You Don't Have to Book Both Legs of Your BA Companion Voucher at the Same Time - FAQ
- Sam
- Apr 18
- 11 min read
This is, without a doubt, one of the most frequent questions we get on our Instagram right now, so let's clarify it once and for all.
In this article:
What is the British Airways Companion Voucher?
The British Airways American Express Companion Voucher, sometimes called the BA Amex 2-4-1 voucher, is a perk earned by spending £15,000 in a card year on either the free British Airways American Express Credit Card or the British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card. Once you hit the spend threshold, a Companion Voucher is deposited into your British Airways Club account.
It lets you book a reward flight using Avios and take a companion with you for no additional Avios. You pay the Avios for one seat, and just the taxes and fees for both passengers. If you're travelling solo, you can use it for a 50% discount on the Avios price instead.
The free card voucher is valid for 12 months and restricted to economy. The Premium Plus card voucher is valid for 24 months and works in any cabin, including business class and first class. You can use it on flights operated by British Airways, Iberia, or Aer Lingus.
For a full breakdown of how the voucher works, how to earn it, and which card is right for you, read our complete guide to British Airways Companion Vouchers.
Why does booking the outbound and return flight separately matter?
If you've ever tried to book a reward flight with BA, you'll know how difficult it can be to find two Avios seats in the cabin you want, on the dates you want, in both directions. Business class to Cape Town over half term? It's difficult finding outbound and return availability at the same time, and impossibly so if you want to get the seats as soon as they're released, because the return won't be out for another week or so.
This is the reason so many people end up never using their Companion Voucher properly. They search for a return trip, see nothing available, and assume they're stuck. They wait. They check again a few weeks later. Still nothing. Eventually the voucher expires and they've wasted what is probably one of the most valuable credit card perks in the UK.
The fix is simple: stop trying to book it as a return in one go.
How does booking each leg separately actually work?
Your Companion Voucher covers two people for a return journey, or 50% off the Avios need for a solo traveller, but it doesn't have to be used all in one booking. You can book the outbound leg first, and add the return leg later.
Here's the process, step by step.
Booking the outbound
Let's say you want to fly to Cape Town on 1st January. Reward seats are released 355 days before departure at midnight GMT (1am during British Summer Time).
You have two options, the first being log into the BA website, go to book with Avios, tick your Companion Voucher, and search for the outbound date. If two Avios seats are available in the cabin you want, you book it. Just the outbound. One way.
The other is to call the US call centre when the seats are released (as the British call centre is shut). They are able to take the seats off of sale quicker than you can input your payment information if you were to book online, therefore you generally have a higher chance of securing the seats you want.
At this point, you've used half of your Companion Voucher. The other half is sitting there, waiting for the return leg.
Adding the return
Now let's say your return date is 14th January. Those seats won't even be on sale yet because the 355-day window hasn't opened for that date.
When the return date does come into range, you call the BA call centre, explain that you have an existing outbound booking that used a Companion Voucher, and that you'd like to add the return leg to it. If the route you are trying to get seats on is popular, then consider calling as soon as seats are put on sale. Provided there are Avios seats available on the return flight, the agent will add the return to your booking and apply the second half of your voucher. You'll only pay one lot of Avios for the return (because of the voucher), plus the taxes and fees for both passengers.
That's it. Two separate actions, one voucher, one complete booking.
Which call centre should you ring?
The BA UK call centre closes overnight, which is exactly when reward seats are released at midnight GMT. Annoying, right? So if you need to grab return seats the moment they go on sale, you'll need to call an international call centre that's open at that time.
The US call centre number at the time of writing is +1-800-247-9297, though it's always worth checking the BA website for the latest international contact numbers.
I'd recommend testing this number works on your phone ahead of time, or use a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) service such as Viber.
When you do come to book, call a few minutes before midnight so you can get through the checks, endless menus etc, and be ready the moment the seats go live.
What if I have enough Avios to book the return at full price?
There is an alternative approach if you're sitting on a decent pile of Avios. You can book the return leg online as a completely separate booking, paying the full Avios amount (without the voucher). Then you call BA at a more civilised hour and ask them to link the two bookings and apply your Companion Voucher to the return. They'll refund half of the Avios you paid on the return booking.
The catch: you need enough Avios in your account to cover the full price for both passengers on the return, because the refund only happens after the agent processes it. For a peak business class return from somewhere like Sydney, that could mean needing 340,000 Avios in your account temporarily, even though you'll get 170,000 back.
You'll also end up with two separate booking references rather than one combined itinerary. This isn't a problem in practice, but if you ever need to cancel, you'll pay two sets of cancellation fees instead of one.
Does BA waive the change fee?
Normally, making changes to an Avios booking costs £35 per person. But BA's policy is to waive this fee if what you're asking them to do couldn't have been done online at the time of your original booking. So if the return flights weren't on sale yet when you booked the outbound, you shouldn't be charged, because you had no way of adding them at the time. Likewise, if you would like to fly into one airport and fly out of another (this is called an open-jaw booking), then the fee should be waived as this cannot be completed online.
Can I book the return before the outbound?
Everything above assumes you're booking the outbound first and adding the return later. But it works the other way around as well.
Let's say you're looking for availability to Chicago and you can see Avios seats for the flight back to the UK, but the outbound is showing nothing. Book the return using your Companion Voucher. Then keep watching for outbound availability. When it appears, call the BA call centre and add the outbound to your existing booking.
I would recommend a tool such as Reward Flight Finder as one of the features is an email alert if the seats you desire become available.
This is particularly useful when you're searching at short notice and availability is patchy. You might only be able to see one direction at a time. Grab what you can, and fill in the gap later.
Does the Companion Voucher only work on British Airways?
No, your Companion Voucher also works on Iberia and Aer Lingus, not just BA.
This massively expands what you can do with your voucher as Aer Lingus operates to most regional airports in the UK, allowing connections through Dublin, so this benefits those who live outside of the South East. Whilst Iberia flies extensively from Madrid to Latin America, opening up destinations like Lima, Quito, and Montevideo that BA doesn't fly to directly. Iberia also generally has better reward availability and lower taxes and fees than BA on routes where both operate.
A few things to know. The voucher rules are the same across all three airlines. If you have the free BA Amex voucher you're limited to economy on any of them. If you have the Premium Plus voucher you can fly any cabin on any of them. And the booking has to be made through BA, as this is where the Companion Voucher is stored.
Can I mix airlines on the outbound and return?
Yes, your outbound and return don't have to be on the same airline. As long as you're flying on BA, Iberia, or Aer Lingus, you can mix and match between the three on a single voucher booking.
So you could fly out to Madrid on Iberia, connect onto Buenos Aires on Iberia, and then fly home from Santiago on BA via Heathrow. Or fly to New York on Aer Lingus from Manchester, and come back from Boston on BA. The voucher covers the whole trip, one outbound and one return, regardless of which of the three airlines operates each leg.
The Avios price and taxes for each leg are calculated based on the airline you're actually flying on that leg, not some blended BA rate. This matters because Iberia's reward chart is often significantly cheaper than BA's, especially on long-haul routes.
If you're booking the legs separately using the method described earlier in this article, the process works the same way. Book the outbound on whichever airline has availability, and when the return opens up on a different airline, call BA to add it to your existing booking. The voucher applies across the whole trip.
What about the voucher expiry?
Your outbound flight must depart before your Companion Voucher expires. But your return flight can be after the expiry date, as long as it falls within 12 months of the outbound departure and you've booked the return before you take the outbound.
So if you have a Companion Voucher that expires on 1st April 2027, your outbound needs to depart before that date, but your return could be as late as March 2028.
Do I need to book the return before I fly the outbound?
Yes. You need to have your return leg booked before you take your outbound flight.
The reason is straightforward. Once you've flown the outbound, if there's no return leg attached, the booking reference closes. It's done. You can't go back and add a return to it after the fact, which means the other half of your Companion Voucher that was sitting there waiting for the return leg is effectively lost. The booking is treated as complete, and there's nothing the call centre can do to reopen it.
So if your outbound is on 1st January, your return flight needs to be booked and confirmed before that date. You can't fly out to Cape Town and then sort the return once you're there. The booking needs to exist before you board the outbound.
This doesn't mean you need to book the return months in advance. If your outbound is on 1st January and a return seat opens up on 28th December, that's fine, you've still booked it before you fly. But it does mean you can't leave it until the last minute and hope for the best. If you're getting close to your outbound date and still haven't secured the return, you need a plan B. More on that below.
What if I can't find return availability at all?
This is the nightmare scenario, and it's worth thinking about before you book the outbound so you're not caught off guard.
You've booked your outbound, you've been checking for return availability for weeks or months, and nothing is coming up in the cabin you want. Here's what you can do.
First, try different dates. Even shifting by a day or two can make a difference. Reward seats come and go constantly, and midweek flights tend to have better availability than weekends. Again, I would recommend a tool such as Reward Flight Finder so you can get an email alert if the seats you desire become available. Gamechanger in my opinion.
Second, search for Aer Lingus and Iberia flights, not just BA. Your Companion Voucher works across all three airlines, so if BA has nothing on the return, check whether Iberia or Aer Lingus operate a route that gets you home. This is especially useful for transatlantic routes where Iberia might have availability via Madrid that BA doesn't have direct.
Third, consider flying back from a different airport. Your Companion Voucher can be used on open-jaw bookings, meaning you don't have to return from the same city you flew into. If you've flown into Singapore and there's no return availability from Changi, check whether there are Avios seats from Kuala Lumpur instead. KL is a short flight from Singapore, and BA operates that route too. Think of it as reverse springboarding. We've written before about springboarding as a strategy for getting to your destination by flying into a nearby city and making your own way from there. The same logic works on the way home. If your exact return airport has nothing, widen the search to nearby alternatives and get yourself there. You will need to call BA to book an open-jaw like this, but it's a well-established option.
Fourth, consider a different cabin. If business class is fully booked, premium economy might still have Avios seats. You can always book in premium economy and set up Reward Flight Finder alerts for business class. If it opens up, call BA, pay the £35 per person change fee plus the difference in Avios, and you're upgraded.
Lastly, and I don't like this option, because this is an article on how to use your Companion Voucher, but consider paying cash for your ticket home. Just because you haven't managed to fly both legs using Avios doesn't make the trip a complete disaster. Helena and I flew last year to Singapore in BA First using Avios, but as there were no Avios flights on the return we just bought a cheap Emirates ticket to get us back. I know we weren't using a Companion Voucher, but we completed our trip nonetheless.
If that option doesn't appeal, or cash fares are simply too high then you can cancel the whole thing. If you cancel your Companion Voucher booking, the voucher goes back into your British Airways Club account with the same expiry date. You don't lose it. You can start again with a different destination or different dates. It's not ideal, but it's far better than letting the voucher expire unused.
What else should I know?
The call centre experience can be hit and miss. Some agents handle this process every day and know exactly what to do. Others might not be familiar with it and could tell you it's not possible. If that happens, politely end the call and try again. This is a well-established process that BA allows, even if individual agents sometimes aren't aware of it.
Make sure you have your booking reference, and the exact flights you want for the return before you call. The smoother you can make it for the agent, the quicker it'll be.
Too long, didn't read, sum it up for me
You don't have to find perfect availability in both directions on the same day. Book one leg when you see it. Add the other when it becomes available.
If you've been staring at the BA website trying to find a return trip that lines up perfectly, stop. Book one direction, and deal with the other one later. It's a much better strategy, and it's exactly how experienced Avios collectors have been doing it for years.
Got questions about this? Leave a comment here for everyone else to see and learn from, and we'll do our best to help you out.
Sam
Points Well Made is a passion project of Sam and Helena with a loyal following. If you like what we do, and wish to help us continue to create the content you love, please consider buying us a Kofi, or subscribing monthly. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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