Airport Lounges

Hanoverian

I fly quite regularly, and end up spending about 7 hours in Istanbul through the night, plus a few in Heathrow too each time. Istanbul is hideously expensive a glass of beer and a burger is about £25.

I had looked at the airport Lounges, there is an HSBC lounge and a Prime Class CIP Lounge.

Some of my colleagues use the Priority pass scheme, it costs £143 for their standard plus , which equates to 10 free visits, then £15 a go, with £15 a go for guests.

This would potentially fit the bill, does anyone have any better recomendations??

lady1964

Hi,
We get Priority Plus with my husband's Amex card so use the lounges whenever we can and I've taken guests in for £15 a time.
It's a haven away from the noise and people in and around the shops and bars, and we leave going to the departure gate until as late as we possibly can.
I would say it's well worth the money if you fly regularly and will use a lounge each time. If people only make 3 or 4 flights a year, it might be better to purchase entry via someone like holiday extras.
Regards
Lady1964

Doshwaster

Just be careful as at Heathrow T5 there are only BA lounges which are only for status/premium passengers. You cannot pay per use of use Priority Pass. I have a BA Silver card and it saves me a fortune that I would be spending in the bar.

It depends on what you want to do in the lounges. If it's to get some work done or get some peace and quiet then they can be great - but some are much better than others. Free drinks can easily justify the entry cost but most only have nibbles for food. If you turn up hungry then you will need to eat elsewhere. There also tend to be a big difference between the airline lounges and the 3rd party pay-per-use ones.

You just need to make a judgement based upon the airports you use regularly. The worst ones tend to be at airports with a lot of package holiday flights (which offer lounge access as an upgrade) rather than business travellers.

malkie76

Pay to enter lounges are a waste of money in my opinion. For the sort of money you are talking about you may wish to consider buying status with Qantas and using any OneWorld lounges worldwide (including T5 at Heathrow).

However, if you are a 'frequent flyer' why don't you already have status with an airline group?

GlennTheBaker

OP: I have PM'd you a link which will get you the PrimeClass CIP Lounge for £21.25.

Cardew

malkie76 wrote: »

However, if you are a 'frequent flyer' why don't you already have status with an airline group?

It takes a huge amount of flying to get a status high enough to use the One World lounges(principally BA/AA/Quantas/Iberia)

I am AA Platinum(One world - Sapphire) which is the minimum level to enter a lounge when travelling on a Coach ticket on an international flight.

To get AA Platinum you have to fly 50,000 miles in a year. note fly - not bonus miles etc.

So that is something like 7 or 8 return trips a year to East Coast USA.

malkie76

I'm very aware of the requirements for status, and I would say that 7 or 8 flights still isn't frequent flying, which is why I think the OP should be able to gain status with an airline group.

ferf1223

Cardew wrote: »

To get AA Platinum you have to fly 50,000 miles in a year. note fly - not bonus miles etc.

So that is something like 7 or 8 return trips a year to East Coast USA.

Or one if your fare is in the right class and you take the platinum challenge on AA (which yes, costs $200)...that's what we did...though we have not yet actually used a lounge.

malkie76

It's a minimum of 4 sectors with BA (ie 2 returns), I'm guessing you probably know that