Barclays avios plus downgrade

lon_85

Hi everyone, my apologies if this has already been posted. I have reached the spend threshold for the free upgrade voucher in my Barclays premium plus credit card. I have chosen the upgrade voucher as the reward And clicked redeem but there is no voucher in my Avios account. Upon research online it seems that the voucher is only added to the Avios account five days after the first anniversary of the card- does this mean I cannot downgrade to the free card in the meantime because I do not want to keep paying the £20 membership fee. 

Also since I selected redeem on the voucher does this mean the voucher will expire two years from when I clicked redeem or from when the voucher reaches the avios account? 

Thank you!