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BIG NEWS: the BA Amex 2-4-1 companion voucher has been improved (Part 1)

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There is some exciting news today for anyone who has a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher.

BA and American Express have unveiled two important changes to how the companion vouchers work.

One of these is a genuine improvement (I’m less sure about the 2nd one!) and, even better, the changes are already reflected when you try to book at ba.com.

You can see the new list of card features in our British Airways Premium Plus American Express review here and our free British Airways American Express review here.

British Airyways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher has been improved

Here are the two changes:

  • BA Amex change #1: The companion voucher can now be used by a solo traveller to get a 50% discount on the cost of an Avios redemption
  • BA Amex change #2: You can now mix the percentage of Avios and cash used

Let’s get the key bit of small print out of the way first.

These changes only apply to 2-4-1 companion vouchers issued after 1st September 2021. These vouchers are different to older vouchers because:

If you only have ‘old style’ vouchers on your account, nothing you are about to read will apply to you. You will need to wait until your next voucher is issued.

British Airyways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher has been improved

Your 2-4-1 companion voucher can now be used by solo travellers for a 50% Avios discount

This is the big one. It is, without a doubt, a response to the new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard which we covered here and which has a 25,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

In our view, the Barclaycard Avios Mastercard is the ideal card for people who liked to travel solo. This is because it comes with an annual BA Avios upgrade voucher which can be used by either a couple (to upgrade one leg of their flight) or a solo traveller (to upgrade a return flight).

I can imagine that American Express was starting to see a drift to the new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard from this group. This change means that solo travellers now have a good reason to stick with, or return to, American Express.

How does this work in practice?

It is as simple as you would expect:

  • Go to the Avios booking page on ba.com
  • Tick the box to say that you want to use your companion voucher (which we may now need to rename!)
  • Search for availability for one person

This is what you will see:

British Airyways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher has been improved

There is now a message saying that you have activated the solo traveller 50% discount.

Whilst the message references the Premium Plus card, the 50% discount also applies to Economy bookings made using a new-style free British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher.

I did a dummy booking for a return flight to New York for one person on an off peak date. This would usually cost 100,000 Avios + £844 in taxes and charges.

Instead, you now see this:

British Airyways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher has been improved

You are charged 100% of the taxes and charges but only 50% of the Avios.

One benefit of this change vs the Barclaycard Avios Mastercard upgrade voucher is that it is valid for First Class travel. The Barclaycard voucher can only be used to upgrade an Avios booking from Economy to Premium Economy, or from Premium Economy to Business Class.

PS. There is one loophole which BA seems to have missed. You cannot use 2 x new-style BA Amex vouchers at once to book for three people, only one of which is the cardholder. You can do this if four people are travelling, but not three. I think it is worth the BA IT team having a look at this because, after all, there are plenty of families of three out there.

Conclusion

There’s nothing bad to say about this!

It is a 100% genuine improvement which offers a lot of value to some people without taking anything away from those who won’t benefit.

In Part 2 ….

There is another interesting feature in the screenshot above.

As you can see, you are offered ‘More pricing options’.

In Part 2 of this article on the British Airways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher changes, we’ll look at what these options are.

Learn more about the American Express and Barclaycard Avios-earning credit cards:

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

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

Category

British Airways American Express, British Airways and Avios

Comments (147)

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

  • CarpalTravel says:
    13 Jun13 June 13:43

    This really is a mike drop moment against Virgin.

    This, redemption availability and (slightly) less ridiculous costs, easier voucher usage and non-tier related family points pooling, Nectar as an option, the list goes on.

    Virgin point collection is for mugs, and I say that with over 750k points that I cannot use.

    • Mark says:
      13 Jun13 June 13:59

      Agree I’m switching to batclaycard as my back up when I’m allowed after cancelling the Hilton one. But I did book the cruise with my points so that’s one thing.

    • Reney says:
      13 Jun13 June 14:35

      Not to defend virgin too much cause I can’t find availabilities either. But they have allowed their voucher to be used for single upgrade or couple 2for 1 or 1.5 for a while and can use it on cash ticket which required no availabilities….

      You can also transfer to hotel schemes, people have been very excited about cruise options here too.

    • Chas says:
      13 Jun13 June 19:13

      Is it though when the voucher can be used on cash tickets too? I completely agree with your point about availability, and I say this with 1m points between my wife and I (I’ll see your 750k, and raise you…)😉

  • Tarmohamed says:
    13 Jun13 June 14:04

    Any news on using these vouchers on QR?

  • A says:
    13 Jun13 June 14:38

    After a divorce and four wasted vouchers this is most welcomed….pity it comes right as I’m about to cancel the BA PP because of losing the old amex plat grandfathered £0 fee.
    On the other hand, as my NY-LON trips are always booked as one ways and redemptions usually on VS, a 50% discount F redemption is now an attractive option.

  • Skywalker says:
    13 Jun13 June 15:07

    OT: Turned away from No 1. Lounge at Gatwick – Dragonpass/Regus offer:

    Son and girlfriend turned up to No 1. Gatwick South lounge – reception staff told them it was ‘full due to Covid measures’ – (I wasn’t aware that we were still doing Covid number measuring :-/ is this still the case?).

    I contacted No 1. Lounges on the phone and got through to a nice lady.

    Was informed that No 1. Lounges doesn’t really know much about the Dragonpass/Regus offer (!!!!) and that the Dragonpass app was not enough on its own (despite paying the £19 or so fee) and that they then had to go on and book an additional spot for £6.00 each on the No. 1 lounges website to ensure the booking was guaranteed

    – I said there was a disconnect because the Dragonpass app doesn’t tell you this, it just issues you with a QR code for entry if there is availability at the lounge.

    I’m sure Rob would have mentioned it if it the additional £6.00 fee was a feature of the offer, so I think something has gone wrong here…?

    Will know for next time, but also rather wary of the offer now as to whether or not it works or is valid….

    Maybe they’ve just been unlucky – has anyone else had any luck with this offer?

    • ChrisC says:
      13 Jun13 June 15:33

      Please don’t post the same thing across multiple threads.

    • stevenhp1987 says:
      13 Jun13 June 15:47

      No1 have always requested pre-payment to confirm a spot in the lounge.

      It’s always full, I wouldn’t expect to be able to simply walk up without a reservation.

      • Skywalker says:
        13 Jun13 June 18:13

        Thank you for your response stevenhp1987 – noted for next time 🙂

  • lumma says:
    13 Jun13 June 15:59

    I’m currently £2 short of £10k spend on the free card. (Collection year ends 30th June)

    Am I right that if I upgrade to the paid card I’ll get the voucher as soon as that £2 is spent and it will last for two years?

    • Rob says:
      13 Jun13 June 16:15

      Yes

      • Kipto says:
        13 Jun13 June 20:53

        Related query.if I go over the £10K spend on the free ba Amex card but don’t get to £12K, and apply for the premium plus card, will the two year companion voucher become available, or do you have to get to 10K on the premium card only ?

  • Dave R says:
    13 Jun13 June 16:08

    Great news. I wonder if this would allow 3 people to travel on the same booking for 50% avios off – using one companion voucher as a BOGOF and one for 50% discount.

    • Rob says:
      13 Jun13 June 16:15

      No, tried it.

      • Dave R says:
        13 Jun13 June 16:19

        That’s a shame. Thanks for confirming.

        I suppose a workaround for a group of 3 would be to earn 2 companion vouchers on separate accounts and make 2 bookings. More of a faff though.

        • Rob says:
          13 Jun13 June 16:53

          Yes, that works, and indeed is what a lot of people do.

          • alig4th says:
            13 Jun13 June 17:13

            But presumably this means that if only one of the three have silver status (so could book seats together), the third person will now have pot luck with seats, and one of the group could be subject to involuntary downgrade/bump independent of the other two (or vice versa).

          • Dickie H says:
            14 Jun14 June 07:48

            One problem, I guess, is that this works for a 2-adult, 1-child household but not for a 1-adult, 2-child household. I do hope that BA give serious consideration to updating their systems to facilitate a 3-person booking.

  • Charles Martell says:
    13 Jun13 June 19:02

    It doesn’t really change the fact Avios are becoming worthless.

    Just priced a club world redemption to Buenos Aires, and I have a choice of 96,250 Avios + £2590 or £2720 cash. That values 96,250 at £130 or £0.00135 each.

    • NorthernLass says:
      13 Jun13 June 19:11

      How are you getting £2590 in surcharges, or is that one of the new options with the 241?

      • Mark says:
        14 Jun14 June 00:09

        Must be. Clearly that’s extremely poor value (and even worse when you consider the Avios and tier point earning on the cash fare), although the cash fare is presumably non-flexible.

        As Rob points out, nobody in their right mind would shell out additional cash for a lower Avios requirement at a price per Avios that is greater than you can buy them for. Ultimately using an Upgrade voucher / 2for1 / 50% off is still the way to get real value out of long haul premium redemptions. If you’re not doing that, and paying additional cash to reduce the Avios requirement it’s likely the result will quite often be unattractive.

        For as long as you can cash out to Nectar they can’t be worthless – the absolute minimum value is 0.8p/Avios.

  • qrfan says:
    13 Jun13 June 19:14

    Is that for 1 person and you’re using the atrocious value “more cash less avios” pricing (the fees for 1 should be closer to £1k), or is that 2 people and you’ve somehow found a comparable direct business class flight to Argentina for £1350 each? Something looks mighty odd there to me.

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

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