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Get 100 Avios via your BA Amex when you try BA’s ‘Speedbird Cafe’ or pre-order duty free

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In early 2021, British Airways made the unexpected announcement that it would be improving the food and drink in Euro Traveller (short haul economy).

This involved the re-introduction of free water and a small snack for all passengers. Alongside this would be a brand new pre-order menu for heartier items and drinks called ‘Speedbird Cafe’, with selected items curated by chef Tom Kerridge.

If you’ve never given this a go, a modest bribe of 100 Avios for a £10 spend is currently available on many (all?) British Airways American Express cards. You need to opt-in via the ‘Offers’ tab in the Amex app or website.

British Airways Eurotraveller Tom Kerridge steak and ale pie

Travelling long haul?

‘Speedbird Cafe’ is only available for short haul economy flights.

However, the Amex offer is also valid for pre-orders of duty free items on long haul flights via highlifeshop.com. This includes fragrances, tobacco and alcohol.

How does ‘Speedbird Cafe’ work?

Due to the legacy IT systems used by BA, adding ancillary products such as meal pre-orders during a flight booking is quite difficult.

You can pre-order your meal on the High Life Shop website here after you have booked your flights. You must pre-order at least 24 hours prior to departure.

The ordering process itself is fairly simple. You add in your flight number and personal details and British Airways will automatically match your order up to your booking. You don’t need to know your booking reference.

You add items to your bag and check out, just as with any other online order.

The service is only available to passenger travelling in short-haul economy.

Rhys tried out ‘Speedbird Cafe’ last Spring and you can read his review of the process here. Whilst his Tom Kerridge steak and ale pie looked a bit different from the PR image above:

Speedbird Cafe Tom Kerridge British Airways steak ale pie

…. he was genuinely happy with it.

My own attempt to try it out in February came to grief. My pie had barely been cooked and was cold inside. With no spare pies loaded, the crew gave me a Club Europe meal tray instead. The refund I was promised never arrived.

How does the American Express offer work?

This is the offer you are looking for on the Amex website:

American Express High Life shop offer

The only bits of small print to note are:

  • the offer is not cumulative – you need to spend over £10 in one transaction
  • you can earn the bonus multiple times until 6th June

‘Speedbird Cafe’ is not bargain priced, so spending £10 will be easier than you think.

If you are travelling long-haul, spending £10 on pre-ordered duty free fragrance, alcohol or tobacco is not a problem. If you are buying multiple items, it may be worth placing separate orders to trigger multiple bonuses.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 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.

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You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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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.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (56)

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

  • Gordon says:
    7 May7 May 08:17

    Pre order duty free yes, Pie No, Not worth the risk of getting a sub standard pie and going through the hassle of bringing it to the attention of cabin crew (Who seem to be struggling with providing an expected service as it is).

  • DanW says:
    7 May7 May 08:31

    I was told 2 days ago, when just about to tap my BA Amex on the reader, that they don’t accept Amex any more. I pointed out the irony that I was trying to pay with a BA Amex. They wouldn’t let me use it saying that Amex doesn’t work well offline and I had to use my Visa.

    • Mike says:
      7 May7 May 10:17

      What ! BA don’t accept the BA Amex card – that is ridiculous

      • Nick says:
        7 May7 May 10:45

        Onboard sales aren’t handled by BA though, it’s all Tourvest. BA has nothibg to do with it. Although the crew member was indeed wrong, it’s only Amex contactless that doesn’t work, if you insert the card (or use Apple Pay) it’s fine.

        • Mike says:
          7 May7 May 12:03

          But surely the Cabin crew member should know that ! I am trusting that person to carry out life saving actions in the event of an emergency so I would hope they would be aware of the “simpler / more straightforward “ actions of accepting payment types for buy on board or are my expectations too high ?

          • yorkieflyer says:
            7 May7 May 16:10

            Just sort of hoping you don’t have a swipe card reader on the emergency exit…

  • L Allen says:
    7 May7 May 08:59

    If you forget to preorder, your Amex will not be accepted on board as their machines don’t work with Amex cards.

  • Nick says:
    7 May7 May 09:12

    Sorry, that pie picture is of the one you were happy with, and not the one still waiting on a refund? It seems that the house style is to add a ‘genuinely’ or ‘honestly’ to statements in place of a knowing wink 😂

    It might be better just to be genuine and honest the rest of the time, come what may with partners.

    • Rob says:
      7 May7 May 09:47

      The picture is the one that Rhys ate (very happily).

      • RussellH says:
        7 May7 May 10:20

        Surely Rhys has better taste than to eat a picture?
        🙂

      • Nick says:
        7 May7 May 10:30

        It’s a great picture.
        Zoom in and look at the pastry lid. It’s not cooked correctly, instead of a crispy flakiness it’s a stodgy and damp mix of butter and flour under the very top layer of flake, looking more like an apple crumble filling.
        If that’s the level we are very happy with, it might be worth a recalibration.

  • Gary Sharp says:
    7 May7 May 10:43

    I have tried booking speedbird cafe 3 times now on domestic flights. One arrived as planned, albeit late in the flight as they serve business first. The other two either didn’t arrive, or arrived with missing items. With the completely missing one, the crew were good and found us snacks and champagne to compensate (I had my booking email printed and with me). The other came with no gin – I had ordered the premium gin, and when I complained the FA acted as if I was lying and eventually offered me a complimentary Gordons. It was only when I dug my laptop out and showed her the order, that another FA got me the correct gin.

    It’s a terrible service, and 100 Avios wouldn’t tempt me to use it again.

    • yorkieflyer says:
      7 May7 May 16:12

      Just fly from a Northern airport, they nearly all now have a Greggs so no need to pre order your baked goods

      • Chrisasaurus says:
        8 May8 May 01:57

        Or fly from the south and replace greggs with Pret 🙂

        • Londonsteve says:
          9 May9 May 13:38

          Pret is three times the price of Greggs while being only 50% better. Greggs wins VFM hands down.

    • Londonsteve says:
      9 May9 May 13:45

      I used the Speedbird Cafe service once. Because it was paid with someone else’s card, the crew were unable to deliver the order to my seat so I had to go to the galley to chase it. The booking page initially harvests the passenger details but it seems that the payment data then overrides this. An amateurish system considering it should be tracking a specific passenger who might miss their flight due to the late arrival of a BA plane they are connecting. The overall concept is pretty poor – passengers expect a broad selection available on a flight for spur of the moment purchases. All the LCCs seem to manage to load well-stocked refreshment trolleys, so why not BA?

  • Based In London says:
    7 May7 May 10:44

    Hopefully you will receive your order. Last week 4 items pre-ordered LHR-Faro, but 2 hadn’t been loaded and 2 had disappeared from the crew’s version of the order. Last December 2 items ordered but only 1 was loaded. In both cases requested a refund and the reply was the same “can gladly re-route your order or have it added to your next order should you be flying with us anytime soon”. Had to request again for a refund for the missing items.

    • Richard G says:
      7 May7 May 11:20

      Yes, same experience here. Couldn’t even get them to sort the refund for me directly, I had to contact an email address they gave me.

  • Richard G says:
    7 May7 May 11:20

    They’ve failed to deliver my items twice (out of four orders).

    I wont be in a rush to use them again.

  • PP says:
    7 May7 May 11:38

    “Due to the legacy IT systems”

    I don’t buy it. Years ago you used to be able to order in BA Economy specific dietary based versions of meals e.g. Vegetarian, kosher etc., well in advance.

    They had the IT then, so why not now?

    • ChrisC says:
      7 May7 May 12:11

      That’s because the meals were free and from a limikted list so there didn’t need to be things like a charging module involved.

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