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BA extending 2-4-1 vouchers to 30th September 2023 – but only if you wrapped them in a FTV

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We recently covered the news that British Airways was planning to break up Future Travel Vouchers, returning the underlying cash, Avios and vouchers to the holder, in order to reduce pressure on its call centres.

In the last few hours this has started to happen. There is some good news though.

British Airways has decided to extend the life of 2-4-1 vouchers wrapped up in Future Travel Vouchers.

British Airways extending 241 companion vouchers

Here is the email being sent out to some holders of Future Travel Vouchers:

“You accepted a Future Travel Voucher for this booking, however, we know there are some issues with vouchers associated with Reward Flight bookings, so to offer you maximum flexibility we’ll be cancelling it and refunding you in full.

“You don’t need to do anything. We’ll automatically credit the Avios back to your account and refund the money to your original form of payment. We expect this to take approximately 4 weeks and it means you’ll be able to use your Avios as you wish.

“If you used a Companion Voucher on this booking, we will add it back to your Executive Club account with a new expiry date of 30 September 2023. If your original Companion Voucher had an expiry date beyond 30 September 2023, that same date will apply when we add the voucher back to your account. This will be done automatically by us and added back to your Executive Club account once your refund has been completed. Please allow approximately 4 weeks.”

This email represents a change of heart by British Airways. The original messaging was that Companion Vouchers would be returned with their original expiry dates, or expired if that date had already passed.

This may be down to HfP pressure, since we had been actively encouraging readers to turn their expiring 2-4-1 vouchers into Future Travel Vouchers in order to keep them alive. There would have been a lot of frustrated customers if those Companion Vouchers had been expired.

What can you do about an expiring 2-4-1 voucher if it wasn’t wrapped in a Future Travel Voucher?

Nothing, unfortunately. You are going to lose it if you don’t use it. British Airways started expiring 2-4-1 vouchers again on 1st October 2021 and it won’t stop now.

It is too late now to turn it into a Future Travel Voucher. As we covered last week, BA is no longer accepting Future Travel Voucher requests for flights which contain an American Express voucher. You will automatically receive a full refund instead which won’t change the 2-4-1 expiry date.

BA has done the right thing by extending 2-4-1 vouchers wrapped in Future Travel Vouchers. These people had taken advantage of a loophole, albeit one created by BA, to extend their Companion Voucher and it would have been wrong to withdraw it.

By cashing in these Future Travel Vouchers, the pressure on BA call centre will be sharply reduced – it takes around 20 minutes to make a booking using a Future Travel Voucher – which will benefit everyone.

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (156)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • vol says:
    8 Mar8 March 19:15

    OT, although not too OT – I’m trying to book using a 241 BA voucher. Tried to select son as second passenger, and the check box was automatically selected as ‘female’, without the ability to change it. I told him to update his passport details, he did so, and he has selected ‘male’, as well as updating his status from “MSTR” to “Mr”. Tried making the booking again, and the “Mr” has updated, but it is still showing up as ‘female’ without the ability to change this. Anyone else had this issue? Thanks

    • NorthernLass says:
      8 Mar8 March 19:38

      A few of us have had the same – apparently once you’ve made the booking you can then change gender via MMB. I’ve never known gender be checked on a boarding pass though!

    • NorthernLass says:
      8 Mar8 March 19:38

      A few of us have had the same – apparently once you’ve made the booking you can then change gender via MMB. I’ve never known gender be checked on a boarding pass though!

      • vol says:
        8 Mar8 March 20:12

        Phew – thanks! Thought it was just me!

        • pauldb says:
          9 Mar9 March 07:41

          Is he in your HHA or in your F&F / saved companions list. If it’s the latter, the false info may be in your account rather than in his BAEC profile?

    • Heathrow Flyer says:
      9 Mar9 March 09:35

      My 2 for 1 is back in my account. First issued Oct 2018…..!

  • Jerry says:
    8 Mar8 March 21:09

    You’ve got to hand it to BA. If they can dream up a way to further annoy and divide their customers they will every time. Just booked our third easyjet flight since covid. No cancellations, planes depart on time, crew friendly, aircraft clean and modern, no avios, FTVs or 241s to worry about. We’ll lose some 241s and Amex and BA will lose us.

    • BuildBackBetter says:
      9 Mar9 March 08:28

      Is it really their fault you refused to take advantage of their ‘loophole’?

      • John says:
        9 Mar9 March 08:34

        I would say yes. They should yesterday everyone the same whether or not someone ‘took advantage’ of anything.

  • Calum says:
    8 Mar8 March 22:00

    Has anyone received their Companion voucher back since BA made the change last week? I cancelled a booking last Thursday (so after they had stopped issuing FTVs) so am expecting the voucher back with the original expiry date (which is fine as I plan to use it before then). The Avios from the booking were credited back within a day or so but there is still no sign of the companion voucher.

    • DZOO says:
      9 Mar9 March 04:08

      I am still waiting also – read on FT it may take up to 4 weeks to be credited again. If you need it sooner probably best to call (you might have to take the pain anyway when BA IT fails to process it inside 4 weeks – I am going to call today).

    • Gary says:
      9 Mar9 March 06:30

      Had to chase the voucher via chat, and the it came back instantly.

    • NorthernLass says:
      9 Mar9 March 06:49

      We’ve had a refund each – my 241 is showing as available to use but OH’s is showing as used. I think someone at BA doesn’t know how to process them properly. I’ve sent a message on Twitter as I think it will need manual intervention!

  • Rolf says:
    9 Mar9 March 06:54

    With a companion voucher you only need to book the outbound flight by 30 September 2023. This looks like a real improvement because with an FTV you had to finish the entire trip by that date? Is that right?

  • Harry T says:
    9 Mar9 March 07:15

    Why don’t they just extend all 241s again? This is a bizarre move that just irritates people like me who didn’t FTV their 241 and waited to see if BA would extend.

    • Rob says:
      9 Mar9 March 08:30

      They started expiring them in October. What would happen to those people?

    • BuildBackBetter says:
      9 Mar9 March 08:34

      How is it bizarre? Rob has been writing about it for some time. There was always a chance they’d stop FTVs with no notice. Why would they advertise a ‘loophole’?

      • Rob says:
        9 Mar9 March 10:10

        You can be pretty sure they only did the extension BECAUSE we had been encouraging so many people to do it.

    • Spurs drive me mad says:
      9 Mar9 March 08:38

      You said the exact same thing few days ago Harry well it’s your fault you waited, BA have extended 241 but not the way it suited you. All you had to do was take a gamble with a few thousand points and you would have been ok.

  • DJW says:
    9 Mar9 March 07:50

    I have a booking with a 241 voucher that I need to cancel. Voucher expired December 21. Spoke to ‘You First’ who weren’t clear what would happen to the 241 as it’s not in a FTV.
    Anyone have a similar situation?
    Not sure whether to leave it until the last minute to cancel if I would lose the 241 voucher.
    The original booking has been changed 3 times before by BA!
    Thanks

    • Rob says:
      9 Mar9 March 08:30

      You lose the voucher. Best to wait in case BA cancels or moves the flight, in which case they would save your voucher by letting you rebook.

  • Sunny says:
    9 Mar9 March 07:55

    Not exactly related but similar. I made a booking in the middle of the pandemic during an avios sale. We booked for Dubai using ( 2 adults and a baby) half the usual avios. This trip ultimately got cancelled and converted to FTV. Fast forward a year later and the whole trip was refunded for the original avios and cash spent, which is only enough for 1 adult. I have emailed BA asking for the FTV to be reinstted as it left me better off. Anyone had a similar experience ?

    • Roberto says:
      9 Mar9 March 08:01

      @sunny , you are no worse off. The FTV would have had the same value as the cash and once you choose to go along the FTV route the 50% promo ceased. The only way to preserve the half price deal was to swap flights

      • Sunny says:
        9 Mar9 March 11:04

        oh right I see, the FTV does not cover any avios component ? Thanks for clarifying

  • Iain says:
    9 Mar9 March 07:56

    Do we need to contact BA to unravel FTV or are they just working through the backlog earliest first and it will get to me eventually?

    • Rob says:
      9 Mar9 March 08:28

      Latter. Some high value ones may not be broken, however, so BA can keep the cash.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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