British Airways' Travel Together Tickets can now be redeemed for solo travel
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
Solo travelers rejoice: British Airways Travel Together Tickets can now be redeemed for a 50% discount on the Avios needed for a single passenger.
You can earn this valuable benefit if you're a British Airways Visa Signature credit cardmember who spends $30,000 on the card in a calendar year.
It has traditionally allowed the cardmember to apply the voucher to a round-trip flight from the U.S. to anywhere British Airways flies and book two passengers traveling together while only paying the Avios required for one passenger. Fees, taxes and surcharges for both passengers are still payable — this caveat will not change.
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While the voucher has helped traveling pairs save tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Avios each year, it has previously only been beneficial for cardmembers traveling with someone else; this is because the Avios discount only applies to the second passenger. Solo travelers have long campaigned for the voucher to be used for cardmembers traveling alone. Chase has listened, and now the vouchers can be redeemed for either one or two travelers.
For context, a peak round-trip Club World (business-class) redemption from Los Angeles to London would usually cost 150,000 Avios. A solo traveler could use a Travel Together Ticket to cut the cost in half to 75,000 Avios round-trip (a saving of 75,000 Avios). That works out to be only 37,500 Avios each way for an over 10-hour flight in a lie-flat seat — that's a great deal.
Note, however, that the amount of fees, taxes, and surcharges does not change. These costs are hefty — as usual for British Airways flights — at $1,984.57 for this redemption.
There are no changes to how redemptions for two passengers traveling together operate.
If you don't currently have the card, you can apply today and earn 85,000 Avios after you spend $5,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening. Based on TPG's valuations, that's a haul worth $1,275 — and could be even more valuable if you can hit the $30,000 spending threshold to earn the Travel Together Ticket.
Bottom line
It's great to see more options to redeem a Travel Together Ticket available to solo travelers. This new change to the British Airways Visa Signature credit card will mean great savings for solo travelers. Unfortunately, the frustrating sky-high fuel surcharges for all Avios redemptions on British Airways flights (including on Travel Together Ticket redemptions) remain for all passengers, though.