How To Get A BA Companion Voucher Cheaply!

American Express’ BA credit cards come with one of the most valuable perks in the world of point collecting, you get a BA companion voucher for spending a certain amount each year (10K on the premium card & 20K on the free card.) Spending 20K to get the voucher is a little steep if you don’t want to pay an annual fee, right? So we are going to share with you how to get a BA Companion Voucher Cheaply!

What is a BA Companion Voucher?

If you didn’t already know a BA companion voucher is basically a 2-4-1 voucher to use on Avios redemptions. This allows you to get 2 tickets for the price of one in Avios, the cash element of ‘taxes and charges’ would still be due for both tickets.

On the extreme end, the 2-4-1 voucher could save you 400,000 Avios if you were lucky enough to find 2 x first-class returns to Sydney from London. More realistically however 2-4-1 vouchers are used for trips in business to America, Asia or the Middle East.

If you were to book a peak business class return to New York from London the 2-4-1 voucher would save you 120,000 Avios on a return for 2 people.

If you value an Avios at 1p it means you are getting £1,200 worth of value to New York! Don’t forget to compare cash rates if you would book in cash if you didn’t use Avios. If you would never pay cash for business class it doesn’t really matter! You should be able to get at least 1p worth of value per point, anything below is suboptimal.

Not bad right?

Read our article on Are BA Companion Vouchers worth it? here – https://pointsuncovered.com/american-express/are-ba-companion-vouchers-worth-it-ba-amex-2-4-1/

How do I earn a BA Companion Voucher?

You will need to spend £10,000 within a year on the BA Premium Amex & £20,000 on the Free BA Amex. This isn’t a calendar year but a card year which starts on the date you were approved for your card. You can only earn one voucher each card year but there is nothing stopping you and your partner getting separate cards and both meeting the target for 2 x 2-4-1 vouchers.

On the free BA Amex the voucher is valid for one year and on the BA Premium Amex it is valid for two years.

Usually, within a few days of hitting your spend target for the voucher, it will appear in your BA account. You don’t need to wait until the end of your card year to get it!

As you can see there is a HUGE difference in the spend required to get the 2-4-1 voucher. 10K on spend for a family. But thankfully there is a way you can get the best of both worlds!

So how can I get a BA companion voucher cheaply?

American Express allows you to ‘transfer’ between the cards. This means it is possible to have the FREE card, hit £10000 spend, then upgrade to the BA Premium Card triggering the 2-4-1 voucher before downgrading again!

Perhaps even more importantly Amex offers pro-rata refunds of the annual fee. So if you kept the card for one month you’d receive a refund of £178.75 on the £195 annual fee!

That means each month you keep the BA Premium Card you are basically paying £16.25… a fair price to not have to spend 20,000 for the voucher or pay a £195 annual fee!

Here are the 3 simple steps…

1. Get the free card & spend 10K
2. Switch to the Premium card and trigger the BA Companion Voucher
3. Switch back to the free card & get a pro-rata refund of the £195 fee

By doing this you will also get a voucher with a 2 year expiry date rather than the one year voucher with the free card.

Are there any drawbacks?

If you sign-up for the FREE BA card it makes you ineligible for the larger 25,000 sign-up bonus (spend £3000 in 3 months) on the Premium BA Card. The FREE BA card only comes with a 5,000 sign-up bonus (spend

The FREE BA card also earns a lower rate of 1 Avios per £1 as opposed to the 1.5 Avios per £1 of the BA Premium Card.

What’s the best way forward?

This is my experience using the points system and is not a recommendation of any financial product. There are other credit cards which can earn you travel points including IHG credit card, Tesco Credit Cards (by exchanging Clubcard points for avios, hotel stays and more) & Virgin Atlantic credit card. If you use one of my referral links to an American Express card upon you being accepted I will receive points, this varies between 9,000 – 18,000 depending on the card I refer you from.

You can get a referral (and increased sign-up bonus) here – https://pointsuncovered.com/amex-referral-link-uk/

I want to pay the minimum possible

If you are focusing on paying the minimum possible out of your cash to get the BA companion voucher then get the FREE BA card first and follow the steps discussed in this post.

I want to maximise my Avios

If you want to maximise your Avios without worrying too much about cash expenditure get the BA Premium Card. The 25,000 Avios sign-up bonus (check your sign-up bonus eligibility here) means if you get 1p worth of value from your Avios you are already £55 up on the £195 annual fee.

Don’t forget it also has an increased earning rate of 1.5 Avios per £1. Which means in the first year on a 10K annual spend you’d get 40,000 Avios (including sign-up bonus) compared to 15,000 Avios (including sign-up bonus) on the BA Free Card.

After the first year is up you won’t get any more sign-up bonuses on the card (unless you haven’t held any Avios cards in the last 24 months.) This means your valuation of which card is best for your circumstances may change. You may then prefer to follow the method where you upgrade the FREE BA Amex after spending 10K & then later downgrading.

Remember as soon as you hit the £10,000 spend for the BA companion voucher you can downgrade to the FREE BA Amex and get a pro-rata refund on your annual fee. You will keep your Avios and voucher.

If you are interested in fast-tracking your point collection take a look at our guides to fast track yourself to 250,000 Marriott points or fast track yourself to 200,000 Avios points.

Do you utilise the BA companion voucher? What’s your strategy to get the most value from your BA cards?