See the ‘Pay with Avios’ for food and drink prices

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As a follow up to my main story below on charging for food and drink on board, BA has now sent me some sample ‘pay with Avios’ prices:

Mature cheddar cheese ploughman’s – £3 or 375 Avios

Lightly salted hand cooked crisps – £1 or 125 Avios

Water – £1.80 or 225 Avios

Tea or coffee – £2.30 or 300 Avios

G&T (Anika, please note 🙂 ) – £6 or 750 Avios

Wine – £4.50 or 575 Avios

It could have been less generous, I suppose. At around 0.8p per point there are worse ways to spend your points (but obviously far better ways too).

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

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:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

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

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a 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, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

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:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios 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.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

@alastairtravel says:

29 Sep29 September 14:26

Personally I dislike the overall concept but I think the pay with Avios while not great value is a very good softener for passengers.

It will also encourage more people to join the Executive Club which BA will be very happy with from a marketing / data point of view.

Even if you are not interested in saving for flights – on many flights you take you would effectively have a ‘free’ sandwich or drink.

Probably not very interesting for readers of this forum, but I can see this going down well with the occasional traveller or even the regular traveller not bothered about redemptions.
- Andrew says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 18:59
  
  Just a thought but does this give avios a hard value that HMRC may be able to use to value them as a taxable benefit? In the past they were hard to give a value as taxes needed paying and the cost of the redeemed service was so variable.
  - Guy says:
    
    29 Sep29 September 23:06
    
    But didn’t HMRC start taxing rebates from investment brokers?
Clive says:

29 Sep29 September 14:33

Not looking good in the Industry

http://loyaltylobby.com/2016/09/29/air-berlin-board-of-directors-confirms-company-restructuring-fleet-shrinks-to-75-planes/
Barry cutters says:

29 Sep29 September 17:27

I love percy pigs
- Rob says:
  
  29 Sep29 September 18:39
  
  Colin The Caterpillar. What I miss most about banking is that when someone had a birthday (one every 10 days) they would head down to the More London M&S and buy a couple of Colin The Caterpillars.
Kian says:

29 Sep29 September 17:37

Just called them regarding on a few economy short haul flights I booked in advance for next year. The assistant offered 1,000 Avios per passenger per booking. I am not able to cancel them and book with other airlines since the flight prices on other airlines are roughly the same as what I paid or even more expensive now.
Scott Rice says:

29 Sep29 September 17:52

It’s a disgrace – they are penny pinching everywhere now – pay for luggage (even if gold); pay for seats; pay for food and now for a bottle of water.

I like using avios on short hall breaks etc.

The lounge is going to be full of people ‘panic stocking’ for the flight.

Soon scratch cards !?!?
Will says:

29 Sep29 September 20:23

If they take it a step further maybe it could be a good thing.
1. Widen the food selection
2. Allow you to pre order and pay in advance
3. They simply bring you your order to your seat with no faffing about.

They need to genuinely make the quality something worth charging for and get around the stress in the cabin of payments.

I also think they should offer free drinks,
Clive says:

29 Sep29 September 22:15

Will the next step be restricted lounge access like in the US?
Jim says:

29 Sep29 September 23:07

I actually think BoB will make my weekly shuttle runs more entertaining. Filling an empty coke bottle with 2 cans of the Cornish beer in the GF lounge. Lift one of the loo rolls too. Hell why not hey? If BA are going to be petty I will be too. EU261 when applicable ? I’ll claim instead of taking the view that flying is public transport and I won’t always arrive on time. Treat me like a thick piece of meat and I’ll behave like a cow. Moo moo.