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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.

  • NorthernLass says:

    So there’s no off peak pricing now, just as we get to the point when we don’t need to travel in school holidays any more. This is looking more and more like it sucks, frankly!

    • Scott says:

      When I checked earlier, the off-peak label was appearing on the booking dates, so are you saying the Avios required is the same as for a peak date?
      The calculations I’ve made for off-peak dates compare favourably with the previous situation, so if peak is now pricing the same this is a win-win, surely?

  • Bobby says:

    I’ve a 2-4-1 booking in CW from LHR/JFK in March 2023 with the old style voucher. I’m trying to see if I can switch this for an Aer Lingus MAN/NYC direct flight (meeting the UK departure requirements); but where/how can I find reward seat availability for Aer Lingus?

    • NorthernLass says:

      You’d need to cancel the current booking, but you couldn’t use an old-style voucher on Aer Lingus anyway. As for availability, you have to search individual dates and it’s extremely rare for business class to appear.
      I had a look at MAN-JFK earlier and for a return in economy using the new voucher it was 55k avios plus £658 which is quite a bit higher than previously. I suppose it might make sense if you were travelling when cash prices are very high but it used to be 13k avios plus £130 one way!

  • simon says:

    To use 2 4 1 BA Amex on Iberia – do I need as a BA executive club member to open a new account on Iberia ? Using you example of Madrid NYC – assume you cannot check in bags to NYC if you get a flight from London and connect with the offer fair in Madrid say ? Assume so but would value confirmation Thanks

    • Rob says:

      Must book via BA.

      Cannot check through luggage if on two separate tickets.

  • Kevin says:

    Super. Oh how I love living in Northern Ireland and being part British part Irish. Don’t mention the protocol!! I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it!!

  • Paul T says:

    This seems to be really bad news. Yesterday, I checked economy flights from London to Tokyo, using my AMEX companion voucher and I was going to be charged 39,000 points + £670. Now if I search for the same dates, the only option is 70,000 miles + £400. I currently have 80,000 points, so previously could have made that journey twice. Now I can only go once with little prospect of being able to make it again for a number of years until I collect another 60,000 points.

    If you don’t use the companion vouchers, there seems to be an option to pay more and use fewer points, but if using the voucher, that disappears. Am I missing something, or have BA just devalued my points and companion voucher overnight?

    • Rob says:

      If you had a new style voucher (post 9/21) you’d be able to select a ‘less Avios, more cash’ option. In your case, though, it isn’t good news.

      This is a point I was stressing in the article but which some people in the comments don’t grasp. If you don’t have heavy business travel or are willing to do excessive credit card churning it simply isn’t that easy to pick up large chunks of points.

      • Paul T says:

        Thanks for your reply. I think it is the original style voucher I currently have, so I don’t get the option to pick less Avios, more cash. Is anyone who has a new style companion voucher in their account able to please tell me if you’re still given the option to use 39,000 points for London to Tokyo off-peak economy flights and if so, how much does that cost in taxes and fees etc?

        • Scott says:

          The 39k option has surcharges of £820 for 2 in economy off-peak LON-HND using a new 241.

          • meta says:

            That’s actually not bad at all, given that cash prices are currently hovering around £1100 per person in economy for a direct flight.

        • Scott says:

          Using a notional 1p per Avios, the best value option is actually 50k + £560.

          • Paul T says:

            Thanks very much for your replies. It seems it isn’t quite as bad as I’d initially thought (the change is really bad news for the old vouchers on this route, but less so for the new versions – albeit, still not great).

            It looks like in future (when I get a new style voucher) and want to fly the London to Tokyo route, I’ll either need to pay £150 more in surcharges or use more miles and save a little on the charges.

            It looks like I can use the old style voucher to fly to Europe for a reasonable number of miles – for example around 14,500 + £70 to fly off-peak to Madrid – which I guess I might do, rather than let it expire.

            Thanks again to everyone who helped provide a little more detail around these changes.

  • Francesca says:

    Hi Rob
    Any idea on whether you can use new voucher to book Iberia flight to the US from AMS (obviously changing at Madrid) I’m not getting any options coming up so far.

  • Gordon says:

    My partner is not the best of flyers so likes to fly direct from Uk just to get to a destination asap, we have never flown Iberia, But this will convince me to convince the OH.

  • BrianN says:

    You may not have the answers yet but a couple of things good to know.

    Can you mix/match airlines, eg fly out on BA and back with Iberia/AL?

    With Iberia/AL, can you fly back home from a different destination e.g. Outbound to Orlando and Inbound from NYC?

    Thanks

    • NorthernLass says:

      It still doesn’t seem possible to search for open jaw routes online, but the system does seem to allow you to mix and match airlines now.

      • Scott says:

        In my attempts, although ba.com offered a mix and match of flights, when it came to calculating cost there was an error. Can only get it to work if I select one airline or the other.

    • memesweeper says:

      Check online for two one ways

      Call up to book a return

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