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British Airways trialling short-haul food pre-ordering in Europe

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British Airways has launched a trial which allows Economy passengers on European short-haul flights to pre-order food.

The criteria for taking part in the trial seems, ahem, eclectic – the person who sent me the details has no short-haul flights booked at all!  Going through the booking process, it appears to be restricted to one daily flight to Malaga and one to Krakow.

British Airways food pre-order short haul

As you can see from the image above – click to enlarge – you do not have the full choice of the menu and must select from three meal deals.  I am guessing that this is an attempt to increase the average order value.

If you are invited onto the trial, your meal is free so do give it a go if you are on the relevant flights.  It isn’t clear why it was emailed to people who are not on the relevant flights though.

PS.  If you missed it, take a look at our recent article on the top 10 benefits of the ‘no fee’ British Airways American Express credit card.


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.

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.

Comments (267)

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

  • Coucou says:

    OT: Booking a Hotel only from the BA website – does it qualify for the AMEX 3000 avios bonus for £300 BA spend?

  • paulm says:

    On the subject of Heathrow rewards, this may be old news but not something I had seen. You can now transfer points to miles and more again, just did it over the weekend

  • Charlieface says:

    If somebody can quite explain to me why rail lines cost so much I’d love to know.
    I suppose it starts by using expensive consultants to do feasability reports when it could probably be done cheaper in-house, and carries on with the exorbitant cost of land (sold off cheap by BRB) which apparently gets an uplift of theoretical planning permission even if it’s in the green belt. Still, it’s really ridiculous how much engineering costs in this country.

  • Graham says:

    OT re Curve

    I have read in the comments that folks use Curve to pay Brighton. I seemed to have missed that but wondered if it’s still doable. I’m reading the latest with Revolut so want to proceed with caution.

    Have a Virgin and Hilton Barclaycard at our disposal and wondered if this was still a viable option? Many thanks.

    • Doug M says:

      I think the card Curve is linked to is a big factor. Do a £100 and see what happens?

      • Anup says:

        I understand that the VS card shows cash advance fees straight away when the transaction is made (if applicable) so should be easy to test.

    • Tom says:

      There is still 1 place in Brighton that accepts Curve cards that are backed with a CC…

    • ash says:

      Yes, you can pay Amex, so pay with Amex and then double dip with Curve and IHG or Hilton is best

    • Aston100 says:

      I never properly understood the whole manufactured spend thing, nor it’s viability let alone the moral ambiguity surrounding it.

      • Rob says:

        Load £500 per day from points credit card to Revolut, withdraw £500 per day from Revolut to bank account ….

        • Brighton Belle says:

          Then get warned off and shut down

          • Don says:

            But who cares? What is there to miss about Revolut? What does it do that isn’t replicated elsewhere and by a bank or FinTech that isn’t as shady as they are?

            The only people complaining are those who missed the manufactured spend party.

          • Rob says:

            After doing £150,000+ …. (not me, but people I know)

          • Grant says:

            What would replicate Revolut’s payment facility, effectively being able to send a bank transfer with funds topped up by credit card?

      • Graham says:

        Not really bothered with morality when it comes to paying a financial institution with another financial institution. They will all be paid. Apparently quite normal in the US.

      • The Urbanite says:

        It’s a game of cat and mouse really. It’s only viable as a long term strategy if you can innovate and continue to find new routes when existing ones get shut down, which happens regularly.

  • DW says:

    The 1810 AY flight was actually an A350 when I took it on Sunday night. Very last minute change since the seat map earlier in the day was definitely the 1/2-2-1 configuration of the A330. Sadly the onward flight from HEL was an old A330…

    • riku2 says:

      The A350/A330 are used for HEL-LHR because they would otherwise sit at HEL between flights to Asia. But if the flight back from Asia is late then they swap the aircraft for a different one to avoid delaying the HEL-LHR flight.
      But this means the equipment can change at the last minute from A350 -> A330 or VV.

  • marcw says:

    It’s a zombie airline… essentially.

    • BJ says:

      What I don’t get is why the model doesn’t work, instinctively the feeling us that the concept is fine. Is it just down to repeated bad management, or just failing efforts to dig it out of a hole? Now seems best just to let it go and open the door for others to start from scratch.

      • Shoestring says:

        not enough money coming in, would be the first point – is the overhead covered x times?

        capacity/ demand/ pricing & profitability: are the planes big enough? is there enough demand for the chosen routes at the typical pricepoint (esp vs alternatives)?

    • Brian W says:

      Please stop using this phrase. It’s pathetic and you’ve said it about 10 times already.

      • Lady London says:

        It’s a zombie airline.

        That finance industry phrase was invented for this.

        Having said that, transport from the regions, especially Exeter, would be more improved by tossing money at Flybe than by HS2.

  • Joe Green says:

    OT: Revolut situation.
    If MCC code is now wire transfer can I use my Curve Debit card backed with Virgin CC and avoid the cash advance or will Curve now be passing on the MCC code of wire transfer so will still be treated as a cash advance?

    • Grant says:

      Hitherto known as ‘double bagging’ 🙂

    • TGLoyalty says:

      Curve know the MCC from the original source so makes no difference.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        meant to say

        “Curve know the MCC from the original source and pass it on to the underlying card so makes no difference.”

  • ADS says:

    Food pre-ordering

    Years ago I pre-ordered a breakfast on Aer Lingus (i’d had it before and it was really good)
    On my flight they unfortunately didn’t have it in stock
    It took me about 3 years to get a refund
    I will never pre order food on a short haul flight again – with any airline !

    • Alex M says:

      3 yrs? LOL. How much time did you spend on this – 20 hours in total?

      • Shoestring says:

        it’s the principle

        I spent about 5hrs or something like that fighting some seller on Amazon who only sent me 1 duvet set in a package when I’d ordered 2. He was adamant there were 2 in the package, I knew it was only 1.

        He’d even paid the postage weight of 2 duvets, so I imagine one of his staff pinched one of them before sealing the package (it wasn’t tampered with on arrival). He couldn’t bring himself to believe there was a fault his end of the operation so that was a long fight, which I won in the end 🙂

      • ADS says:

        probably not quite that much time – i would forget about it for six months, and then send another email demanding refund !

        but yes, i did eventually get to the stage when i felt that they needed to be punished !!

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