How to get the most out of the Cabin Upgrade voucher
Barclays entered the Avios game in 2021 with an enticing combination of products. Their newly formed Premier account had an Avios bolt-on, and two newly launched Barclaycards allowed you to earn Avios. Both of these products offer a Cabin Upgrade voucher. On the surface, it seems like a valuable perk, but how do you actually use it and what are the rules around it?
What is a Barclays Cabin Upgrade voucher?
If you have a Barclaycard or a Barclays Premier Account, then you’re able to get a voucher that means that you need roughly half the Avios for a British Airways reward flight. That’s a sizeable reduction, and one that makes flights far more achievable. Or to put it an alternative way: your Avios points will take you twice as far.
The two different ways of earning the voucher are:
- You have a Barclays Premier account and pay £12 per month to join the Avios Rewards programme. You’ll get 1,500 Avios per month, and on the anniversary of opening your account you’ll get the choice of an Upgrade Voucher or 7,000 Avios.
- You have a Barclaycard Avios card (either the free one or the paid one). Once you hit a certain level of spend on the card every year, you’ll get 7,000 Avios, or the Upgrade voucher.
The spend you need to hit on a Barclaycard to get the voucher is currently £10,000 on the Avios Plus (paid for) card, and £20,000 on the free card.
With the two methods above, it is possible to get two vouchers each year, and the vouchers have a lifetime of twenty-four months. That means you can – like me – have four vouchers active at any point in time. Just remember that the vouchers need to be in-date on the day that you want
Is a Barclays Cabin Upgrade voucher the same as an Amex Companion Voucher?
In theory, yes, but with three key differences:
- The Barclays voucher only works in Premium Economy and Business Class. The Amex Premium Companion Voucher also works in First Class and Economy Class. (The Amex voucher on the free BA card works only in Economy)
- The Barclays voucher is for one person to travel on a return trip, or two people to travel one-way. The Amex Companion voucher is for two people to travel return. So a Barclays voucher is effectively half as powerful as an Amex voucher.
- The Amex voucher will open up more seat availability on some flights: it’s not hyperbole, we’ve been able to secure seats in the past that were not available on a regular Avios search.
Because of this, the Amex voucher remains the most powerful “hack” when it comes to travel. There are a few negatives with the Companion Voucher. Firstly, the voucher on the free BA Amex card lasts only twelve months (on the paid card, it’s twenty-four). Secondly, the spend levels you need to reach on the Amex card are higher than on the premium Barclaycard.
Barclays Upgrade Voucher vs American Express Companion Voucher
| Barclays Cabin Upgrade Voucher | American Express Companion Voucher | |
|---|---|---|
| What the voucher does | Reduces the Avios you need on a single return journey, or for two people flying one way. | Reduces the Avios you need by half for two people flying return. |
| Cabins it works in | Both cards work in Premium Economy and Business Class. | Premium card works in all cabins. Free card works in economy only. |
| How you get the voucher | 1. Have a Barclays Premier account & Avios pack for 1 year 2. Spend £10k (Premium, Avios Plus card) or £20k (Free card) on a Barclaycard in a year | Spend £15k on either of the BA Amex cards |
| Lifetime | Lasts 24 months. Outbound flight must start before the voucher expires. | 12 months for vouchers earned on the free Amex card, 24 months on the Premium (paid for) Amex card. Outbound flight must start before the voucher expires. |
| Airlines it works on | Use it on British Airways only | Use it on British Airways, Iberia or Aer Lingus |
| Additional rules | Can only be used on flights that start in the UK. You cannot use the Barclays vouchers with BA Holidays | You can use Comapnion Vouchers on flights that start outside of the UK. You can use Companion Vouchers with a BA Holidays booking. You get 25% of the total Avios back. |
How does the Barclays Upgrade voucher work?
The voucher means that you can book a reward seat in Premium Economy or Business Class and you only need the Avios points for the cabin below.
- Book into Premium Economy and you only need the points for an Economy seat
- Book into Business Class and you only need the points from an Economy seat.
Here are two examples:
- You want to book a return flight from London to San Francisco in Business Class. That would normally cost 99,000 Avios off-peak. With the Barclays upgrade voucher, you would only need 52,250 Avios, the points for the cabin below (Premium Economy).
- You want to book a return flight for two people from London to Dubai in Premium Economy. You’ll need two Barclays Upgrade vouchers. Instead of needing the normal 46,750 each Avios for a PE seat, you only need the points for an economy seat, which is 27,500 each.
You can see a breakdown of every BA flight and how many points you need in the Avios calculator that I’ve built.
How do you book a flight using the Barclays Upgrade voucher?
The process of using a voucher is easy.
- Visit the “Book flights with Avios” page (you will need to log in to use this page)
- Click the “Book and Upgrade” tab and select the “Use BA Barclays Cabin Upgrade Voucher” radio button.
- Enter your From and To airports, along with the dates for your outbound flight (and return flight, if needed)
- The Travel Class box can be a little confusing. You’re entering the cabin that below the one that you want to fly in. So select Economy if you want to fly in the Premium Economy cabin, or Premium Economy if you want to fly in Business Class.
You’ll then see the typical British Airways flight search page, with dates along the top and flight options beneath. The screenshot below shows a search for a flight to New York, where I’ve selected Premium Economy as the travel class. This will then show me Business Class results (as it’s one cabin up).
On the next page, you’ll be shown the Barclays Upgrade Vouchers that you have. If you’re flying return as a single traveller OR the flight is one-way, and there are two of you, select just one voucher. If you’re two people flying return, select two. There’s no automatic validation of how many vouchers you need versus how many you select. If you select the wrong amount, you’ll be taken back to the previous page with an error message.
The following page will give you a breakdown of the Avios needed and the price. For example, for a Business Class return from London to NYC for two people, the total number of points needed is 93,500, and the total taxes/surcharges come out at £998.
Should you get an Amex Card or a Barclays card or account?
This really comes down to personal choice. The cost of the Premium Plus Amex card is now £300 per year. It feels pointless to get the free card, as you can’t use the Companion Voucher in a premium (non-Economy) cabin.
The cost of having a Barclaycard is £20/month, so £240 a year. The cost of a Barclays Premier account is nothing (although you need a certain level of income to get one), and the Avios add-on is £12/month. That’s a total of £384 a year for the credit card, bank account and the Avios add-on.
Both the Amex and Barclays cards come with additional perks, and these may be of value to you. Certainly, the free Apple TV is useful to us with our Barclays products. You can read more about the perks in an article I wrote specifically about Barclays Avios offering.
Ultimately, we chose to have both an Amex card each, and I have both the Barclayscard and the Barclays Premier account. I was already a Barclays customer, so it made sense, and we wanted a non-Amex card for those times when Amex wasn’t accepted.
Add a comment