Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
The policy has been around for a whie (2 or 3 years?), it is more typically used to deal with the 355 day rule for bookings, when the return won't have been released. The downside, for North Atlantic routes, is paying more cash. I have a feeling you have to make the second booking online, which has to conform to the usual Companion Voucher rules (e.g. BA metal, ending up in the UK) and then the agent can release back the excess Avios from booking 2.
Yes the return flight I had booked online met all the rules of the companion voucher but they insisted they couldn’t just release half the avios back to me as the return flights were available at the time of booking the outbound.