£20k spend best on the free BA Amex or Barclaycard Avios

[Krispy]

Looking to put £20k of spend on either one of the two cards above. I know the ba amex will just be a companion voucher for economy only whilst the barclaycard would give an upgrade voucher. Travelling as a couple, for pure points value is the ba amex voucher better? The upgrade voucher would just allow us to upgrade one leg of the journey whilst the amex voucher would give one of us the journey for freee (apart from fees)
Issue is we don’t collect enough avios yearly for business class redemptions at this time

[Scottpat78]

I know you said you don’t earn enough Avios for business redemptions, but I do think the obvious answer would be to upgrade to the BA Premium Plus card and trigger a 241 that can be used in business / first at £15k spend.

Not sure on the pro rata refund situation now, but you could cancel at year 1 worst case scenario.

You’d also get 30k Avios from £20k spend on the BAPP that will help towards a redemption in business, your voucher would be valid for 24 months, giving you time to collect towards a redemption.

[Krispy]

That a good idea Scott! Would you say best to do the BAPP for first year – get the voucher, and then move to barclaycard long term to keep getting avios, then once collected enough for a business redemption use the voucher and then move back to the BAPP to start the process again?

Barclaycard avios being the long term card

[runnerbean]

+1 for the BAPP.

[Gosia44]

+1
Just make sure that you keep any free Amex card after triggering the voucher. You can only pay the tax component when using the 241 voucher with Amex, any Amex.

[Misty]

IF you go for the BAPP, will you have another card to put your non-amex purchases on ?

[marks7389]

Depends on when and how you are likely to use the Avios.

The BAPP will cost you £300 and get you an additional 10,000 Avios (beyond that which you would earn with a free Barclaycard/BA Amex/MR Rewards card) on a £20K spend. That’s not a great return unless you plan to use the voucher in WT+ or above and/or get a pro rata refund. That said, if you qualify for a sign-up bonus that may alter the equation.

Also consider that the voucher will expire if you don’t use it within 2 years and can only be used for BA, Iberia or Aer Lingus and you will need an Amex of some sort to pay the cash element as others have said.

The Barclaycard upgrade voucher can be used for two one-way (from the UK with BA only), so if you were looking to travel east it can be used for WT+ or CW outbound, opening up options with Qatar or Finnair on the return (for which the pricing is relatively attractive, in business class at least).

[Krispy]

Out of interest if using the barclaycard upgrade voucher for the outbound of a return Avios redemption for a couple.
Could you use the voucher to go outbound in business and return in economy? (In order to reduce amount of Avios required for redemption, rather than PE on the return journey?)

[NorthernLass]

Yes, though it would probably need a phone call or 2 separate bookings.

[Gosia44]

I would do two separate bookings to minimise the risk of involuntary downgrade when they can see that you are happy to travel in economy. You don’t want to volunteer to be on top of the list for downgrades.

[Krispy]

And just to confirm, if I had 2 barclaycard upgrade vouchers, I can use them both on the same booking for two people to upgrade from PE to Business RETURN? Thank you!

[Gosia44]

This may help:
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/11/how-do-barclaycard-avios-mastercard-upgrade-vouchers-work-3/

“You CAN use two cabin upgrade vouchers on the same booking if you have two in your account, to upgrade both legs of a return flight for two people.”

[Ihar]

Definitely +1 for 241 voucher in F/J.

[marks7389]

Gosia44 wrote:

This may help:
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/11/how-do-barclaycard-avios-mastercard-upgrade-vouchers-work-3/

“You CAN use two cabin upgrade vouchers on the same booking if you have two in your account, to upgrade both legs of a return flight for two people.”

To underline the point, it has to be a return booking as all Barclaycard upgrade bookings have to originate in the UK, so booking two one-ways each with one voucher wouldn’t work.

[Scottpat78]

Hope you managed to decide on something that works for you.