Remember the companion voucher opens up extra availability. We have a New Zealand trip planned for next month booked last month on a 241 to Sydney.
At the time we booked there was bizarrely Club availability (but only with a companion voucher) on something like 6 days out of a 2 week period in April with more than one day having 6 seats available! We were able to find dates there and back that worked for us so booked a return trip.
Subsequently 2 first class seats opened up on the day we were flying out so we grabbed those for an additional £400 ish and a refund of 5000 avios!
I have also been monitoring Qatar availability and 2 business seats from Sydney appeared on Monday which I grabbed and cancelled the club return as it’s around £400 cheaper but is more Avios.
So now we are now flying out first class with BA to Sydney, back business with Qatar for a total cost of approx £1500 and 320,000 Avios. Obviously that only gets us far as Sydney but have booked separate flights to NZ and am extremely happy and more than a little excited!