What is a British Airways Gold Upgrade For Two / For One Voucher?

How does the British Airways ‘Gold Upgrade for Two’ and ‘Gold Upgrade for One’ voucher work?  Today I thought I’d take a look at this often-confusing aspect of the Executive Club.

Unlike the other elite tiers, British Airways Gold status comes with various additional tier promotions and benefits. These include the various Gold Upgrade vouchers.

Once you attain British Airways Gold status at 1,500 tier points, there are further thresholds with extra treats:

At 2,500 tier points you get a Gold Upgrade for Two voucher (GUF2 in the trade)

At 3,500 tier points you get 2 Gold Upgrade for One vouchers (GUF1 in the trade)

At 5,000 tier points you become a Gold Guest List member – I explain Gold Guest List here. When you reach the appropriate thresholds the vouchers will automatically appear on your Executive Club homepage on the British Airways website.

What are BA Gold Upgrade vouchers?

Gold Upgrade vouchers allow you to upgrade your chosen cash or Avios booking to the next cabin on British Airways operated flights.  If you are booked into premium economy, for example, you will be able to upgrade to business class. Since the voucher counts per booking, you will be upgraded on both the outbound and inbound flights if you book a return fare.

Following a change in June 2019, these vouchers are now easier to use.

It used to be that, if no Avios seats were showing in the higher cabin, you needed to get a travel agent to process the upgrade for you.  This is because travel agents could upgrade you into cash seats.

This has now changed.  The BA call centre can process your GUF2 upgrade if either:

Avios seats are showing in the upgraded class, or

Cash tickets are still available in the cheapest selling ‘bucket’, which is ‘A’ for First Class, ‘I’ for Club World and ‘T’ for World Traveller Plus

This was a major improvement to how GUF2 voucehrs could be used.

How long do BA Gold Upgrade vouchers last?

Each voucher is only valid for one year.

It is generally accepted that British Airways will extend this a further six months if you call them although this is not officially in the rules.

You must book your ticket before the expiry date although you can travel later, which effectively gives you up to 355 extra days to fly.

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works.  You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 2.4 million monthly page views.  Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios?  Click here to read our latest news stories and click here to join the mailing list for our weekly or daily email newsletters.)

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also good bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These are available to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.