Barclaycard Upgrade Voucher pricing

[louie]

A favour please…. could anyone check the pricing for LGW – SVQ (Seville) return off peak using a Barclaycard Upgrade Voucher please. There’s loads of availability but let’s say 17 – 20 November as an example. I’ve just used my vouchers so I can’t check myself (which is annoying).

[marks7389]

You can see yourself. Just make a dummy booking in the next lower cabin to find out the Avios component, plus a dummy booking in the cabin you wish to travel to find out the cash component. Don’t forget the voucher limits you to the highest Avios/lowest cash option (i.e. the one that appears by default without clicking on other options).

[louie]

Well, that’s sort of why I was asking. When I used my voucher earlier in the week, the pricing seemed to be very weird (in a good way!) and not at all what I expected, which is how you have explained it. I wanted to see if that was still the case now the Avios sale has ended.

[Froggee]

23500 Avios + £ 25.00

[Mikeact]

Not, of course, the best ‘value ‘ of using the voucher as long haul is normally by far and away the best use, but naturally depends on your own circumstances.

[louie]

Thanks @Froggee and @Mikeact. Yes, I’m sure I could get better value long haul and I’d love to get back to my adopted home, Australia, but I’m stuck in the UK flying shorthaul for the foreseeable future due to family health stuff. And I’ve got three 2-4-1 vouchers which would probably provide even better value if only I could use them effectively!

Anyway, my one and only previous experience of CE made me wonder why on earth anyone would pay more than a nominal amount extra for it. So I was rueing not having chosen the 7,000 extra Avios option instead; my crystal ball must have needed a polish at the time. Then the 40% off reward flights to Europe offer came up. I’d not previously looked at CE costs for many years, so was a bit confused when the sale options to Seville, return, were (using the third or fourth options down, not the cheapest if you value Avios at 1p but I’m Avios rich and a bit short of income at the moment, so the sweet spot for me):

ET – 8,700 Avios + £35
CE (no voucher) – 12,450 Avios + £54.50
CE (plus voucher) – 7,500 Avios + £25 (way less than whatever the £1 ET Avios amount was (probably 14,100 below) given the fourth cash option was 8,700 Avios)

I used a voucher!

Current options are:

ET – 14,500 Avios + £35 (consistent with the previous offer being 40% off)
CE (no voucher) – 30,000 Avios + £59 (closest in cash to offer but much higher Avios)
CE (plus voucher) – 23,500 Avios + £25 as confirmed by @Froggee (and the £1 ET Avios amount as expected), which suggests I should have been charged (23,500 x 60% =) 14,100 Avios rather than 7,500 Avios in the sale.

Seems I benefitted from a glitch of some sort, effectively paying £100 return (at 1ppA) rather than the current £260. Now to decide whether to go for the upgrade voucher or the extra Avios this year! My flight comes up before I have to decide so I guess I’ll see whether I am more impressed with CE this time round….