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BIG NEWS: Use your BA Amex 2-4-1 companion vouchers on Iberia and Aer Lingus

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British Airways and American Express have announced some exciting news today about the British Airways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher.

Effective immediately, these vouchers can be used on Aer Lingus and Iberia flights.

How does New York for 34,000 Avios RETURN, PER PERSON, IN BUSINESS plus just £213 of taxes and charges per person sound?

Use American Express companion vouchers Iberia Avios

This is particularly good news for those in the Manchester area who will be able to redeem on the long haul flights operated by Aer Lingus to New York, Orlando and Barbados.

The rules are the same as for redemptions on British Airways:

Another upside is that taxes and charges on Iberia redemptions are substantially lower than those on British Airways flights.

Here is an example using Iberia to fly to New York from Madrid (I am assuming that you buy separate flights to Madrid to escape UK Air Passenger Duty):

68,000 Avios FOR TWO PEOPLE IN BUSINESS CLASS, RETURN plus £425 in taxes and charges between you isn’t too bad ….

We will run some articles over the next few days showing you where you can fly on Aer Lingus and Iberia to take advantage of this new benefit. We’ve updated our main article on the key benefits of the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card.

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

There is some other news about the extension of Reward Flight Saver to Club World flights. This is complex and isn’t necessarily a good deal – take a look at our two other articles published today.


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.

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.

Comments (230)

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

  • NFH says:

    I wish cabin upgrade vouchers could be used on Iberia too. I want to book LCY-AGP-MLN-MAD-LHR, and only Iberia flies to MLN. I can’t use the cabin upgrade voucher even on the LCY-AGP and MAD-LHR legs, which are operated by BA, because the booking also involves Iberia flights.

    • NorthernLass says:

      But on short haul you need to use a ridiculous number of avios to use the upgrade voucher, or is that not an issue for you?

      • NFH says:

        32,500 Avios return isn’t too much, and significantly less than the £966 cash fare that BA consistently charges for LCY-AGP-MLN.

        I won’t use the cabin upgrade voucher for long haul, because I use my companion vouchers instead.

        • Michael C says:

          Are you stopping off in AGP? If so, if wouldn’t it be easier to buy separate flights, or points + cash combo?
          I’ve also bought several LHR-MLN via MAD recently, and usually for under €200 return.

          • NFH says:

            No, the stopover in AGP is only 45 minutes, so it needs to be on a single booking.

            If both flight legs are on the same booking and the LCY-AGP flight is late, then EU261 is based according to the arrival time at MLN, which gives Iberia an incentive to delay the departure of the AGP-MLN flight. If the flight legs are on separate bookings, then EU261 is based only on the arrival time at AGP and there’s no recourse over missing the AGP-MLN flight.

  • JP-MCO says:

    Just tried a CW redemption off peak LON > ATL for two people using a new style 2-4-1. It is coming out at 180k Avios + £900 for 2 people. That’s pretty good!

    • meta says:

      That’s not good. £1350 per person. You might as well purchase cash ticket.

      • Scott says:

        It may not be fantastic, but the pricing seems to be back to where it was before recent increases in surcharges, which for US flights were around £900 PER PERSON (albeit with a slightly lower Avios cost, say 150k for a couple on a 241.)

        • Scott says:

          Sorry, I think US off-peak CW return was more like 125k, so new pricing is an extra 55k Avios to save £800-900 in surcharges.

      • JP-MCO says:

        But good if you’ve got more Avios than you know what to do with!

      • Thegasman says:

        When could you last buy a J return to ATL for £1350?

      • Harry T says:

        It is usually best to buy cash J to the US, preferably exEU, rather than book a BA redemption, anyway. The exception would probably be for F, although I have seen that exEU for about £2000, which is okay.

  • BJ says:

    Only big news heading West, BA and to a lesser extent amex have still done the dirty on those heading Far East.

    • meta says:

      Yes, very good for South America, although Iberia does fly to Tokyo and Maldives if you don’t mind the detour and a longer flight.

    • Vit says:

      Haha. @BJ This and I agreed with.

      But to be fair, we have the Patagonia lined up before the little one turn 2 as we cannot afford his very own seat. 😀 So this should work out better. 😀

  • Pointsflyer says:

    Would this work with London to Santiago in business on ibera for 127500 avios + £440 vs the 230000 avios + £600 on BA?

    • KevMc says:

      I have just done a dummy booking for 2 (off peak) next September and it comes to 151500 Avios + £876.82

  • Steve in Croydon says:

    Just done a CW return off-peak Hellrow to Denver. The blue RFS tag is showing and the upfront price is 180k Avios + £450. The previous default price of 125K + £840 is in the list of “More Pricing Options”. So RFS is there for CW to USA. 55k Avios to save £390 – another piece of excellent BA value!
    This probably explains why the RFS pricing for short-haul has been stuffed since 1st December. The usual BA IT cr@p – let’s just make untested changes on the live system and stuff the customers!!!

    • meta says:

      You’re paying about £550 to save £390. Not really good value unless you are swimming in Avios that somebody else paid for.

  • Paul says:

    Can the change be applied to existing IB reward bookings?

  • Dave Hughes says:

    Can You apply a voucher to current bookings ? , have 2 one way separate IB bookings (as open jaw) for next nov

    • Rhys says:

      Don’t see why not. You may have to pay the booking change fee though.

    • Scott says:

      I’m in the same situation. My first thought was would Iberia really be able/willing to convert this into a return and apply a 241 to refund half the Avios? Seems like a big ask! But I guess it’s no different to what some folk do currently with BA Avios bookings, with the proviso that it’s goodwill gesture and not a guaranteed feature.

      • meta says:

        You’re booking this with BA, not Iberia. So it has to be processed by a BA agent.

        I also wonder whether they’d do open-jaw. Could do help with saving on internal flights.

        • Scott says:

          Ah, of course. My existing Iberia bookings were made on iberia.com but perhaps the OP did his through ba.com.

          • Dave Hughes says:

            i did mine with BA so both BA Bookings , only issue is i booked them for Me and my GF but she has the Voucher (used my 2 for Barbados 4ppl Round trip from Man 250,000 + £2800 which i was well happy with especially looking at it now)

  • Jane Eastwood says:

    Excellent news in using Amex/BA 2-4-1 companion ticket on Air Lingus, are you able to advise do we book?
    Just tried via BA site nothing pulling through to indicate this is bookable, thank you & thanks for reporting the good news

    • Rob says:

      If you can find availability on ba.com, it will book. But good luck finding businesss class Aer Lingus seats except to the more obscure destinations.

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