Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways ‘Gold Upgrade’ vouchers are now valid on American Airlines

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

In a small improvement to the Executive Club programme, British Airways has announced that Gold Upgrade for Two and Gold Upgrade for One vouchers can now be used on American Airlines.

Before we go into the details, let’s run over how these vouchers work.

  • If you earn 2,500 British Airways Executive Club tier points in your membership year, you receive a ‘Gold Upgrade For Two’ voucher, known as a GUF2 in the trade
British Airways 'Gold Upgrade' vouchers now valid on American Airlines
  • If you earn 3,500 Tier Points you will also receive 2 x ‘Gold Upgrade For One’ (GUF1) vouchers, which can be used for yourself on two trips or for yourself plus a companion on one booking

The GUF vouchers let you upgrade a British Airways cash or Avios ticket by one class (more details on ba.com here).

Irrespective of whether you book a cash or Avios seat, you can upgrade it to the next category as long as there is either:

  • Avios availability in the higher cabin, or
  • ‘A’ cash tickets for sale in First Class, ‘I’ cash tickets for sale in Club World or ‘T’ cash tickets for sale in World Traveller Plus

All of the flights on your booking are upgraded, including any domestic connections. You can apply a GUF voucher at any point – it does not need to be used at the time of booking.

American Airlines GUF2 Gold Upgrade vouchers

Gold Upgrade vouchers can now be used on American Airlines

You can now use your GUF2 and GUF1 vouchers on American Airlines, although there are three catches:

  • the vouchers can only be used on American Airlines if the booking contains a transatlantic sector. You can use it for a domestic American Airlines flight as long as it is a connection to a transatlantic service.
  • you cannot upgrade an American Airlines reward flight, only a cash booking
  • you cannot upgrade an Economy booking to Premium Economy
  • your American Airlines ticket needs to have been issued by British Airways, which means that your ticket number will start 125-

Because AA has different fare categories to BA, you will need ‘C’ class tickets to be for sale in Business Class in order to process the upgrade. First Class continues to require ‘A’ availability.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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!

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:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

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

Category

American Airlines and AAdvantage, British Airways and Avios

Comments (35)

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

  • Stu314 says:
    22 May22 May 05:58

    “One sweet spot would be on American Airlines long-haul flights without a Premium Economy cabin, which I think means the Airbus A330-300, Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 fleets. These flights would let you upgrade directly from Economy to Business Class using a GUF voucher.”

    Except they don’t operate any A330, 757 or 767 anymore.

    • Bimbo says:
      22 May22 May 09:29

      Exactly, Rob’s knowledge of aircraft is a bit lacking.

      Correction for anyone else: upgrades from economy to business/first is possible on their A321s and 737s planes.

      • Bimbo says:
        22 May22 May 09:33

        And on the American Eagle fleet, as they don’t have premium economy.

  • Joe says:
    22 May22 May 07:31

    That BA continues to withhold F award space is a promise not kept. This opens an opportunity . . . but the in-flight experience is simply not the same.

    • Chaz says:
      22 May22 May 08:17

      What promise? I don’t recall BA ever saying they were going to make F award space available.

  • ChrisC says:
    22 May22 May 07:36

    Are you able to use a GUF on a BA holidays booking?

    • Cheshire Pete says:
      22 May22 May 18:17

      Yes indeed. I find the best use of a GUF2 is to book a PE Holiday package and use the voucher. Generally the Taxes on these are around +£120pp also, so not like using a 241 whereby you get stung for upwards of £800pp.

  • VerdantBacon says:
    22 May22 May 07:54

    Considering AA J somehow manages to be a worse experience than BA J, this change doesn’t really do much

    • Yarki says:
      22 May22 May 09:13

      Disagree, I find the AA J seat to be superior to CW and meals on par.

      • Jacob says:
        22 May22 May 09:24

        I echo this. On my recent trips I deliberately switched to AA flights as the experience has been much much better than with BA sadly.

        • Nick says:
          22 May22 May 09:42

          Agreed, sadly. AA longhaul has transformed in recent years, even the food is good now. A nice trick I learnt a while back is to use the AA flights LHR-RDU and connect there. I actually really like their 777 business seats, particularly the rear-facing ones, and while the only usual downside of AA is the unpredictable crews, the Raleigh-based ones are without exception a delight. Average age 55, they grew up with proper Southern hospitality and service is in their blood. Tell them what you’re drinking when you board and if you’re awake you won’t have an empty glass.

          • The Savage Squirrel says:
            22 May22 May 12:24

            Raleigh-Durham was my first ever international flight (too) many years ago! Was a great experience back then even down the back – actually my main memory as an starry-eyed young squirrel was amazement at getting steak for dinner on a plane in economy (you can tell how many years ago that was then 😀 ) … and it even being not as terrible as you’d think.

          • Ziggy says:
            23 May23 May 21:26

            Agree entirely that AA’s 777 business class seats are (mostly) very good, but I’m reasonably sure that none of AA’s 777 have rear-facing seats.

      • ChrisC says:
        22 May22 May 09:38

        Yes I think AA much better.

        Food is better and they serve it as courses rather than on one tray and you can select your main from 30 days to the day before your flight and there is usually an extra dish that isn’t on the on plane menu. – things BA still don’t do.

        It’s the small things that make a difference.

      • Paul says:
        22 May22 May 13:40

        The AA seat was for a long time better than BA but as I haven’t flown BA J for 4 years I can’t comment on how if measures up to the BA suite with a door.
        I have preferred AA catering though hands down. They allow booking in advance, I have never been told they don’t have something and they know how to cook a steak. Something BA can’t do.

        Their Ice Cream Sundae is worth the switch on its own

    • JC says:
      22 May22 May 09:18

      AA J ie business class long haul presently has far superior food and drinks to BA. Some posters clearly haven’t flown for quite some time!

      • Alan says:
        22 May22 May 12:18

        East Coast overnight I don’t bother eating anyway, priority for me is sleep and eat at lounge before departure and on arrival!

    • Alan says:
      22 May22 May 09:48

      I found AA seats to be excellent. The downside is lack of EU261 cover coming eastbound – I ended up with an 8h delay with zero support or compensation from AA.

      • Steve says:
        22 May22 May 10:52

        Given BA’s current behaviour and unwillingness to follow EU261 rules, then there doesn’t appear to be a real drawback to flying AA.

        • Paul says:
          22 May22 May 13:36

          While not for a moment doubting that BAs behaviour has been scandalous, and I can vouch for this from first hand experience. My February claim, involving 2 cancellations on the same day, did result in BA paying out EU261 on both cancelled flight for both passengers. Over £840 on 2 club class avios tickets from SZG. Obtaining my addition fare and taxi costs did take a strongly worded email but the final £1300 bill was paid last week.

      • ChrisC says:
        22 May22 May 12:14

        Only somethign like 2% of flights qualify for either compensation or duty of care provisions so it’s not a factor for a lot of people. I’d rather be on a plane with a good seat and good food than on one with worse seats and food simply because of a small change of a delay and getting some compo.

        With US airlines the general rule is that they will offer assistance (hotels etc) when it’s their fault but not for things like weather.

        • ChrisC says:
          22 May22 May 12:14

          chance of a delay not change of a delay!

        • Alan says:
          22 May22 May 12:17

          Sadly not in my experience – we were kept in the terminal the whole night, eventually leaving at 7am. AA seats the same as Club Suites anyway and I don’t care about food on overnight eastbound flight as I just want to sleep (and will have eaten in the lounge) so the only remaining difference is having proper EU261 cover.

    • dougzz99 says:
      22 May22 May 11:00

      Also disagree. AA seat if good and at the moment food much better.

  • Julia says:
    22 May22 May 10:48

    “the vouchers can only be used on American Airlines if the booking contains a transatlantic sector”

    Where does it say in the T&C’s?

    • Rob says:
      22 May22 May 11:10

      It doesn’t – but it was in the email BAEC sent me. Can you even book a domestic stand alone ticket as a 125- on BA stock?

      • dougzz99 says:
        22 May22 May 11:28

        No. BA only sell AA if it includes transatlantic. The question gets asked a lot on FT with people looking to book BA codeshares on AA without transatlantic, trying to get the 4 flights for BAEC status.

        • Nick says:
          22 May22 May 11:36

          BA doesn’t have traffic rights (cabotage) for domestic sectors in the US so couldn’t sell them even if they wanted to. Open skies is heavily stilted to favour US airlines as they did get the right to sell standalone flights in Europe – but in reality they all decided voluntarily not to do so in the end.

  • iSub says:
    22 May22 May 14:11

    Are those thresholds reduced by 25% this year? I’m finding mixed messages online? I’ve about 2100 TPs at the mo and wondering if it worth making a push for GGL etc

    • ChrisC says:
      22 May22 May 14:26

      No. For earning the GUFs and GGL the thresholds weren’t reduced.

      • iSub says:
        22 May22 May 14:37

        Ah, good to know! Thanks ChrisC!

      • Will says:
        22 May22 May 15:18

        Specifically about the GGL threshold, I’ve read this has been reduced to 3750 until Dec 31st. Is this incorrect?

        • Cheshire Pete says:
          22 May22 May 18:19

          GGL renewals are reduced un tip end of year, it even says this in my BA online account with a message about it. Not sure about new members being 5000 has been reduced however.

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!