over to you in case you have solved the problem.

British Airways BA Amex American Express

Amex changed the 2-4-1 companion vouchers last September

First, a quick recap.

The two British Airways American Express credit cards come with a ‘companion voucher’ when you hit an annual spending target. These vouchers allow you to book two Avios redemptions for the points of one, although full taxes and charges must be paid on both tickets.

(We have an incredibly detailed Q&A here on how the BA Amex companion vouchers work if you want to know more.)

Following changes last year, vouchers issued after 1st September 2021 work like this:

  • BA Premium Plus American Express card – spend £10,000 in your card year and you receive a 2-4-1 companion voucher valid for 24 months (ie outbound flight to be taken within 24 months) on a flight in any cabin on British Airways
  • Free BA American Express card – spend £12,000 in your card year and you receive a 2-4-1 companion voucher valid for 12 months (ie outbound flight to be taken within 12 months) on an Economy flight on British Airways

There was one other change made in 2021 …..

There was one other change made in September 2021 which I initially dismissed as being of zero value to 95% of our readers.

Previously, all travel using a 2-4-1 companion voucher had to start in the UK. This wasn’t unreasonable, given that the vouchers are only offered to UK residents.

This restriction has been removed on new vouchers. Your 2-4-1 trip can now start from anywhere.

The obvious beneficiary of this is anyone who is within easy reach of Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam etc. They could book a redemption flight which goes (Aberdeen home -) Dublin – London – Miami etc. This would save you £185 per person in Air Passenger Duty on a business class flight, albeit at the cost of getting to Dublin / Paris / Amsterdam and the extra Avios needed for the redemption.

It’s not something I would do with my family but it may work for some people, especially those who live outside London and were facing connecting flights anyway.

British Airways BA Amex Premium Plus American Express

Here’s the question …..

Given that the 2-4-1 can be used to book flights starting outside the UK, there is another option available to you now.

You could book your return flight to the UK even if there is currently no Avios availability for the outbound flight.

It’s not an ideal situation, but you can see the attraction. You can lock in your return flight and then potentially set up a SeatSpy alert to let you know as soon as outbound flights come up.

However, is this possible?

Is it possible to add an extra flight, from a different country, IN FRONT of an existing flight?

There is no problem, at all, adding a flight to the BACK of an existing trip. Many, many HfP readers book their outbound 2-4-1 companion voucher flights as soon as the tickets come up (355 days before departure) and then call BA later to add the return when it is available.

Adding a flight to the front of an itinerary is different, however.

The taxes charged on your ticket may depend on the ‘point of sale’, eg the country where it is ticketed. Legally, a one-way flight from New York to London may be ticketed by BA in the US. If you tried to add a flight from London to New York in front of your New York to London flight, there may be issues with the original ticket.

Perhaps this isn’t a problem for BA in reality. Perhaps it is. I don’t know, and I don’t trust BA to know if I ask them.

Can you help?

So, the question to you, our readers, is this – have you successfully managed to add an outbound flight from the UK to an existing, already booked, inbound flight using a new-style American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher?

If so, were there any quirks with ticketing or reticketing, or with the way the taxes were worked out?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

You can see the current features of the BA Amex cards in our British Airways Premium Plus American Express review here and our free British Airways American Express review here.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

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

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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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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You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

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

Category

British Airways American Express

Comments (109)

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

  • R01 says:
    18 Apr18 April 06:43

    I have another question regarding the new vouchers. Is there a way of searching for the increased availability with Seatspy/RFF and setting alerts? Or do you have to search manually with BA after you tick the box to apply the Voucher?

    • Ed says:
      18 Apr18 April 07:21

      Could use ITA Matrix and restrict it to BA and I Class, if it quotes you a price for the day it should be available?

      • Rob says:
        18 Apr18 April 07:51

        That’s not enough. There seems to be at least 8 I-class needed but, key, that number is not fixed. Sometimes you need 10+.

      • Gareth says:
        18 Apr18 April 08:49

        Triggered a new Economy 241 early in late Dec to get 18 month validity.
        I did call be BA with a similar Open Jaw question as I wanted to book GIB-MAN-LHR as inbound later this year possibly Sept but asked if I could do outbound in June as MAN-LHR-ALC. They said should be fine as long as availability but I do wonder what would happen in reality.

    • strickers says:
      18 Apr18 April 12:22

      The only way I’ve found is to pick dates where there is unlikely to be any availability like Christmas. This then brings up the calendar which you can move forwards and backwards through to find available dates. It’s chuffing laborious though, there’s availability to and from Cape Town next March which I’m certain wouldn’t be there under the old voucher.

      • Gary says:
        18 Apr18 April 15:51

        What a brilliant idea @strickers! Just tried, and the clunky never used calendar finally found its voice.

  • Michael says:
    18 Apr18 April 06:44

    Good question!!!!

    When you create your first leg not starting in
    then U.K. ie .. LAS to LHR can you do
    the outbound say LHR to SIN or does the second leg have to be in the same region as the first. ?

    • gordon says:
      18 Apr18 April 06:50

      From BA website….

      Reward flight bookings – flying to one city/country and returning from another: – although this can be done, it can’t currently be booked online. Please contact our British Airways Executive Club to make this type of booking.

    • Rob says:
      18 Apr18 April 07:56

      The gap must be shorter than either flight, so it depends if LAS-SIN is shorter than the two flights.

    • Sean says:
      18 Apr18 April 08:01

      A 241 can contain multiple sectors so presumably you could do LAS-LHR-SIN and return on one voucher.

      • Froggee says:
        18 Apr18 April 08:39

        Now if you could do that with a stopover in London there could be a lot of value there.

      • JDB says:
        18 Apr18 April 08:45

        Is that routing, via the Atlantic, allowed under IATA rules? At some point the fare only allows a trans-Pacific routing without paying a premium to go the Atlantic way.

    • SteveW says:
      18 Apr18 April 11:01

      We’d better hope that it isn’t possible because it would seriously devalue the benefit for UK residents as more people from overseas compete for reward flights.

  • Phillip says:
    18 Apr18 April 07:04

    I haven’t tested the BA 2-for-1 system, but I know for a fact that you can add a sector ahead of an existing one from a different country, as far as general ticketing rules go.
    It gets a bit messy with the currency and they would normally have to reprice the entire ticket and change currency or apply exchange rates, but whether BA allows this as part of the 2-for-1 bookings, I don’t know.

  • Matt says:
    18 Apr18 April 07:08

    I suspect (but don’t know) that the answer will be no. You can add the return on (in theory) when it wasn’t available when you booked the outbound. That won’t apply here.

    • JDB says:
      18 Apr18 April 07:16

      This has fortunately always been BA practice, but the terms for reward bookings which apply equally to 241s actually state:-

      “15.10. For return journeys, outbound and return flights must be booked at the same time. Travel to one destination from a point of origin and returning from another city to the same point of origin (or vice versa) is permitted.”

      So we have to hope this doesn’t change. I can imagine that at some point the overseas call centres might push back on the late night calls from non local customers as the USA now appears to be doing.

    • CherylD says:
      18 Apr18 April 08:31

      Matt – I can confirm adding a return flight to a outbound 2-4-1 is no problem. I did this recently online at 1am for a Cape Town to LHR outbound flight when the 2023 seats were released as I had sufficient Avios available for both tickets, then phoned BA later that day. They linked the tickets and refunded half the Avios . They did not recalculate the fees so I estimate this cost about £60 extra per ticket than if I’d booked a return. All 4 available BC seats on the flight were gone by 1.10am so phoning anywhere would unlikely to have been successful.

      • Nick says:
        18 Apr18 April 23:17

        I could not find an office open at 12amGMT so I did exactly what has been written here and it worked. Also the costs were the same but worth it to get the date I wanted

  • gordon says:
    18 Apr18 April 07:08

    Slightly off topic and this has been a hot topic on many posts.
    Yesterday I booked a 2-4-1 flight CW to LAX the total taxes etc was £1683.52 and 125,000. Actual cash price £4787.52.
    Avios was earned not purchased. I am aware the taxes on most flights have increased by around the £300 mark. With a different of £3104 I still think there is value in this booking vs a cash booking. Or am I not looking at this correctly. I am also aware that I could have a cash back card instead of a BA Amex so in theory the Avios is not technically free….

    • gordon says:
      18 Apr18 April 07:17

      Also with the card fee of £250 pa the difference is £2854….

      • Andrew. says:
        18 Apr18 April 07:54

        125,000 Avios, valued at 0.8p each based on Nectar Conversion is £1,000. So £1683.52 + £1,000 + £250 = £2933.52.

        I make that a £1854 saving.

        Can’t complain about that.

    • Thywillbedone says:
      18 Apr18 April 07:27

      Yes, but would you have actually paid that cash fare?? I value Long Haul J at £1,750 per seat – this being the figure I would happily pay in cash if I could find it. There is still some value in the voucher for your trip but you have to deduct a cost for the Avios and the annual card fee to determine the actual value generated …

      • gordon says:
        18 Apr18 April 07:33

        I normally travel Premium economy so in my case I am happy with the final figure once calculated….

        • Thywillbedone says:
          18 Apr18 April 07:37

          Fair enough. The way redemptions are priced on BA nowadays, you basically get a bump of one class for your efforts (with Avios, companion voucher etc). Nowhere near as good as it used to be, but it is what it is …

          • gordon says:
            18 Apr18 April 07:43

            Yes I agree the figures now are not as good now.
            But with a couple of 2-4-1 vouchers banked I cannot bring myself to just let them expire like some are doing.

        • joe Jordan says:
          18 Apr18 April 12:40

          need to dial in the avios that would have been generated by the cash ticket at 0.8p per avios.

      • John T says:
        18 Apr18 April 08:01

        You’re unlikely to get a longhaul J ticket to West Coat US for under £2k direct

        • Harry T says:
          18 Apr18 April 10:29

          From the UK maybe. I paid £1250 return for club suite to LAX from DUB for this August.

          • Rob says:
            18 Apr18 April 10:53

            I got NYC out of Dub for £1200 and that was without a Sat night stay.

          • Jeff77 says:
            18 Apr18 April 11:36

            How much to get to Dubai in business class?

          • Rob says:
            18 Apr18 April 13:46

            Lufthansa / SWISS are selling Dubai ex-UK for £1198 return at the moment, bookable to March 2023 (albeit not on super peak days).

          • Jeff77 says:
            18 Apr18 April 15:35

            “Lufthansa / SWISS are selling Dubai ex-UK for £1198 return at the moment, bookable to March 2023 (albeit not on super peak days).”

            Nowhere near that to the west coast on the dates I’m looking at (early October)

          • Rob says:
            18 Apr18 April 17:10

            The question was about Dubai though 🙂

            You need 2+ people to get the Lufty deals too.

          • Jeff77 says:
            18 Apr18 April 15:36

            Not really comparable to direct from the U.K. though is it?

          • Jeff77 says:
            18 Apr18 April 17:30

            “The question was about Dubai though”

            Good point. So around £2.4K to go to the West Coast via Dubai and have to potentially spend less time in the final destination. Doesn’t sound great to me.

          • Rob says:
            18 Apr18 April 20:33

            What has the West Coast got to do with anything?! Someone asked about a cheap way to get to Dubai, I told them to book the current Lufthansa £1189 offer ….

          • Jeff77 says:
            18 Apr18 April 20:57

            “What has the west coast got to do with anything”

            “You’re unlikely to get a longhaul J ticket to West Coat US for under £2k direct
            REPLY
            Harry T says:
            18 Apr 10:29
            From the UK maybe. I paid £1250 return for club suite to LAX from DUB for this August.”

            Happy to help 🙂

    • John says:
      18 Apr18 April 07:29

      The £4787 figure is irrelevant except for bragging rights. What matters is how much you would have paid, or would have wanted to pay, if you didn’t have any avios or 241.

      Your £2854 figure represents what you “sold” 125000 avios to BA for. So yes if you would have actually paid £4787 it’s a good deal.

      If you value avios at 1p you got the flights for £1250+£250+£1683 = £3183, so as long as you would have been happy to pay ~£3300 or so of real money (because you earn some avios back on paid bookings) it’s acceptable.

    • Gareth says:
      18 Apr18 April 08:53

      More than ever I agree with the view that the best way to redeem 241 is in F if you can find availability. Luckily we did. Had the option of CW return to CUN for 125+£1.9K taxes (1.25 last year) or out F to MEX back Y from CUN for 100+£1.3. Happily took the latter option and feel we’ll get a far superior experience overall for fewer £s (and Avios).

    • Harry T says:
      18 Apr18 April 10:27

      Just popping in to remind you that you wouldn’t have paid the price of those business cash flights so you should assess the value of your Avios redemption against what you would have paid instead 🙂

      Quite easy for people to claim massive values per Avios based on a literal evaluation of the cash cost, when they would not have paid the cash. For example, I upgraded my upcoming May business class flights to BOS with Avios each way and probably got a million pence per Avios if I look these flights up on google flights and assess the difference in cash price between business and first. But I paid £683 pp for the business fares and 40k Avios pp for the upgrades. I would pay around £1500-2000 per person to fly F to the US ex EU. So I really got a value of around 2-3.3p per Avios for my UUA.

  • MT says:
    18 Apr18 April 07:09

    Hi,

    I have done this yes, I had booked a return flight and then added a outbound flight to the booking at a later date it is certainly possible.

    It took the agent some time to figure this out, more because they were unsure how to recalculate the taxes on it but they did it and the ticker issued without a problem. I would have to look back at the original ticket and the reissued one to figure out what happened with the taxes in the end however.

  • Dev says:
    18 Apr18 April 07:29

    I would hazard a guess that it is possible to add a sector in front of a flight … a bit like not the same as bringing a flight sector forward where you essentially insert a sector in front and delete the one you don’t need.

    Currency and taxes will be all over the place, and dependent on the movement of currencies in the intervening time period, it may be less or more. I would also guess that the whole thing will be re-priced in the currency of the new departing country?

    On a separate note, starting outside the UK is great for expats living overseas who can still put £10k through those cards.

  • Paul says:
    18 Apr18 April 07:44

    I think the most telling comment from the original question is “ I don’t trust BA…..” I can’t help with the question but I absolutely agree with that you cannot trust this company at present. A sorry state of affairs

    • Alex Sm says:
      18 Apr18 April 08:08

      “To fly, to serve”…

    • Jeff77 says:
      18 Apr18 April 09:32

      “As soon as restrictions are lifted business will bounce back”

      “Er we weren’t prepared for the bounce back and don’t have enough staff to provide a proper service”

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