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Fantastic BA Premium Plus Companion Voucher Seat Availability Released
Last week, there was a 24-hour window when BA reward bookings were unavailable due to a ‘systems overhaul’.
Now that award availability is back online, things are not as they were before…
There is a very high number of Avios seats available when booking a flight with an AMEX Premium Plus Companion Voucher, including multiple dates with 6-9 reward seats, during peak periods, and on routes that are notoriously hard to get. This is highly unusual, even when using a Premium Plus companion voucher.
British Airways guarantees four Business Class reward seats per flight. On popular routes, these often sell out on the day of release or shortly after. If you want one, you usually need to be quick. But for Premium Plus voucher holders, BA also opens up additional Club World availability.
According to the voucher terms:
“For Reward Flight bookings on British Airways, enhanced access to Reward Flight seats within British Airways Club World (long haul business cabins) is available for British Airways American Express Premium Plus Companion Vouchers.”
That said, this extra availability isnโt guaranteed, especially on popular routes, but the voucher makes it more likely. BA hasnโt publicly disclosed how or when it releases extra voucher seats.
We’ve already booked three of us to the Maldives in January using two Amex Companion Vouchers!
There is still plenty of Maldives availability remaining, including multiple days in a row in January (peak), with 8-9 seats. There is also plenty of availability for Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
This extra availability is only visible when searching directly on the BA website. Youโll need to log into your account and search manually with the voucher selected.
Act Fast
If you have a Premium Plus Companion Voucher, now’s the time to book your flight, especially if you’ve been after Club World seats on a popular route for a while. There’s no telling how long this availability will last.
It’s extremely rare to see this kind of availability. Act fast if you want to get a fantastic deal.
Picked up a deal? Let us know in the comments below:
New British Airways Holidays Offer: 10,000 bonus Avios
Now that the BA Holidays double Tier Point offer has finished, BA has launched another for European holidays.
You will now be eligible for:
- 10,000 bonus Avios when you book a holiday package with British Airways Holidays for 7 nights or more
- 5,000 bonus Avios for holidays of up to 6 nights.
This is on top of the 1 Avios and 1 Tier Point per ยฃ1 spent.
To receive your bonus Avios, you must meet the following criteria:
- You must book before 23rd July for trips between 7th July and 31st October 2025.
- It’s essential to register for the promotion. You should have received an email with your unique registration link.
- The booking must be a new booking
- Holiday packages can be flight and car, or flight and hotel.
Worth It?
Does this bring the value back to BA Holidays? Not as much as the double Tier Point offer!
One of the best things about the offer is that there’s no minimum spend. If you book an extremely cheap holiday package, 10,000 Avios could be a valuable return on investment.
For example, BA is advertising a 7-night holiday to Portugal (in Economy) for ยฃ329 per person, including flights. However, for a 5* holiday with Business Class flights, 10,000 Avios is much less valuable – although Avios do add up!
There are other ways to book holidays that could earn you 10,000+ Avios for your money. For example, with the limited-time 6 Avios per ยฃ1 offer when booking on Booking.com via Avios.com, you could earn 10,000 Avios from a ยฃ1,667 booking.
However, you also need to consider Tier Point earnings with BA holidays and the value they hold for you.
Surely, there must have been fewer BA holiday packages booked after the changes to the BA loyalty programme? Are these offers to tempt people back?
New Fast Track Arrivals at Heathrow: Worth It?
Heathrow now has a paid, new fast-track Arrivals lane, which costs ยฃ25 per person off-peak and ยฃ35 per person during peak times. Infants and children also need a booking.
You’ll get access to a separate, speedy lane. There’s no limit as to which cabin you’ve flown with or with which airline.
Heathrow is advertising this as a good option for those not eligible for E-gates. This will not be a worthwhile investment if you can use E-gates, but if you’re ineligible to use them (e.g. you’re not a UK or EU passport holder or you’re travelling with a child under 10), it’s worth considering. However, ยฃ25-ยฃ35 per person for a family really adds up. At some airports where this service is already in place, fast-track arrivals have occasionally been reported to take longer than regular queues.
Few details have been released about how this works for ‘eligible passengers’. According to Heathrow, “You may already be eligible to use Fast Track Arrivals Passport Control with your airline. Please consult your airline before booking.”
How it Works
Before you land at Heathrow Airport, you have the option to pre-book a 1-hour time window, subject to availability and offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Once you get to arrivals, follow the new signs to the fast-track entrance and present your booking confirmation and reference number to the host at the Fast Track entry. This could cause issues if there is a queue to show booking confirmations!
Peak times vary by terminal:
- Terminal 2: 06:00-09:00 and 18:00-21:00
- Terminal 3: 06:00-09:00 and 14:00-21:00
- Terminal 4: 06:00- 09:00 and 12:00-21:00
- Terminal 5: 06:00-09:00
Your booking is cancellable until 20:00 the evening before arrival, which isn’t ideal if your flight is delayed! If you miss your scheduled time, there is no guarantee that you will still be allowed to use the fast track, and no refund will be offered.
The other caveat is that you can only book between 6:00 and 21:00; however, outside these times, the Arrivals queues are likely to be quieter anyway.
9 comments
โYou may already be eligible to use Fast Track Arrivals Passport Control with your airline. Please consult your airline before booking.โ
Several airlines, like Etihad and Qatar Airways, give a Passport Fast Track invitation to passengers arriving at Heathrow seated in their business & first class cabins.
It’s highly likely that most airline contact centres will not be aware of this and say “no” when someone asks about it.
We were given a Fast Track Voucher when we arrived into T4 with Etihad business class earlier this year.
Thanks for the info, booked Maldives for March!
Great result. Really happy to have helped! Have a great holiday.
Loads of availability at 0730 this morning but now looks like there is less than there was before! Have they switched it back off again?!
It’s dynamic, so these things come and go, but I would search daily if you are looking for something specific.
Do you need to make two separate bookings when using two companion vouchers for 3?
Yes, you’ll need to book separately. When you try and book for 3 using two vouchers, which is exactly what we did, you will get an alert saying you need 2 passengers per voucher, which we know is not true anymore. So I made two separate bookings.
Iโd actually been tracking Club availability to LAX for two weeks *before* this article dropped on 7 July. There were a few decent options showing for Oct/Nov, but I was away and had to take the risk of waiting to confirm dates. Naturally, by the time I got backโright around the articleโs releaseโeverything had vanished. Since then, Iโve been scouring even the most obscure US routes for two Club seats using a companion voucher, and itโs been a total dead end. LAX especially seems bone dry. Was this a fleeting window, a glitch, or just a bit of overhype? Either way, not quite the gold rush I was hoping for.
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