Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

EXCLUSIVE: We reveal the changes to British Airways World Traveller Plus premium economy

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

British Airways has been touting improvements in the World Traveller Plus ‘soft product’ (food, bedding etc) for some time.

I’ve now managed to get hold of some information on what is coming as well as some not-seen-elsewhere promotional images of the new meal service.

The changes will come in two phases.  The first phase, starting on 1st February, involves the new food options.  The second phase later in the Spring will involve new soft furnishings and a brand new amenity kit.

New British Airways World Traveller Plus food

There will be three main courses to choose from, including one vegetarian option.

The starter and dessert will be improved and will no longer be taken from the Economy / World Traveller meal.  This puts BA on a par with Virgin Atlantic which serves a totally different meal in Premium.

Both the main meal and the second meal will be served on china and with ‘real’ glasses.  At present only the main meal uses glass.

New British Airways World Traveller Plus food

Here is another mock-up:

New British Airways World Traveller Plus food

The image below is a typical ‘second meal’ for a longer flight.   Hot food will now be guaranteed for the first time, instead of the pre-packed sandwiches often provided at present.

On shorter flights it will be a  hot hand-held snack and on longer flights you will get a hot meal tray, with a choice of two options, such as the one pictured below.

New British Airways World Traveller Plus food

I need to confess that I have never flown Premium Economy on British Airways, Virgin Atlantic or Norwegian so I am not sure how this compares to what the competition offers.  It certainly appears to be a major improvement on what BA is offering at present.

New British Airways World Traveller Plus food

Regular HfP readers will know that British Airways is rolling out a new World Traveller Plus seat.  It is currently being installed on the Boeing 777-200 fleet, initially on the Gatwick aircraft.  This is the smart-looking seat you can see in the photo above.  You will also find a version of the ‘larger TV’ seat on the A380, Boeing 787 and Boeing 777-300ER fleets, but not all of the Boeing 747 fleet.

These ‘soft product’ changes do not fully close the gap with Virgin Premium, however.

We did a comparison last year of British Airways World Traveller Plus vs Virgin Atlantic Premium, which you can find here.  In almost all respects, the Virgin Atlantic product is better.  Norwegian also offers an impressive Premium service which we reviewed here, although Norwegian is no longer offering lounge access on Premium Economy tickets unless you buy a flexible one.

New food may be welcome but, based on the analysis we did last April:

Virgin Atlantic offers free seat selection in Premium whilst BA does not

Virgin Atlantic has a 2.5 inch wider seat than BA

Virgin Atlantic offers dedicated Premium check-in desks, whilst BA does not

Virgin Atlantic offers priority baggage handling to Premium passengers, whilst BA does not

Virgin Atlantic has dedicated cabin crew for the Premium cabin, whilst BA does not

In my view, the best reason to book World Traveller Plus is to upgrade it to a flat-bed Club World seat using Avios.  

The cost to upgrade is the difference between a Club World and World Traveller Plus ‘100% Avios’ redemption plus any additional taxes.  New York, peak dates, is 120,000 Avios for a Club World return flight and 80,000 Avios for World Traveller Plus.  An upgrade from WTP is therefore 40,000 Avios return or 20,000 Avios one-way.  This is excellent value.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

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

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

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

Category

British Airways and Avios, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (104)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Joel says:
    17 Jan17 January 07:57

    To upgrade PE to Club World, does there need to be reward availability or just any Club World vacant seat?

    • BigSi says:
      17 Jan17 January 08:04

      Reward availability.

    • Rob says:
      17 Jan17 January 08:05

      Reward availability.

    • Polly says:
      17 Jan17 January 08:15

      Must be availability. So worth checking before you buy your PE ticket. Then upgrade after purchase. Plus pay difference in fees.

      • Walty says:
        17 Jan17 January 09:16

        Can you Part Pay with Avios on your PE ticket and still upgrade using avios to Club World?
        Thanks

    • Alan says:
      17 Jan17 January 14:18

      Plus remember you still earn TP and Avios on the underlying WTP ticket – there used to be issues with these posting correctly but never any quibbles about crediting them on calling BA if they didn’t come through.

      • Genghis says:
        17 Jan17 January 14:34

        And might even get J TPs…

        • Alan says:
          17 Jan17 January 14:37

          Got that once then they took them back a month later. GUV2 normally reliable for posting higher levels but UUA seemed to be less so from what I’d seen.

  • Tom says:
    17 Jan17 January 08:32

    “Virgin Atlantic offers free seat selection in Premium whilst BA does not”
    I’ve always used Club World check in desks when travelling WTP and never been turned away. Maybe I’ve been lucky and not had the embarrassment of being turned away and told to join the Economy queue!

  • Nick says:
    17 Jan17 January 08:35

    W/T Plus cannot be compared to Virgin’s PE. Their PE is effectively their Business class, and certainly BA’s Club beats that, especially seat-wise.

    • Rob says:
      17 Jan17 January 08:40

      You mean Norwegian? Price wise Norwegian is up against WTP, eg £800 to US East Coast.

    • TripRep says:
      17 Jan17 January 09:03

      Nick – Ridiculous comment

      BA market WTP as PE.

      VS PE prices are comparable to BA WTP.

      VS PE is not business class nor do they market it as such.

      • Nick says:
        17 Jan17 January 09:08

        BA has four classes, of which Plus is third from top. Virgin has three. If Upper Class is effectively their First, then my drift becomes more apparent. That’s all!

        • Stuart_f says:
          17 Jan17 January 09:12

          Well Ryanair only has 1 class so using your logic that’s equivalent to First?

          Virgin UC has always been marketed as a J product.

        • AndyW says:
          17 Jan17 January 09:48

          Upper class is business, they simply don’t have a first. Makes comparison straight forward. Personally Upper > ClubWorld and Virgin PE by a distance > WTP.

        • Doug M says:
          17 Jan17 January 13:01

          VS Premium and BA WT+ are clearly the comparable products. UC compares to CW.

        • TripRep says:
          17 Jan17 January 14:06

          Nick – “BA has four classes, of which Plus is third from top. Virgin has three. If Upper Class is effectively their First, then my drift becomes more apparent. That’s all!”

          No it doesn’t, however what does become apparent is your flawed logic. As other comments have alluded to 🙂

      • Jon says:
        17 Jan17 January 13:27

        To be fair it would be easy to imagine that Virgin PE is a different class to WT+ – the fact that they’re trumpeting an upgrade to a product that is still massively inferior to Virgin PE really drives home the difference. It really is the sweet-spot in the Virgin product offering, to the point where, for daytime flights, spending any sort of significant amount of (your own) money upgrading to UC is just stupid.

  • Nick_C says:
    17 Jan17 January 08:43

    I really liked the old BA PE seat. Very comfortable, good recline, lots of space, I could sleep well in it.

    I tried the new seat on a 787 in 2016 on a day flight to Montreal. Hated it. Hard and uncomfortable. The worst thing with the new seat is there is no leg rest, so all your weight is supported by the seat cushion instead of being spread. Never again. If I had to fly PE again, I would try AA or VA.

    • ADS says:
      17 Jan17 January 13:33

      i flew BA WT+ day flight LHR-Tokyo on a 787 in April, so i guess the new seat.

      i found it really uncomfortable – almost felt like the horizontal part of the seat was too long, so my knees were jammed into the seat. as Nick_C says, a foot rest would probably have helped.

  • Michael C says:
    17 Jan17 January 08:59

    We’re quite big WTP users (family of 3).
    Had a “big TV” WTP LGW-Orlando, totally impressed.
    Having said that, in April we had BKK-LHR with a screen smaller than my son’s Amazon Fire: the whole experience was like stepping back a decade.

    • Anthony Edwards says:
      17 Jan17 January 10:58

      We (couple with two young kids) don’t WTP any more.. We think it’s better for us in economy where we can put the arm rests up and the kids can spread out.

  • Mel Saunders says:
    17 Jan17 January 09:16

    Virgin offer but don’t guarantee priority handling of your bags if you travel Premium Economy. At least that what I was told when I queried the fact that our bags were last off the plane after travelling Premium Economy last year.

  • Doug M says:
    17 Jan17 January 09:27

    I know people go round and round on various aspects of different airlines on different classes. But the one I really find stupid is the seat is wider rubbish. “Virgin has a seat 2.5 inch wider than BA” Rob do you believe that? I may have a bridge you might be interested in.

    • Rob says:
      17 Jan17 January 09:59

      Those are the published numbers, I just repeat them.

      • Doug M says:
        17 Jan17 January 10:18

        Which diminishes the value of the real information available on this site.
        You know they’re not 2.5 inches wider. Both are 8 across on the 747, Do Virgin have wider 747s, are the Virgin aisles 10 inches narrower? If anyone paying for Premium honestly thinks their seat will be 2.5 inches wider than a WT+ seat they’re in for a surprise.
        I have no connection with either BA or VS as anything other than a passenger.

        • Rob says:
          17 Jan17 January 11:17

          I only ever once sat in a WTP seat and that was at Virgin’s training centre in Crawley, so my ability to offer first hand comment on this is limited!

        • Doug M says:
          17 Jan17 January 13:17

          I’ve done both, on more than one occasion, but wouldn’t claim to have tried all versions on all possible VS and BA aircraft. For myself with PE it’s choose on price and convenience, they’re just not that different. If it’s going to be Premium vs WT+ there’s not enough differential for any effort in my opinion. I’d probably tilt towards BA simply because of status with them, so I do get a free choice of the better seats anyway.
          Why did Virgin have a WTP seat at their training centre?
          Both airlines have some dedicated crew, and some pretty indifferent ones, I know what you meant 🙂

  • Wapps68 says:
    17 Jan17 January 09:54

    I think your article is wrong on the new seats. The new-new seats installed at LGW are different to the ‘new’ seats on the 380, 787 and 773. Your article suggests that they are the same

    • Rob says:
      17 Jan17 January 09:57

      That’s not what the article says. It says “you will also find a version of” the seat on the other planes – not the same (new) seat.

      • Wapps68 says:
        17 Jan17 January 10:12

        Thank you. I think the confusion is that you say:

        “Regular HFP readers will know that British Airways is rolling out a new World Traveller Plus seat. It is currently being installed on the Boeing 777-200 fleet, initially on the Gatwick aircraft. This is the smart-looking seat you can see in the two photos here.”

        The two photos show the new seat and then the old new seat, not both the new seat.

        • Rob says:
          17 Jan17 January 11:18

          Ah OK, in that case I got confused by what we had in our photo library. It isn’t easy to keep up …

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!