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You can buy British Airways First Class crockery and bedding: the sale is now live

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And now, from Waterside …. it’s the Sale of the Century!*

Over the course of the last few months lots of airlines have been selling off their excess stock of amenity kits, snacks and even entire (stocked) bar carts.

Whilst some of BA’s catering partners have sold off their stock (such as the Speedbird IPA by Brewdog and Pickering’s Centenary Gin) British Airways has not sold anything directly …. until now.

BA First Afternoon Tea William Edwards crockery

British Airways is selling a number of items from the First Class service including a range of bedding and crockery. In the press release it said:

“Although the at-home experience is no match for the real thing, customers or collectors can pick up items such as William Edwards plates, soup bowls, cups, saucers and even a butter dish for reasonable prices, allowing them to create an authentic First Class dining experience at home.”

Bread baskets, hot towels (which arrive cold!), hot towel plates, champagne flutes, coasters and the Club World casserole dish are also be available, as will the First Class slippers and day blanket.

All of the crockery and bedding is brand new, for clarity!

William Edwards crockery British Airways First class

Why is BA selling First Class stock?

Given none of the items listed are perishable, you would think that BA would be happy to hold on to them rather than sell them.

It would not be the first time BA sells off excess stock. Staff sales are a semi-regular occurrence at HQ; Covid-19 may just have pushed this online.

There are a few reasons why BA might have chosen to liquidate its stock:

BA thinks it can raise some cash from the sale of the items, which can only be positive given the flying outlook for the winter;

The retirement of the 747 fleet and the significant reduction in available First Class seats means BA now has an abundance of crockery and bedding, more than it can realistically make use of in the coming years;

The lack of flying in the past months means that breakage has significantly reduced, leaving BA with a mountain of items;

It plans to introduce a new service in the near future (this is, I accept, very unlikely given the current situation and the fact that the William Edwards crockery is only 18 months old!)

Anything off the trolley dears?

The sale is now live and it turns out that the range of items is far more eclectic than we first expected …..

In addition to the family china, British Airways is also selling a range of general items, where you can buy stuff such as aircraft catering boxes or a waste top loader trolley for £150!

Notably absent, however, are amenity kits or first pyjamas.

The bargain of the day? You could get a set of 6 larger (28cm) dinner plates for £5! However, it turned out that this was a BA IT error and it should have read £50 ….!

How to buy

Looking at stock sales by other airlines, these items are likely to sell out fast.

The link to buy is here, and is now live. Click on ‘British Airways’ in the menu bar.

Let us know what you manage to pick up! If you want to use your British Airways American Express to pay, select PayPal as your payment option as Amex is not accepted directly.

We have bought a few items which we intend to give away in a reader competition in a few weeks.

*We know this is a misquote. You can see the Sale of the Century title sequence here, featuring a brief glimpse of a BA aircraft in Negus livery.


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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.

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Comments (438)

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

  • Ned says:

    Haven’t received mine yet – think delivery says 2-3 working days so if order placed on Monday afternoon then potentially that gives them until tomorrow if i’m kind! I wonder if the real reason behind this sale has been missed. Might be a bit to do with destocking, certainly isn’t to raise money as some lazy news outlets are suggesting as it won’t even touch the sides. I wonder if it’s now obvious that people will be thinking about holidays after Easter and through to the end of the year following the vaccine announcements so it’s actually a great way to get people feeling nostalgic who are then likely to think about getting their next trip booked up. Unfortunately i think my twice rebooked trip to the US/Latin America might come too soon as it’s over Easter 🙁

    • simpletastes says:

      Yes, I’m amused news outlets think they are doing this to raise funds as it would make no difference in the big scheme of things. And they could have priced the items at much higher prices. But then again I’m not sure why they sold the art, which wouldn’t make much of a difference, either. Maybe optics.

      • Lady London says:

        Just take it at face value. They are just literally clearing their warehouse of items they don’t need.

        The marketing fillip offered by ‘British Airways’ and ‘First Class’ has been the marketing bonus for them. It has gone around the world, including to former colonies the USA etc., and to places like China with longstanding trading history. Lots of aspirational or already-made-it people worldwide have been locked up for months. Some in UK and Europe had just gone into a further lockdown.

        I am sure the marketing impact of this has exceeded even British Airways’s wildest dreams.

  • Andrew says:

    I’m trying to contact them via the webform but that just results in an ‘undeliverable’ email being sent to me from them. Don’t really understand how we can get in contact with them to discuss a problem with an item.

    • Stuart says:

      I used the ‘contact us’ link on the website. Only received half an order and neither items were what I ordered 🙂

      • Andrew says:

        Tried that about 6 times. Just emails me afterwards saying undeliverable. Concluded that there’s no way to contact them.

  • BlueThroughCrimp says:

    First order at 10:46 on Monday, and no sign of order other than confirmation pdf and Paypal transaction going through.
    It’s showing as Kuehne+Nagel for the Paypal payment so I have a bit of faith that it should work out in the end.

  • Kate says:

    I placed a couple of orders first thing on Monday morning but had not received any confirmation that they were being sent. I had emailed them on the email confirmation yesterday at enquiries@whatabuy.co.uk and they replied to me this afternoon and it came from the kuehne & nagel email. They have got my orders in the warehouse but they have been deluged and therefore it will take time for it to be sent out but at least I have been able to contact them.

  • johnny_c-l says:

    BA first mugs arrived today, ordered 8.45am Monday. DPD send out an email the day before delivery, so they are getting through these orders.

  • Jon says:

    I received a DPD tracking number, I ordered about 45 mins after launch.

  • Graeme says:

    Things are coming back into stock – I ordered an insulated box last night that was out of stock. A friend picked up some champagne flutes which were out of stock when he first glanced last night, then back in a while later. Keep looking if you’re after something.

  • Stuart B says:

    Got a tracking number from Whatajoke (oops *Whatabuy) last night, but not recognised by DPD.

    Reminds me why I don’t use most online retailers regardless of saving a few quid. Painful!

    Still no response from them on merging with my second order, so I guess I’m paying for delivery twice!

    • Alison says:

      It took around 24 hours before my tracking number came up as recognised on the DPD site and then another 24 hours before it was reported as received and in transit…have now been notified of my 1 hour delivery slot today. Fingers crossed they’ve sent the correct items!

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