Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

British Airways cuts Club World meal service for departures after 9pm

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

Yesterday we covered the bizarre new breakfast / brunch service that British Airways is serving for lunch on long haul flights departing up to 11.29am.

It pairs a cooked breakfast with wine, a cheeseboard, coffee and liqueurs. Those who have tried it are finding it as odd as it sounds.

On the upside, you are at least still getting a three course meal of sorts. This is no longer the case for Club World departures after 9pm.

BA cuts Club World meal service for departures after 9pm

‘Institutional memory’ is ‘the collective knowledge, experience, and expertise of an organization. It includes the information, processes, best practices, and lessons learned that help an organization function effectively and make informed decisions’.

I mention this because, about 20 years ago, British Airways launched something called ‘Sleeper Service’. It stripped down the Club World business class food service to the bare minimum, on the grounds that most people wanted to sleep on overnight flights and those who didn’t could starve. It was a failure, launching the catchphrase ‘To Fly, To Starve’ and was abandoned. This is despite the fact that it only operated from airports where BA had pre-flight lounge dining.

Multiple rounds of staff departures at British Airways later, everyone who remembers the failure of ‘Sleeper Service’ seems to have left and a version of it is back. This time it is on virtually all routes, irrespective of whether the lounge offers a full meal.

What is now served on Club World departures after 9pm?

The menu has been pared back sharply:

  • appetisers have been scrapped
  • main courses and desserts are massively simplified

Here is an example menu currently in use:

Main courses

  • Butternut squash and coconut soup
  • Grilled tiger prawn salad
  • Chicken and leek pie
  • Cheese and crackers

Dessert

  • Panna cotta
  • Fruit salad
  • Chocolate chip cookies

…. and that’s it.

Bizarrely the menu says at the top:

“Take your pick from an assortment of seasonal dishes. If you’re feeling tired and can’t wait to cosy down, then just choose your main and dessert and a night cap of your choice”.

However, you have no option but to have just a main and dessert because that’s all there is! The appetisers are gone.

This new service has been rolled out on virtually all long-haul routes. The only exceptions are 12+ hour flights. It is, apparently, being used on Cape Town and Mauritius which are over 11 hours.

The airline argues that a ‘one tray’ meal service will allow passengers to get to sleep more quickly. The problem is that British Airways ALREADY offered a stripped down ‘one tray’ option on late night Club World flights. Those who wanted to eat and sleep could have the ‘one tray’ meal whilst those who didn’t could – until last week – have the standard full menu.

It isn’t clear what is offered in First Class. I believe that the menu has also been cut back but bears more resemblance to a proper meal.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 70,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (June 2025)

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

Get 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 Card

30,000 Avios and the famous annual Companion Voucher voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express Credit Card

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 Credit Card

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

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn points worth 0.8 Avios per £1 on the FREE standard card and 1 Avios per £1 on the Pro card. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 0.8 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business Card

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.

The American Express Business Platinum Card

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

The American Express Business Gold Card

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 (477)

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

  • Ruralite says:
    22 Oct22 October 14:17

    I’ve thought for a while now British Airways should just rename themselves Bl**dy Awful and be done with it. The old Hale & Pace Yorkshire Airlines parody could be BA nowadays

    • Dubious says:
      22 Oct22 October 14:36

      Perhaps they should just remodel themselves like ZipAir. Modern Business class seat, but nothing else. Add-ons ordered in advance only?

    • HampshireHog says:
      22 Oct22 October 15:05

      Huh at least you got a proper fish and chip meal on Yorkshire Airways

  • John says:
    22 Oct22 October 14:22

    Mmm, World beating!

  • danimal says:
    22 Oct22 October 14:38

    I wonder if their “data” is showing them that passengers are just not eating huge meals after 9pm? They may be wasting lots of meals.

    It would make sense, but they could have been so much cleverer about this:

    1. Allow orders to be placed before boarding – e.g. express meal or full service (or “I don’t know”) – that way they don’t need to waste meals.

    2. Improve the “Club kitchen” – I quite often don’t want a 3-course meal at 11pm BUT am peckish at whatever time it is I wake up mid-flight. Something more substantial than popcorn would be great.

    • NorthernLass says:
      22 Oct22 October 15:49

      You mean a similar model to the one they had pre-Covid 🤷‍♀️🙄

      • Daniel says:
        22 Oct22 October 16:53

        Yes! Or speed things up even more with ordering via the IFE rather than waiting on someone to come round and take your order on a piece of paper.

        They’d free up a crew member to preparing meals and drinks and make everyone’s lives simpler.

        It would also democratise ordering – i.e. first come, first served, rather than the back of the cabin having to wait FOREVER for an order.

    • JDB says:
      22 Oct22 October 17:17

      The ‘Club Kitchen’ worked very well for many years and was fully stocked and replenished with all sorts of high quality products until at some point a bunch of freeloaders started filling bags of stuff so they stopped it and it’s now just a vestigial offering. Well done the thieves.

      • James says:
        22 Oct22 October 18:32

        @JDB evidence?

        • Tariq says:
          22 Oct22 October 18:47

          You don’t need evidence when you have moral superiority! 🤣

        • JDB says:
          23 Oct23 October 01:19

          BA cabin crew and managers plus I saw it in action once. I think it was called ‘raid the larder’ then and some nice people took that too literally. Good quality ‘honesty bar’ type concepts have become increasingly untenable in many scenarios these days.

          • Londonsteve says:
            23 Oct23 October 03:36

            Once. That’s hardly a routine occurrence. Realistically how many business travellers or people spending a large chunk of their own cash in the J cabin are going to fill up their hand luggage with packets of crisps and sandwiches, particularly if there’s a good chance they’ll be seen doing so by the cabin crew? 0.01% of passengers if I had to guess.

          • Bervios says:
            23 Oct23 October 08:37

            I have vague memories of that happening on the 747 fleet when PE was situated in between First and Club IIRC

  • berneslai says:
    22 Oct22 October 15:27

    Just to query the tone of these two stories Rob – you don’t think these changes will stick around for long?

    • Rob says:
      22 Oct22 October 16:16

      Historically changes like this have been scrapped in the face of passenger feedback. The fact that even the national press are now nicking our story word for word with no credit (not that I’m bitter) will encourage its demise.

      • Fuggi says:
        24 Oct24 October 09:33

        Can you not complain/claim plagiarism?

        • Rob says:
          24 Oct24 October 09:46

          We all ‘borrow’ from each other, it’s part of the system. This very article you’re commenting on is obviously 100% cribbed from third parties given that I haven’t been on a late evening Club World flight in the last 9 days. Some other journalist will then use my article to write theirs.

  • ashic says:
    22 Oct22 October 15:32

    Surely nobody wants to be consuming alcohol or caffeine before sleeping. Sean Doyle must be eyeing that up as the next things to target!

    • LittleNick says:
      22 Oct22 October 16:20

      I enjoy a whisky before I sleep, some say it helps

      • meta says:
        22 Oct22 October 16:25

        Some people are immune to caffeine. My partner can sleep like a baby after a cup of coffee.

        • LittleNick says:
          22 Oct22 October 16:29

          Exactly, soon BA will have no food or drink or IFE and just be a flying bus with either seats or beds the way it’s going. They should put Leary in charge if that’s the aim, least they might depart/arrive on time that way

          • Jonathan says:
            22 Oct22 October 19:01

            That’s pretty much already the case if you go to Egypt, Jordan Isreal (when it comes back) with BA…

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      22 Oct22 October 17:50

      Speak for yourself!

  • Ren says:
    22 Oct22 October 16:10

    Is ba heading straight into the ground? Been trying to book a multi city trip thru their site for the last 5 days and it fails every time. What a pile of garbage.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      22 Oct22 October 17:54

      For multi city I’d create options using google flights then call.

      That part of the website has never been good. Though the BAHols option does work.

  • JDB says:
    22 Oct22 October 16:55

    Pre-selection actually caused far more complaints and creates greater logistical issues for last minute aircraft swaps. It’s not that popular with passengers per utilisation when offered.

  • Russell G says:
    22 Oct22 October 16:57

    Out of interest, do you have a direct contact in the BA press / marketing office (or even management)? I’d have thought a website of your size directly targeting BA’s customers would be high up on BA’s radar. If so, do you reach out to them for comment when publishing articles like this? I’d be interested to know how the other side of the story goes given this seems so one sided (or would they be too embarrassed to admit if it’s purely done in the name of cost cutting?).

    • Sarah says:
      22 Oct22 October 17:12

      A spokesperson for British Airways said: “We’re incredibly proud of our premium dining experience, which includes a wide range of meal options to suit the preferences of our customers depending on the time of day they’re travelling. We trialled our new brunch offering with thousands of customers across numerous routes and received extremely positive feedback on both the quality and variety of options offered.”

      I’d love to know when this trial took place and who was part of it as I’ve not seen one person on HfP or Flyertalk mention that they were, and I’ve certainly not seen any positive feedback from anyone who has experienced the new offerings since they were officially introduced.

      • JDB says:
        22 Oct22 October 17:20

        It’s fairly normal in these processes only to hear from the gripers, the vast majority of whom of course haven’t tried the new menus but want to make a fuss or expect immediate compensation for the trauma of menu changes.

      • Jason ones says:
        22 Oct22 October 20:01

        Having witnessed many of these PR releases, they literally make it up to suit their agenda.

      • Delbert says:
        22 Oct22 October 20:42

        Thousands of turkeys voted for Christmas, according to BA. 😄

      • Russell G says:
        23 Oct23 October 12:31

        “We’re incredibly proud of our premium dining experience”

        It’s one thing to be proud when you’re getting great reviews and ratings, but when SkyTrax rates your food and beverage 3 stars out of 5 and your direct competitor Virgin are getting 4 stars (and Qatar Airways gets 5 stars!), it’s just delusion.

        The first step to improvement is admitting where your weaknesses are, not proclaiming you are proud of something that everyone is saying is at best mediocre!!!

    • LittleNick says:
      22 Oct22 October 17:16

      The biggest takeaway is that Simon Calder only flies economy.

      • NorthernLass says:
        22 Oct22 October 17:36

        He’s a bit of an eternal backpacker though!

      • Alex G says:
        22 Oct22 October 18:04

        Most people do! And that’s the audience he largely plays to.

      • NorthernLass says:
        22 Oct22 October 21:28

        Is this the bit you mean?!

        “The all-knowing Rob Burgess, formidable founder of the Head for Points frequent-flyer website”

    • Russell G says:
      23 Oct23 October 12:16

      Wait, looking at the photo in the article, when did BA serve Taittinger in Club World??? Was this scene created for a publicity stunt or was this in the way back when?!

      • Rob says:
        23 Oct23 October 12:21

        Not sure about that particular one, but BA did once put out a PR shot showing Bollinger!

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.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 50,000 bonus points (worth 50,000 Avios) and £400 of 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

Special offer: Get 30,000 bonus Hilton Honors points until 14th August 2025

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.

Get points worth 20,000 Avios with 'first year free' 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!