Forums › Frequent flyer programs › British Airways Executive Club › Are Barclays Upgrade vouchers any good for long distance flights?
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Hi
I now have 3 Barclays upgrade vouchers but am struggling to find a good use for them on longer distance flights.
Qatar seemed the better option for a NZ/Australia trip I did in 2024 and without the midnight booking shenanigans.
I’ve booked a Tokyo trip for later this year and from memory peak BA voucher price was 155k Avios plus ~£500 so I decided to go from HEL on Finnair out and return to LHR on JAL for ~175k Avios plus £390 including positioning flight to HEL. So the voucher would have saved me ~£100 but it was easier to get reward flights and I think more chance of better equipment and a day in Helsinki.I am just planning for flights to Buenos Aires for 2026 and comparing the following
off peak departure from LHR on BA using voucher = 110k Avios + £608
off peak departure from MAD regular reward booking with Iberia = 102k + £234Granted I need a positioning return to MAD but valuing Avios at 1p there is a £454 difference to go towards that. And that is effectively valuing the upgrade voucher at £0.
So I have come to the conclusion that vouchers aren’t much use for the more distant destinations. Am I missing something?
The Barclays voucher can offer great value, if targeted wisely. I used one for MAN-LHR-DXB in December 2023 for business class, cost 85k avios plus £350, for 2 of us, one-way, when cash prices were very high (not far off £3k pp for a return trip). So it depends on whether you can make it work. On the route you’re looking at, it’s better value to book with IB (though of course you’ll need to get to MAD first).
Similarly, the upgrade voucher can be very useful on longer CE flights – in peak season you can pay £600 and above for a one-way CE flight to somewhere like Athens or Malaga. So you need to match the voucher to a specific trip you’re planning, but yes, they can have a lot of value – I can’t see myself ever going for the 7k avios option, put it that way!
Thanks, a couple of them are expiring later this year so may look to see if CE options make any sense.
Their best value is for long haul off-peak flights where one Barclays voucher has almost the same value as half an Amex 241.
The reason it is “almost” is that the Barclays voucher does not allow a choice of points options whereas the Amex voucher does.
The caveat for this is you need to actually want to fly on BA metal.
Yes. So my DXB booking gave a very similar value to a 241 booking, and we returned direct to MAN on QR from DOH, where we spent the 2nd half of our holiday. Mix & match is another benefit of the Barclays voucher. Again though, your specific plans need to fit!
We’ve used a couple of vouchers for one-ways to Asia for two from LHR, returning on a QR redemption. They work quite well that way round as RFS usually means a flat-rate cash charge for each route regardless of direction of travel, so you’re not paying more on the outbound to cover UK APD which you would booking a QR redemption – plus, of course, the vouchers can only be used on itineraries starting in the UK. At 1p/Avios valuation the overall cost of doing that is generally not much different from using an Amex companion voucher for a BA return from LHR, but you get the superior QR product on the return plus more flexibility on the airports you can fly back from without a positioning flight – albeit it doesn’t unlock the additional business class availability that the BAPP voucher does on BA.
I probably wouldn’t bother for flights to South America. The Amex voucher is so much more valuable in that case as you can use it on Iberia and, as you point out, the cost of travelling with them is so much lower in the first place. Although BA flies ‘direct’ to Buenos Aires, the stop in Rio means it isn’t that much quicker, and Iberia has a choice of 3 flights per day.
We’ve also used one Barclays voucher for a one-way short haul from LHR, though the value there is much lower as it is generally better to go for the lowest Avios / highest cash on short haul. The fact that you can’t with the Barclays voucher means that the upgrade is not entirely covered by the ‘upgrade’ voucher, it just reduces the extra cost.
@NorthernLass @marks7389 – thanks for your insights.
I’m a bit confused though, are you saying you booked one way from UK using the Barclays vouchers, and then booked a separate one way on QR with Avios?
Or did you mean you used the Barclays voucher for both? I thought it was only valid on BA metal and departing from the UK.
Thanks
Barclays/BA out (upgraded 2 of us one-way), QR back. Separate bookings. Flew DXB-DOH on QR halfway through the trip, also with avios, separate booking.
This is what I mean by it being good for mixing and matching. Planning to do something similar next year with BA on the way out and Virgin on the return (dynamic pricing permitting!)
Nice! thanks!
I guess there’s potentially more value though if booking a BA return via voucher, as you get the upgrade both ways. But yeah I see the mix&match benefit too…
It’s 2 people, one way, or 1 person, return, so the value is exactly the same.
You may be confusing it with the 241!
Yes, only used the Barclays vouchers for the sector from the UK with BA (have done that twice on two separate trips, for two people each time). You can’t use any vouchers for a QR redemption, though they are comparatively reasonably priced at least from SE Asia.
For our upcoming trip in March, valuing Avios at 1p each and assigning £100 value to the upgrade voucher has ‘cost’ us a total of £900 each, each way – the outbound flight to KL with BA pretty much exactly the same as the return from Phuket with QR. So not being able to use a voucher on the return leg really isn’t a disadvantage compared to what we would have paid with BA even using a voucher (and of course BA doesn’t fly to Phuket).
As it happens the BA outbound flight got cancelled and we ended up with a connection via Doha outbound with BA and QR, but that didn’t change what we paid.
Thank you @NorthernLass @marks7389
I guess what I meant was… if I have 2 upgrade vouchers for example, I can use both vouchers to upgrade a return journey for 2 people.
That way we’d benefit from the upgrade on the return leg as well, rather than the just the outgoing leg (if we booked one ways).
Ofcourse only if we want to fly a return on BA. I might still look at mix&match and fly back on QR as you both have done.
Yes, if you want to fly both ways with BA then you can use two vouchers to upgrade the return trip for two.
If you each had one voucher I suspect you can’t combine them on the same booking (i.e. you’d each have to be on a separate booking). Doesn’t sound like that’s the case here, but may be worth being aware of.
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