British Airways announce Whispering Angel bar and lounge refresh
British Airways has announced plans for an exclusive Whispering Angel lounge bar, becoming the first airline to have a bespoke bar dedicated to the popular rosé wine.
The bespoke bar, which will exclusively offer Caves d’Esclans’ Whispering Angel rosé, will be located in the airline’s lounge at Terminal 5 B at London Heathrow. If you are flying from the B or C gates I always recommend this lounge as it is generally quieter.
The bar is coloured pale pink to emulate the tones of the rosé served and is expected to open this summer. The opening will coincide with a refresh of the airline’s B gates lounge, which will include new and reupholstered furniture, as well as a refreshed layout.
Whispering Angel is already currently available in British Airways’ First and Club (business class) lounges.
Château d’Esclans’ Whispering Angel boasts a delicate Provençal pink hue, spoiling customer with sun-kissed creamy flavours of peach and raspberries, with refreshing citrus undertones and a smooth, dry finish.
Calum Laming, British Airways’ Chief Customer Officer, said: “Our customers are already telling us how much they enjoy the Whispering Angel rosé we are serving in our lounges, so we are thrilled to be opening an exclusive Whispering Angel bar. We truly believe this will be a massive hit with customers and we are excited that its introduction will coincide with a newly refurbished lounge in the satellite at London Heathrow Terminal 5 B gates.”
The bar is part of British Airways’ continued plan to elevate its drinks offering, following the appointment of a full time Master of Wine. You can now choose from two sparkling options when travelling in Club World, including the current Champagne resident Heidsieck & Co. Monopole Silver Top Non-Vintage Champagne, and now an exclusive English Sparkling wine option which will rotate every 3 months.
On board, the current English Sparkling is Digby Fine English Brut NV which I thought was a bit average, but from July the airline will serve the Balfour Rosé de Noirs, which I have high hopes for. The blend is made exclusively for British Airways.
From October, Simpsons Chalklands Cuvee Brut NV, also from Kent will be available for three months, followed by Wiston Estate Brut NV from the South Downs from January 24.
If you are a wine fan, stay tuned to TLFL social media next week as I shall be travelling with BA’s Master of Wine and visiting some of the vineyards BA is purchasing their wine from, including Chateau d’Esclans.
British Airways’ new Avios Booster
You can now triple your Avios by using BA’s new boost function. Plus, there is a 10% bonus when boosting your Avios in June and July which is added at checkout.
You can now boost Avios you earned in the last 30 days. This is very similar to Virgin Atlantic’s booster. It offers a much cheaper way to get extra Avios than buying Avios.
Here are the prices:
Avios can be boosted within 30 days of appearing in your British Airways Executive Club account but pending Avios can’t be boosted. Each transaction can only be boosted once.
The first 300,000 boosted Avios are priced at a cheaper buying rate. There does not seem to be a limit on how many boosted Avios you can receive.
Not all transactions are eligible for boosting. Exclusions are balance transfers from other airlines, Nectar exchanges, Avios shared or gifted by other members and previously bought Avios. This seems to suggest that you can boost transfers from American Express Membership Rewards and any other earning such as BA e-store, Top Cashback, Rocketmiles etc.
The boost should appear quickly but can take up to 3 days.
You need to be on the BA Buy Avios page to start. Then click Balance Boost at the top of the page. It will then show you a list of your Avios transactions in the last 30 days and ask you to use the slider to confirm how much you want to boost your balance by.
Then simply pick the transactions you want to boost, and choose whether you want to boost 1x, 2x or 3x. As you see from my example, I could “buy” just over 9,000 Avios for £86.61.
If I were to buy 8000 Avios at normal rates, it would cost £159, so the triple Avios boost is around 50% off the usual price.
If I were to buy 6,000 Avios during a 50% bonus promotion to make it 9,000 Avios, then this would still cost £125. Again, the Booster is cheaper.
13 comments
I spotted the boost yday. Using a 5k Avios transaction I tripled it up and it priced at £163 opposed to the current £279 cost to buy 15k outright. Double was 94 Vs 195 if I remember right so there’s a good saving to be had. 1.5k / 10% added automatically. For me they landed straight away but did require a logout and back in to show.
You can boost 1,2 or 3 times your selected transactions or all of them.
Interestingly, and as Michele mentioned, you can purchase upto 300k Avios which is 100k above the normal annual purchase cap BUT having checked last night and again this morning. That number is NOT impacting the 200k cap.
If you transferred HSBC points to Avios, could they then be triple boosted?
What would be the maximum amount of Avios that could be trebled?
Yes you should be able to. So far nothing in the T&c suggest that there is a limit.
Hold on that. “Transfers from other partner programmes, Avios purchased or gifted……. …are not eligible”
The amount is based on transactions/ Avios earning purchases in the last 30 days so that’s your limit. As my 1st comment it indicates a limit of 300k but I do wonder how that’s coded in the system as it breaks the 200k PA limit on purchasing Avios that’s been around forever.
We used the BA premier to buy said booster which should bump them up next month as it’s a BA spend so will pay out 3x Avios per £1 spent but can’t confirm that bit goes smoothly until they’re due
The new furniture was in the T5 B lounge when I there for breakfast there yesterday. Really comfortable and the designs are a big step up. Whispering Angel already at the self-serve bar in the centre – didn’t sample as renting a car at the other end (Avis, handily). Seems like the T5 B “secret” won’t be a secret for much longer…
I was about to say, we don’t need the T5B lounge advertising! 🙂
But how does the boost compare with the AVIOS subscription prices?
I just made a test and bought a small amount of Avios, seems they can not be boosted. I imagine the avios booster doesn’t work if you purchase avios. Anyone made a different experience?
In my case, I paid a deposit for a BA holiday on my BA AMEX on the 24th May, this transaction doesn’t appear in the list to be able to be boosted either. 🙁
Tina. It’s likely that the transaction hasn’t entered it’s billable stage yet based on the date. If your payment date was say the 5th June then something charged on the 24th May would go on next months statement. Yes it’ll show as a charge but that’s not the same.
It should show next month/ statement date and you’ll be able to use it then as the promotion runs till end of July
Today I called BA Executive Club Hotline. At the moment seems they do not have a lot of information about eligibility rules. According to their T&C: Not all transactions are eligible for boosting. Exclusions are balance transfers from other airlines, Nectar exchanges, Avios shared or gifted by other members and previously bought Avios. The eligibility is also for them not clear 100% (they do not have a lot of information yet, as is something new). I’ve been told to wait until next week and check if the bought Avios are shown, if not to call again and try to find out more information about the eligibility.
I can confirm MR transfers from Amex, Avios from BA Amex and BA Barclaycard, Top Cashback and BA estore are all eligible.
When I try to use the BA Avios boost, it appears not to accept my login details even though they are the details that I logged in with to reach that page. After trying several times, it says that I have tried too many times, and I need to speak to an administrator, but when I spoke to BA they said I am not locked out so it should work.
Any ideas from another user point of view?
Thanking you in anticipation.
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