Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

An intriguing hint about the new British Airways Club World business class seat

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

As most Head for Points readers know, British Airways is launching a new Club World business class seat this year.

It will debut on the A350 fleet when they are delivered, with retrofitting commencing at the same time on the Boeing 777 fleet.  By Christmas there will be six aircraft with the new seat.  Oddly, they will not be used to fly on ‘flagship’ routes such as New York because there is no First Class on the A350.

My expectations for the seat are not high.  My money has been, at best, that we get the Iberia seat on their A350 fleet which I reviewed here.  BA has confirmed that the TV will be fixed to the back of the seat in front, which supports the Iberia thesis.  Everything we know about the way British Airways behaves leads to that.

British Airways BA 777X 777 9X

And yet …..

British Airways has launched a questionnaire via its Future Lab customer panel to shape the name of the new seat.

Let’s ignore, for a second, the fact that asking people to suggest names for something that they haven’t seen is not necessarily sensible.

Four concepts are presented:

Name it in a way that describes the product

Name it with a model number, like an iPhone (eg Club World XIX as it will launch in 2019)

Name it using a random word pulled out of the air (eg Club World Vector, Contrail, Ventral)

Name it using an evolutionary phrase (eg New Club World, New Generation Club World)

 Here are the examples for the first option:

This is very interesting.

We have to assume that whoever set this questionnaire has seen the new seat.  This means that ‘Club Suite’, ‘Club World Suite’ and ‘Club World Space’ are being seriously considered as names.

Now, there is chutzpah and there is chutzpah.  I doubt even the most confident marketing guru would call the new Iberia business class seat a ‘suite’.  The same goes for the American Airlines seat.

Yes, they are very impressive.  Yes, I like to fly them and I would be happy if British Airways introduced them, but they are not ‘suites’ in the sense the word is used now.

In 2019, a ‘suite’ on a plane, if you follow the definition used by Qatar Airways with their business class Qsuite:

Qsuite

….. has a door which opens and closes.

See also the new Emirates First Class Suite which – spoiler alert – I am flying on Thursday and am quite excited about:

Emirates First Class Suite Boeing 777

Whilst it seems hard to believe, there is a chance that British Airways is really planning to launch a Club World ‘suite’ with a door.  This is a phrase I never expected to write.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

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

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

25,000 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 – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 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

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

40,000 points sign-up bonus 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

Comments (173)

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

  • Jon Martin says:
    30 Jan30 January 13:21

    Stop dicking around with meaningless names that people not familiar with BA will not understand (“World Traveller”. WTF? this could be literally any class from a private apartment to in the hold.)

    Give your potential new customers the info’ they want when booking. Call them:

    First Class
    Business Class
    Premium Economy
    Economy.

    You’re welcome BA. I expect a consultancy fee of at least £100,000 for this deep market insight.

    • New Card says:
      30 Jan30 January 13:29

      Hear hear!

    • Greg says:
      30 Jan30 January 14:23

      A bit of a side track, but I understand that when Glaxo merged with Smithkline Beechams, they paid consultants around £1 million to come up with the new name GSK. You are pitching too low Jon.

    • David says:
      30 Jan30 January 14:35

      I have had folks asking me if Business is better or worse than First Class, so I don’t think your plan would work. I’d suggest:

      First Class
      Second Class
      Third Class
      Fourth Class

      • gavin says:
        30 Jan30 January 14:37

        First Class
        Tesco Class
        Pleb Class
        Scum Class

      • gavin says:
        30 Jan30 January 14:40

        First Class
        Tesco Class
        Pl€b class
        Scùm class

      • Stuart_f says:
        30 Jan30 January 15:27

        That’s not as daft a question as it might seem. On the Chinese high-speed trains it is the other way around.

        Second class > First class > Business class

        There were a lot of Wendy Wu customers who thought they were getting lie-flat seats with their First class ticket and were really annoyed to find out they were in standard reclining chairs for the 8 hour journey and should have booked Business for the better seat. Thankfully A&K were on the ball and had told us the difference.

        • Alex Sm says:
          30 Jan30 January 16:48

          It’s like with skiing pistes – in Asia and the US the colours are misleading to what we get used to in Europe

        • Alex W says:
          30 Jan30 January 17:10

          And with command levels between police and military. Tactical and Operational levels are the opposite way round. Very confusing

    • Prins Polo says:
      30 Jan30 January 15:15

      +1

    • Bonglim says:
      30 Jan30 January 16:50

      Cochester Hospital decided NOT to use a consultancy firm for it’s name change when it became a foundation trust. Instead it allowed open suggestion and votes from the staff (we all know where this is heading….). anyway the top voted choice was:

      Colchester University Nhs Trust.

      Unsurprisingly the board went in a different direction. (Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust).
      Democracy is the biggest loser.

    • ankomonkey says:
      30 Jan30 January 16:53

      “WTF?” Which World Traveller variant is this?

  • Down the Back says:
    30 Jan30 January 13:21

    Was on a BA flight this morning and mentioned the BA future labs choices for seat name to the CSM, he seemed to think I was on this but I had only seen it on here. He then asked if I had seen the new seat yet, I told him no but that I thought it would be the Iberia seat. He told me that it isn’t that but another one world carrier, after a few guesses he told me that it is the Qsuites, told him I would be very surprised if it was due to cabin density. He then explained that moving forward there will be much less first class seats, small percentage of these are revenue they are more Avios, and various types of upgrade(POUG, AUP, GUF1,GUF2, Staff, Spouses of staff etc) and there will only be 8 1st Class seats on the 777 when they get refitted with the Qsuites and not all 777 will get 1st Class. Also said 747 will not be refitted either. He seemed very plausible and was a 20 year BA employee. Fingers crossed

    • Ian M says:
      30 Jan30 January 13:37

      I would be truly gobsmacked if BA had the Qsuite. The world is not ready for BA to up it’s game that much!

      It would mean their business class product was better than their first class product, which is just silly.

    • Alex says:
      30 Jan30 January 13:41

      Well they can’t refit the 747s, the Upper Deck would have to become 1-1 which is anything but economical. That would be astonishing…

      QSuites is a *MASSIVE* upgrade, that would be wonderful. May you speak the truth!

      • john says:
        30 Jan30 January 17:26

        Who said they had to keep business class on the upper deck?

      • Gavin T says:
        31 Jan31 January 15:27

        747s are being phased out – clearly it will take years as at the peak they had 49 IIRC, but there’s no way they’ll spend millions refitting a 747 now.

    • Nick_C says:
      30 Jan30 January 17:25

      J being better than F would be a problem in the short term, if they had new J and old F on the same plane.

      I’ve only flown once in F. 5 people, 8 seats, four of us on 241 redemptions. (Didn’t talk to the 5th passenger). And on the return F appeared to be empty.

      Who pays to fly First? If you are seriously rich, you probably fly in a private jet. IF BA First has a future, surely it has to be an ultra premium product? Chauffeur connections at both ends, a more luxurious on board service, better privacy, caviar, better washrooms. And – dare I say this – no reward availability!

      I don’t imagine anyone paying for a F ticket would be happy to learn that a fellow passenger was flying for £600 + points.

      More J seats, paid for, with higher occupancy (achieved through service improvements) is probably the more profitable option on most routes.

      • john says:
        30 Jan30 January 17:27

        Company paid for it once from NY when it was cheaper than J

      • Chris L says:
        30 Jan30 January 17:58

        ‘No reward availability’ only makes sense if every seat on every flight is always sold out. Reward seats in F are those BA doesn’t reckon it will sell. They’d rather a loyal customer be rewarded in return for some of their hard-earned Avios. I wouldn’t mind paying a higher Avios price for a genuinely special experience, which is what F should be.

        • Nick_C says:
          30 Jan30 January 19:51

          Upgrade genuinely loyal customers. I’m not a loyal customer. I have no status. I only fly BA on redemptions. Much as I enjoyed my F experience, I would have thought it would make better business sense to offer free or cheap upgrades to people who have achieved Gold on BA flights.

          Avios isn’t really a frequent flyer scheme. You can easily accumulate a large Avios bslance without flying.

      • Sussex bantam says:
        30 Jan30 January 20:42

        I’ve paid for F. Was £400 more expensive than CW AND turned the ticket into a fully flex

  • Anna says:
    30 Jan30 January 14:10

    I don’t know a 777 from a 350, but I will hopefully be booking 3 CW redemption seats to a US city (flexible on destination of course!) at the end of April, to travel mid April 2020. Can anyone tell which routes, if any, will feature the new seat by that point?

    • Anna says:
      30 Jan30 January 14:15

      BTW, I’m not being lazy, I’ve honestly tried to learn what the different planes are but I guess I’m just technically minded enough for it to sink in!

    • Doug M says:
      30 Jan30 January 14:32

      So far out you’re reliant on luck, except most guesses are not NYC as A350 won’t have First. Avoid secondary choices too, where they use 787. So no Lauderdale, New Orleans, Pittsburg, BWI or Nashville. But really you’ll have to be pretty lucky I reckon to bag a new seat on random chance that far out.

      • Anna says:
        30 Jan30 January 15:31

        Thanks Doug – ordinary CW is still very much a treat for us so it’s not the end of the world!

    • Anna says:
      30 Jan30 January 19:38

      It’s on my bucket list Nick but has so far been logistically impossible!

    • Alan says:
      30 Jan30 January 23:00

      I’d still love to try this but unfortunately both times I was booked on it the flight got cancelled due to engine issues 🙁

    • Leo says:
      30 Jan30 January 23:07

      Careful what you wish for – we don’t know what it is yet!

    • Alex D says:
      31 Jan31 January 16:29

      Is it possible to use a BA 241 Voucher for this?

  • Greg says:
    30 Jan30 January 14:25

    About ‘effin time too. Having flown a Turkish 777 to Chicago in business with a configuration 1-1-1-1 BA.s forward/backward 2-2-2-2 is an absolute joke.

    • Doug M says:
      30 Jan30 January 14:33

      So fly Turkish.

    • AlexT says:
      30 Jan30 January 15:12

      Turkish doesn’t have any such config… they are only getting reverse herringbone seats on the 787 and A350s, which haven’t started arriving yet.

  • Tom says:
    30 Jan30 January 14:51

    BA manages to fill its “dense” CW cabins with very good load factors, so it would be insane for BA to halve the number of CW seats, which it would have to in order to have a “luxurious” 1-2-1 CW layout.

    People buy the existing CW seats so I just don’t see anything that reduces revenues. CW’s seat is good enough for most paying passengers,

  • John Doe says:
    30 Jan30 January 15:40

    Well, I hope you loose your BA Futurelab access. I was wondering why they sent a reminder to keep things private …

    • David says:
      30 Jan30 January 15:49

      Rob has stated on many occasions that he’s not in BA Futurelab.

      • Rob says:
        30 Jan30 January 16:47

        I’m not. We see virtually everything. Remember when we got the scoop on the design of the new VS credit cards because a reader got a tour of the manufacturing plant?

        I have the full details on BA’s 1st Feb ‘big announcement’ now but tempted to not publish tomorrow to show willing.

    • Alan says:
      30 Jan30 January 22:56

      Lose not loose. Rob already said he doesn’t have access and was sent it.

  • Mark says:
    30 Jan30 January 16:19

    Someones Upset BA!

    Dear Members,

    Unfortunately it’s been brought to our attention that there has been a breach of our Non Disclosure Agreement, with privileged content from our recent Club World activity having been shared outside this community.

    • Anna says:
      30 Jan30 January 19:40

      I wouldn’t be as upset about that as about the massive customer data breach…

      • Alan says:
        30 Jan30 January 23:02

        Quite! They seem more bothered about this than all the customer data they didn’t properly look after!

  • Mark says:
    30 Jan30 January 16:47

    Seaty McSeatface

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.

NEW: Sign-up bonuses boosted to 3,000 and 18,000 points

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

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

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

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? SPECIAL OFFER TO 12TH MAY EARN POINTS WORTH 30,000 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

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!