£10,000 spend choice – take 7,000 Avios or voucher?

[sinc1000]

Hi Guys

I have recently got the Barclaycard avios plus credit card

I have a choice now to make

after 10k yearly spend

Do I want an additional 7,000 avios

Or a BA Cabin upgrade voucher

I am usually travelling with my wife and 6 year old

So this is why I am thinking the 7,000 avios is better choice

But what do you guys think bearing in mind I am paying 20gbp each month for the card and getting 1.5 avios for each 1gbp spend

I look forward to hearing from you

[NorthernLass]

There’s been a lot of discussion on this (have a look at the other threads in this section if you’re interested), but it’s a very personal thing. Some people swear they will never be able to use the vouchers, others, like me, are very pleased to get 80k or more avios worth of value out of them, especially when cash prices are high.

If you’re travelling as a family you might want to take the 7k avios if travelling in economy, or the voucher if you want to be in PE or CE/CW. (This will obviously also depend on your avios balance). Using the upgrade voucher might cause issues in that you can’t use it for 3 people, so you’d need 2 separate bookings for any trip you plan.

Best value for me (in the days when it was a Lloyds upgrade voucher) was to book 2 of us on the Amex 241 and use the upgrade voucher for the 3rd person. If you have a BAPP, this might be another option for you.

The upgrade voucher does give some flexibility, despite its many shortcomings. We’re doing a 2 centre trip to Dubai and Doha in December, so using the upgrade voucher on the outbound in CW then returning direct to MAN on QR.

So it also depends on what your family’s travel plans are, which option will work best for you.

[NorthernLass]

Oh dear, did a long reply and it’s disappeared! Hopefully it will turn up again shortly. I thought this had been sorted …

[NorthernLass]

Apologies if this appears twice, I managed to retrieve it by pressing the back button a lot!

There’s been a lot of discussion on this (have a look at the other threads in this section if you’re interested), but it’s a very personal thing. Some people swear they will never be able to use the vouchers, others, like me, are very pleased to get 80k or more avios worth of value out of them, especially when cash prices are high.

If you’re travelling as a family you might want to take the 7k avios if travelling in economy, or the voucher if you want to be in PE or CE/CW. (This will obviously also depend on your avios balance). Using the upgrade voucher might cause issues in that you can’t use it for 3 people, so you’d need 2 separate bookings for any trip you plan.

Best value for me (in the days when it was a Lloyds upgrade voucher) was to book 2 of us on the Amex 241 and use the upgrade voucher for the 3rd person. If you have a BAPP, this might be another option for you.

The upgrade voucher does give some flexibility, despite its many shortcomings. We’re doing a 2 centre trip to Dubai and Doha in December, so using the upgrade voucher on the outbound in CW then returning direct to MAN on QR.

So it also depends on what your family’s travel plans are, which option will work best for you.

[aq.1988]

I guess the choice depends on if you are happy travelling in economy or not, as the voucher won’t save you any avios if travelling in Y.

I’m also a family of 3, and we got really good value using 2 vouchers one-way to upgrade to CW. We are on separate bookings, though.

The voucher also makes you use the highest avios/lowest cash option, so if you don’t have a lot of avios, that could be an issue (not sure what would happen if you had fewer avios than the top option, would it go to the 2nd one or not let you book?!)

Pairing this with an BA Amex could be useful, use the 2-4-1 for the parent who earned the voucher with your child, and the other parent can use the BC voucher (the voucher holder doesn’t have to travel, so this flexibility is useful). We haven’t earned our Amex vouchers yet, but this is how we will be using them, as we’ll have a couple more BC vouchers in Oct.

[sinc1000]

Hi Guys

Thanks again for your replies

How long are theBA Cabin upgrade vouchers valid for

[rtid]

sinc1000 wrote:

Hi Guys

Thanks again for your replies

How long are theBA Cabin upgrade vouchers valid for

https://www.headforpoints.com/2022/01/21/upgrade-voucher-barclays-avios-rewards-2/

24 months

[sinc1000]

That’s good news

24 months

Ok thanks

I will try the upgrade voucher

Never travelled business class in my life long haul

So with thus and the Amex 2-41 premium

Hopefully my dream comes true obviously with value on my side

[Lammy52]

NorthernLass wrote:

Oh dear, did a long reply and it’s disappeared! Hopefully it will turn up again shortly. I thought this had been sorted …

NorthernLass wrote:

Oh dear, did a long reply and it’s disappeared! Hopefully it will turn up again shortly. I thought this had been sorted …

NorthernLass wrote:

There’s been a lot of discussion on this (have a look at the other threads in this section if you’re interested), but it’s a very personal thing. Some people swear they will never be able to use the vouchers, others, like me, are very pleased to get 80k or more avios worth of value out of them, especially when cash prices are high.

If you’re travelling as a family you might want to take the 7k avios if travelling in economy, or the voucher if you want to be in PE or CE/CW. (This will obviously also depend on your avios balance). Using the upgrade voucher might cause issues in that you can’t use it for 3 people, so you’d need 2 separate bookings for any trip you plan.

Best value for me (in the days when it was a Lloyds upgrade voucher) was to book 2 of us on the Amex 241 and use the upgrade voucher for the 3rd person. If you have a BAPP, this might be another option for you.

The upgrade voucher does give some flexibility, despite its many shortcomings. We’re doing a 2 centre trip to Dubai and Doha in December, so using the upgrade voucher on the outbound in CW then returning direct to MAN on QR.

So it also depends on what your family’s travel plans are, which option will work best for you.

Hi Northern Lass

I have looked at a few options using upgrade voucher from Manchester, but no availability. This is even when there is from LHR.
Did you book your Dubai flight from MAN, and ,if so, did you book online or through an agent.
Thanks.

[Anna]

This is why you need to do your homework first!
One of the rubbish things about the voucher is that you need to call to book a domestic connection 🙁

[zapato1060]

I used it on a one way J for 25k and £1 (voucher didnt allow me to choose less), 7,000 is £70 and my J tickets were £1400, you see why I chose the voucher.

[amitk]

Does the option to choose appear once you have hit the 10k spend? I haven’t done so yet, and can’t see any option to choose

Thanks

[NorthernLass]

Mine appeared on the day my new card year started. I’ve selected the voucher but there’s still the option showing to change it.

[dougzz99]

If you chose the 7K Avios wouldn’t you be better with the free card? At an assumed spend of £10K you’ve gained an additional 5K Avios on spend, plus the 7K, for a total of 12K Avios, at a cost of £240, or £180 if you include the £5/month saving from prem and plus.

For the additional 0.5 Avios to make sense you need to spend £22K, so you get an additional 11K Avios which with the 7K makes 18K Avios which at an assumed 1p offsets the £180 cost. At this point you’d get the voucher/7K on the free card anyway.

If you don’t want/use the voucher the plus card makes no sense unless you’re spending over £22K/year.