My experience with the new British Airways lounge catering
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I was in the British Airways Terminal 5 lounges last week for the first time since the change of caterers to BaxterStorey.
The new contract – combined with what appears to be a massive budget cut – has led to much passenger anguish, as I reported here.
I arrived at the Galleries Club North lounge at around 9.45am. And, to be honest, what I found was pretty much unchanged from what was there before.
The cereals were still there:
The fruit and yoghurt were still there:
The bacon sandwiches had disappeared, but had been replaced by an expanded selection of pastries:
There was, luckily, no sign of the gloop, which I believe only emerges at noon:
So, all in all, it was what I expected and actually better than I was led to believe.
However, it is fair to say that:
Galleries Club catering has not been downgraded as much as Galleries First or the Concorde Room
Breakfast is the least changed meal of all
I also understand that the bacon rolls are available if you arrive earlier, but are now withdrawn at about 9.30am. They were previously available for at least another hour. It is also fair to say that bacon sandwiches are not necessarily a better or worse option than pastries!
You can continue to track the problems with BA’s lounge catering over at the BA Lounge Food website.
Tomorrow I will write about the purpose of my trip, which was to compare British Airways domestic services with the new Virgin Atlantic Little Red flights.
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As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!
There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

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The Platinum Card from American Express
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You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

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