The American Express British Airways Companion Voucher is one of the most valuable features to be found with any UK credit card.
A good redemption can literally save you thousands of pounds and take you and a companion across the world at a fraction of the cost of a cash ticket.
One of my previous blogs, How to fly two people to Japan for £400 return, discusses the quickest way to build up enough Avios points to take a trip from the UK to Tokyo.
Part of that strategy includes signing up for the British Airways American Express Premium Plus card and reaching the spending threshold to earn a BA Companion Voucher.
This blog post assumes that the reader has earned enough points to book their desired trip from one destination to another and, with the help of the Companion Voucher, take someone else with them.
I have done this twice before, for return trips from Manchester to Tokyo.
In fact, I was able to secure seats for three people on both occasions having saved up the additional Avios points to cover the extra ticket.
But for simplicity, this explainer will simply cover the process for booking seats for a couple, using the British Airways Companion Voucher.
What is an American Express British Airways Companion Voucher?
A British Airways companion voucher is a digital voucher that allows you to book two flights (single or return) using Avios for the value of one.
A solo traveller can also benefit by redeeming their voucher for a 50% reduction in the amount of Avios required to take a trip.
For example, two people travelling from Heathrow to Tokyo off peak return would normally cost 150,000 Avios plus £200 per person in fees and taxes. With a companion voucher it would only be 70,000 Avios plus £200 per person in fees and taxes.
Likewise, a solo traveller could take the same return trip with their voucher for 35,000 Avios plus the £200 in taxes. A good deal.
The savings get even better though if you book a flight for a higher grade cabin. Two people booking the same off-peak trip to Tokyo would only need 200,000 Avios in business class with the voucher – a whopping saving of 200,000 Avios!
Note: The BA Companion Voucher that is offered on the FREE British Airways American Express card can only been redeemed in Economy cabins. It is also only valid for 12 months from being awarded.
The BA Companion Voucher offered on the £300 annual fee British Airways Premium Plus card is valid for two years and can be redeemed in any cabin, including business and first class.
How to redeem a British Airways Companion Voucher
There are two parts to this walkthrough – the easy part and the hard part. The easy part assumes that the flights that you want are already on sale and there is good availability.
Spoiler alert – more often than not you will not be lucky enough to fall into this category!
British Airways guarantees to provide the following seats available for Avios redemptions on all of its flights:
- Four seats in business class (Club World)
- Two in Premium Economy (World Traveller Plus)
- Eight in Economy (World Traveller/Euro Traveller)
More Avios seats can become available nearer to the date of the flight, but that is at BA’s own discretion. However, the British Airways Premium Plus card Companion Voucher is said to open up more Business Class seat availability.
I am yet to redeem a business class Avios seat so cannot personally vouch for this.
For this example, we will assume that we are booking a return trip for two people.
Using a British Airways Companion Voucher the easy way
If you decide to book a flight on a route that has good availability then this is a pretty straight-forward process.
Simply log into your British Airways Club account and select to Book a flight with Avios off the drop down menu.
From here you can select your departure and destination airports and travel dates. If you have a valid BA companion voucher then there will be an option to select this as part of your booking. Make sure the box for this is ticked before you proceed.
You will then see the available flights for your travel itinerary and what cabins are available.
Let’s assume that you want to travel from London to New York in economy and the seats you want are available. Simply select the economy option for both outbound and inbound flights and the website will show you the Avios total required with the companion voucher applied, halving the number of Avios that you need.
If you have enough points, simply proceed to complete your booking. Very simple!
Using a British Airways companion voucher the hard way – to book a popular route
The above example was so straightforward it barely required a run-through guide. However, there is a pretty good chance that your travel aspirations will fall into the second category – a popular route!
Avios seats are in high demand, especially on popular routes from the UK like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Dubai and pretty much any other desirable location that you can think of.
Demand gets even higher during peak times, such as school holidays and Christmas. This means that Avios seats get snapped up by savvy bookers the moment they go on sale.
If you are going to grab those in-demand seats then you are going to have to do the same and that presents a problem with your Companion Voucher that I will explain below.
When do British Airways flights go on sale?
British Airways makes seats for all of its flights available to book 355 days before the date of travel.
That means that if you want to book that dream trip to Japan using Avios, if you want to give yourself the best chance of getting seats you need to be ready to book 355 days in advance.
If you don’t, it is highly likely that you won’t get the seats that you want.
Issue with booking flights using a companion voucher 355 days in advance
If you want to grab those in-demand Avios seats as soon as they go on sale and you are using a companion voucher then there is a problem. You cannot book the return leg until the flight for it goes on sale.
Waiting for the return leg to go on sale on an in-demand route is not a viable option, because by the time it goes on sale the outbound leg will have sold out of Avios seats.
Thankfully there is a way around this, but before we look at that, let’s book our outbound journey.
Booking the outbound leg with a companion voucher
British Airways puts its flights on sale at midnight (1am during British Summer time) 355 days before the date of travel.
You need to be ready to act as soon as they go on sale. If you think this sounds stressful, be assured, it is!
At this point you have two options – either book the outbound flight online or call up to do it over the phone. There are some clear benefits to doing the latter but also some caveats to consider.
If you book your outbound seats online at midnight you don’t have to speak to anyone, but you are against the clock. The reason for this is because even if the seats you want are available, someone else who has called up has an advantage over you.
The seats you have selected are not reserved for your booking until you have paid for them and the booking is confirmed. If you call up, the operator can hold the seats that are available whilst your booking is completed.
This means that seats that you thought you were booking can literally disappear before you have entered your card details. This has happened to me twice before, causing huge frustration.
However, it’s worth mentioning that both of the trips I have booked to Japan from the UK using a companion voucher were done by booking online. It was stressful and I had the advantage of being a journalist who types fast for a living but I was able to get the flights booked before anyone else dived in. Phew!
You will need to make an international phone call
Understandably, you might think to yourself, ‘why not just phone up then?’ You can certainly do this and lots of people do, but here’s the catch – the UK call centre closes at 10pm so won’t be open at midnight!
This means that to make the booking you want over the phone, you will need to call one of BA’s international call centres. Thankfully they all speak English!
A popular choice is to call The US call centre, but as I recently found out to my cost, during British Summer Time that call centre is also closed when you need to make your booking.
A better option is Japan or Australia. I don’t know how often you call Australia but it is not a cheap phone call. For this reason, it pays to be prepared and use an internet phone service like Microsoft Teams (formerly Skype) to make the call. Otherwise you could end up running up a hefty phone bill.
If you decide to ring an international call centre, you should do so at least 10-15 minutes before the flight goes on sale, so you can brief the call operator and have them ready to grab those seats as soon as they go on sale.
Booking your return flight using a companion voucher
You’ve booked your outbound flight to your dream destination using Avios and your companion voucher – either online or over the phone.
Now you need to wait for the return flight to go on sale. This is where there is a problem for companion voucher users.
If you have booked your outbound flight using your companion voucher, you cannot book the return flight online. You have to ring the call centre and get the operator to apply your already redeemed companion voucher to the return leg.
This means that if you are booking a popular route, where you know that seats are going to fly out as soon as they go on sale, you really having no option but to call an international call centre to get that return leg.
Waiting for the UK call centre to open in the morning is not really an option. It is very likely that the seats that you want will be gone by then.
There is however, a workaround which can save you from making an international call to complete your booking.
If you have enough Avios to book your return leg without a companion voucher, you can do this online as soon as the seats go on sale.
You can then call the UK call centre the next day to get your companion voucher applied to the return flight, at which point, the additional Avios that you used to make the booking will be returned to your account balance.
I did exactly this on my first Avios redemption to Japan and it worked a treat. Some people swear by calling the international call centres but I have not found that experience to be smooth.
That said, I think I just needed to be better prepared, so I would not necessarily
Watch out for partner airlines
If you book your return leg online without the companion voucher you will see extra availability on flights with One World partner airlines.
If you are planning to retrospectively apply a companion voucher to this booking do not book a flight with a partner airline as they will not be eligible for the companion voucher.
The only airlines that a BA companion voucher can be redeemed against are British Airways, Air Lingus and Iberia.
Is the British Airways companion voucher worth the hassle?
You may have read this guide and thought to yourself ‘what a massive headache, I can’t be doing with all that’.
I think that is an entirely reasonable conclusion to draw and there is little doubt that trying to book Avios flights on in-demand routes can sometimes be highly stressful.
But on balance I think the hassle is worth it. If you are flexible with your travel dates you can vastly increase the chances of booking what you really want.
And once you have finally made that booking, the experience will make it all feel worthwhile. The first companion voucher redemption I did to Japan was only my second long-haul trip ever (the other being a wedding in New York).
Without the Avios and the companion voucher, taking the family to Tokyo would have been nothing but a dream. Instead, here I am planning the itinerary for our second trip in 18 months. Quite amazing.
Richard is an experienced NCTJ-qualified journalist, specialising in sport and travel. He works as a Sport Content Editor for Reach PLC and also produces travel articles on an ad-hoc basis for the business’s national titles.
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