How can you maximise your Barclaycard credit card or Barclays Avios Rewards upgrade voucher?

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• Barrel for Scraping says:

  6 Jan6 January 05:02

  I expect some ‘clarification’ today from BA on their new scheme. The aim will be to try and minimise damage while not admitting this was a mistake. If they roll back the changes then people would ask why they’re trying to roll them out again in a year or so.
  Some interesting rumours I’ve heard on various forums:
  Reduced threshold for lifetime status for those close to achieving it (maybe over 80% of the way)
  More ties up with BA partners or AGL – for example bonus TPs offered on flights for customers who also have a wine flyer subscription, an Avios subscription, converted over a certain number of Nectar points to BA this month (for those who auto convert only). The idea is these TP are still linked to flying but if you do these other things it will earn you a higher rate than 1 point per pound.
  Make the earning like OnBusiness where the points are based on EUR/GBP/USD so if your flight is in one of these currencies it’s a base rate of 1=1 rather than converting to GBP. This will mean that those in EU/US will effectively get slightly cheaper targets due to the exchange rate. This is to simplify things as well as putting the tiers slightly more in reach for those who live in places where they can’t get the BA Amex or other earning.
  Double the amount of sustainable aviation fuel you can buy.
  Points on standalone holiday components. If you book a car or hotel through BA.com even without a flight you will earn points.
  If you donate to Flying Start or the better world campaign this will count for TP too but only 1 point per £2 unless part of a holiday.
  As with all rumours take with a pinch of salt until confirmed. Has anyone else heard anything interesting?

  • Rob says:

    6 Jan6 January 05:07

    Problem is that the big delay in rolling this out was that none of these things could be agreed, so very unlikely everyone has suddenly fallen into line in a week when 80% of relevant staff would be away.

    You don’t seriously believe that anyone wants to pay £2000 for 2000 points via SAF, any more than they want to pay £1000 for 1000.

    Only extreme changes (halving thresholds, allowing unlimited Amex spend to count) would begin to placate people.

    • Barrel for Scraping says:

      6 Jan6 January 05:17

      That’s a good point. Some of the rumours I’ve heard have been far fetched. If they can agree on one sweetener this week they can say that’s them making on their promise to be constantly rolling out new ways to earn and there’ll more good stuff coming along all the time.

      The problem is I think it’s bad for an airline to basically force you to have a credit card or use their wine merchant to get enough points for status unless you’re a mega spender on flights. Not only it’s unfair to those who can’t participate due to non-UK residence even in the UK not everyone can have a credit card and not everyone drinks alcohol.

      Could we see a Nectar approach where they might offer bonus points targeted at various users to book flights based on their profile? I can’t see BA having the IT for that though.

      • Rob says:

        6 Jan6 January 06:05

        Except that with only 2,500 points coming from the BAPP Amex (and probably £40k+ of spend required to trigger those) even that isn’t making any difference.

      • RichardS says:

        6 Jan6 January 07:52

        “an airline to basically force you to have a credit card or use their wine merchant ”
        This is basically what US carriers do just so you can get in a lounge, even though you are on a biz ticket.

      • JDB says:

        6 Jan6 January 08:14

        Nobody is forcing anyone either to pursue status, take out any particular credit card or buy from any wine supplier. People choose to chase these statuses perceiving them to have some benefit and will use all the options to reach these lofty heights.

        • Gordon says:

          6 Jan6 January 20:22

          Agreed, this is the same for hotel chains, I do use chains, but I am also carful about falling into the trap of paying over the odds for status.

          I also favour independent boutique properties, you seem to get a far better personal service.

          I would like to see a comparison on status chasing on a flight cost compared to for example the cheapest fare including luggage on a LCC, I am aware that J and F can complicate this, but just an economy comparison?

• Andrew Halket says:

  6 Jan6 January 06:21

  Good article thanks.

  We only do one long haul a year (seems to be US mostly) so we’d use 241 for that which seems to be better value (?). I was wondering whether the Barclays voucher was better than the 7000 Avios for a short haul and you’ve confirmed that. Have 3 such vouchers at the moment.

  • Cinimo says:

    6 Jan6 January 09:59

    It’s not as simple as that when looking at the total cost, because the upgrade voucher makes you use the very poor value high avios, low cash option. I put an example for AMS in comments below. For many short hall routes you are probably better off going for the 7000 avios, but it does depend on the value you put on avios.

    • Tariq says:

      6 Jan6 January 20:15

      Exactly. Last time i checked, the saving on CE was basically only £49 – so I’ve just taken the 7000 Avios the last few times. No use on LH as 241 overall better value.

• AmandaB says:

  6 Jan6 January 06:44

  I thought you could only use the BC upgrade voucher starting in the UK? How would you use it inbound? Also, if only one traveller, how do you add the return leg if you have already booked the outbound at the release time? Is it possible (using the the 2-4-1 method perhaps)

  • Rob says:

    6 Jan6 January 06:48

    Has to be a flight starting from UK but you can still upgrade the return leg.

    • Matt N says:

      6 Jan6 January 07:09

      So, if you make the outbound booking 355 days in advance to maximise your chance of getting a guaranteed business seat, can you then add the return seat to this booking once they’re released?

      • Rob says:

        6 Jan6 January 07:24

        Yes, need to call though.

        • ScotOzEd2025 says:

          6 Jan6 January 09:11

          So it also requires a call to BA to use the BC voucher to upgrade the return leg of a booking for two people when using only one voucher?

        • Travel Strong says:

          6 Jan6 January 10:30

          The telephone agent firmly rejected that this was possible when I called and asked for this, so HAUCA may be required if it can actually be done.

          I took it as truthful and ended up having to use it on the outbound, which saved less avios (as the return was an off-peak date so the savings were greater).

        • dsm83 says:

          6 Jan6 January 14:20

          So I tried to do this and was told it wasn’t possible. They told me the voucher needs to be added when you book the outbound flight and if you do that when only booking the outbound it will upgrade the outbound, which is what happened as the outward leg was upgraded and the voucher showed as used online.

          In the end, on that occasion we decided to upgrade both ways with a 2nd BC voucher but they weren’t able to apply both on the original outbound booking at 355 days even though I told them that is what we would do instead and they said that was OK but it would need to go to back office for processing, which is what happened and the updated ticket showed the 2nd upgrade voucher ref although they actually left the 2nd voucher sat active in my account even after we flew.

    • NicktheGreek says:

      6 Jan6 January 07:14

      I didn’t know that.

      I also didn’t know the tidbit you mentioned the other day, about potentially adding on an outbound (ex UK) journey to an already booked inbound only 241 to avoid one way going to waste.

      Arguably straying into the “very niche” areas, but handy to know nevertheless!

    • travelmonkey says:

      6 Jan6 January 09:00

      This was going to be my question too. When I last had an upgrade voucher, the website would just tell me I didn’t have enough upgrade vouchers if I selected a return journey for two, even though I only wanted to upgrade one direction. Obviously you can’t book the legs in separate bookings, so I assumed I was stuck and used it on a Dublin positioning flight for an ex-EU ticket. I get annual 241 vouchers and those are certainly better and easier to use transatlantic.

• Alex says:

  6 Jan6 January 08:19

  If you select to use your voucher for the upgrade (rather than take the points) and then your points expire as you can’t make the flight or for whatever reason, would you turn automatically get the 7000 points credited to your avios account, do you have to request it or is it just lost?

  • JDB says:

    6 Jan6 January 08:23

    It’s a one off election. If you take the voucher and don’t use it, it’s lost and no going back to the 7k Avios.

• David Taylor says:

  6 Jan6 January 09:04

  I’ve switched to the 7000 avios as my vouchers kept expiring, where I seem to earn them 6 months apart and I am a family of 4, I could never sync up availability and the amount of non expired vouchers I have to book for 4.

• Sharon says:

  6 Jan6 January 09:14

  Morning
  I took the free BC a few months ago when there was a double sign up bonus as it didn’t cost me anything. I have spent £9800 so far and assumed I could upgrade to the BC+ and carry the spend over to get the voucher at £10k instead of £20k. Reading previous articles yesterday I believe I am incorrect and can’t do this??
  My husband did the same with his free Amex and is now close to £15k. Do Amex allow us to carry the spend over and get the premium + card then the 241 voucher? He did have a premium plus card a few years ago but downgraded it. Have we both caught a cold here☹️

  • JDB says:

    6 Jan6 January 09:17

    Amex does allow you to carry over the spend but Barclaycard does not. With BC you also can’t upgrade/downgrade at whim – either the system offers that change of card or it doesn’t. With Barclays it is possible to earn two vouchers in a year whether they mean that to happen or not.

    • Sharon says:

      6 Jan6 January 09:31

      When would BC allow two in a year?
      So my dilemma now is to keep spending until I get to £20k with my free card and hope to achieve it by August or put it in a draw when my Amex premium plus new card year starts in February. I do favour the 241’s on the off chance that there may be extra availability but now it is a £15k target it is quite a stretch.

      • RobH says:

        6 Jan6 January 09:38

        1) Year start on BC+ … spend £10,000 and claim the voucher
        2) Downgrade your card via the App – Spending reset, but valid year remains the same
        3) Spend £20,000 on the BC

        This would all need to be done in a single “card year” … so you are spending £30,000 over the year on your BC/BC+
        (steps 1 and 2 can be done in any order)

        • RobH says:

          6 Jan6 January 09:39

          Sorry – steps 1 and 3 can be in any order

        • Caleb says:

          9 Jan9 January 15:48

          Do you know when should I initiate the downgrade? After I receive the upgrade voucher or can I do it immediately after I hit £10K spending. (So that I can immediately it spending towards the £20K and save on paying another month’s of Plus fees.)

• Cinimo says:

  6 Jan6 January 09:51

  It’s not quite as simple to decide if the voucher is better than the 7000 avios for shorthall. For example for AMS, the total cost with a voucher is 18500 avios + £25. Using the voucher as 7000 avios you can use the much better value, fewer avios option and have a total cost of 10000 avios + £74 (17000 avios redemption – 7000 avios voucher). Assuming a value of 1p per avios makes the upgrade voucher vs 7000 avios £36 worse value. You also have a lot more flexibility with 7000 avios than the upgrade voucher.

  Even for longer shorthall flights the voucher is marginal value vs the 7000 avios. For long hall, flights where the voucher is worth more avios and the high avios, low cash options are better value the upgrade voucher gives a big saving.

• Jeff says:

  6 Jan6 January 10:41

  I am planning to book an outbound flight ex-London for 4 people using BA’s 241 AND Barclays’s upgrade voucher as 2 separate bookings since I cannot combine those 2 vouchers in one booking (I believe?). For the return flight I am thinking of using miles initially to secure the flight and then call BA to refund me the avios for one passenger (i.e. due to 241 voucher) – will they honour this if I make one booking for all passengers for the return flight or it will have to be two bookings to match the original 2 outbound flights’ bookings?

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