BA’s new style companion vouchers have landed – and they really do represent excellent value!

Following the announcement from British Airways and American Express about changes to the companion voucher earned via their co-branded credit cards, everyone has been waiting for the first set of new style vouchers to be issued. Now that I’ve been issued with mine, let’s have a look at the impact of the change in more detail. 

Unusually, the “enhancement” to the companion voucher issued with the Premium Plus credit card actually, genuinely is an enhancement. Previously, you could only use the companion voucher if seats were available for Avios points. This has now changed. Now, if seats are available for Avios OR I class (BA’s cheapest business class fare bucket), you can book using your Premium Plus companion voucher. This is a genuine game changer and opens up the possibility to redeem the voucher for many, many more flights. Let’s take a look. 

Singapore at Christmas?

Reward seats at peak times are always hard to come by and fares are often very high.  Let’s say we wanted to fly to Singapore from 21st to 31st December. As you can see, there’s no Avios seats available for these dates and the cash fare is over £3500 for 2 people. 

Using the new style companion voucher, seats magically open up for us and the cash outlay reduces to £1218, a saving of over £2000. 

Japan Cherry Blossom

Another super peak time of travel is to Japan during its famous cherry blossom season. 

There’s barely any seats at all for Avios during April and the cash fare is £4300 for 2 people. 

Using the new companion voucher, we’ve got seats available and as we’re only paying the taxes, we’re down to £1161, saving £3139!

Obviously, the Premium Plus card isn’t free, but the increased annual fee of £250 doesn’t seem too bad when it results in savings of over £3000 on your air fare. 

In another boost, whilst the vouchers are usually valid for 24 months (which is pretty decent anyway) because of covid, any vouchers issued before the end of 2021 will have a 30 month validity. So my new voucher is valid for travel up to March 2024. I’m pretty happy with that!

If you haven’t already got this card in your collection, DM me for a referral code and you’ll get an increased welcome bonus which will help contribute to that next dream holiday.