12 months or 24? What “before expiry” really means, whether your return can fall after the deadline, and how to avoid losing a valuable voucher to the calendar.
A companion voucher is one of the most valuable perks in UK travel — and one of the easiest to lose to a missed deadline. The rules are simple once you know them, but the small print about which flight has to depart “before expiry” trips up a lot of people. Here is exactly how the timing works.
What you’ll learn:
There are two validity periods, and which one you get depends entirely on the card that earned the voucher:
| Card | Validity | Cabins |
|---|---|---|
| Free BA Amex | 12 months | Economy only |
| BA Amex Premium Plus | 24 months | Any cabin |
Crucially, the clock starts from the date the voucher appears in your account, not from when you book a flight. Check your British Airways account for the exact expiry date shown against your voucher.
The Premium Plus card’s extra 12 months is more valuable than it looks: it gives you two full booking seasons to find two premium reward seats, which is often the hardest part.
Here is the single most important point: your outbound flight must depart on or before the voucher’s expiry date. That is the deadline that counts. It is not about when you book — you can book well in advance — and it is not about the return. As long as the first flight of your trip leaves before the voucher expires, you are within the rules.
In practice this means a voucher expiring in, say, June can still be used for a trip that departs in early June and returns weeks later.
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This is the part people miss, and it works in your favour. Provided the outbound departs before expiry and the whole trip is booked at the same time on the same itinerary, the return leg can be dated after the voucher would otherwise have lapsed. A 24-month Premium Plus voucher used for a departure on the last valid day could see you flying home a fortnight later with no problem.
If you plan to book the two legs separately because reward seats are released at different times, read our availability guide first — the sequencing matters.
Generally, no. British Airways does not routinely extend companion vouchers, and you should plan on the stated 12 or 24 months. Genuine, documented extenuating circumstances may occasionally be considered, but this is at BA’s discretion and not something to count on.
Cancelling does not reset the clock. If you cancel a booking more than 24 hours before departure the voucher is usually returned — but with its original expiry date. You cannot cancel and rebook to buy more time.
One exception worth knowing: redeeming on a BA Holidays package (available until 31 March 2027) has more generous timing — you do not need to fly the outbound before expiry provided the voucher was valid when you booked.
When you are ready to weigh up a specific trip, the companion voucher calculator shows the Avios you would save, and our best uses guide points you at the redemptions worth prioritising before the deadline.
The AviosArcana Editorial Team
We decode the British Airways loyalty programme in plain English, cross-checking every figure against BA’s published rules. We only recommend products we would use ourselves — and we tell you plainly when a redemption is not worth it.