Plaza Premium lounges now allowing direct access for Amex Platinum cardholders

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• David says:

  15 Jun15 June 08:31

  NOT been through all the detail yet – but my first thought is about PAID supplementaries.

  With UK Amex Plat (personal) you get included in the fee:
  – main plat card holder (plat with all benefits inc PP covering 2)
  – plat supplementary card holder (plat with all benefits inc PP covering 2)
  – up to 4 supplementary card holders (green or gold, but no PP or other benefits)

  However, IIRC, you can add supplementary plat holders at £170 a year. Further, IIRC, they don’t get the PP benefit at all.
  But if this lounge access offering was available, this could be beneficial for someone.

  NOT gone through the T&C yet, just first thought.

  • Rob says:

    15 Jun15 June 08:49

    To be honest I have never got my head around what you do and don’t get for the £170 Platinum fee on a 2nd supplementary.

    If you don’t get a Priority Pass then, if you fly through T2 or T4 once a month or so, it may be worth giving a Platinum holding friend £170 to issue a supplementary for you! I know someone who pays a friend £500 to issue a supplementary Centurion for him because there is one particular benefit he uses heavily.

    • David says:

      15 Jun15 June 08:53

      Not just T2 or T4, the friend needing access could be based anywhere in the world that had Plaza Premium lounges at their main airports, etc.
      Just needs to be someone you trust to be in physical possession of a card on your account.
      This approach would also apply to the Eurostar lounge, etc.

      Sadly not familiar enough with Centurion to guess the benefit….

      • Rob says:

        15 Jun15 June 09:33

        It is one of the hotel status cards he particularly wanted. You know this person!

    • Neil Spellings says:

      15 Jun15 June 08:59

      Additional supplimentary card holders do get a PP.

      Amex sent me one after a recent Gold to Platinum upgrade accidentally included too many supplimentart cards

      • David says:

        15 Jun15 June 09:29

        Neil, this seems to constradic other experience, could you clarify exactly what happened (wondering if something odd happened)

        Also, is your paid supp PP holder getting 2 guests or just 1?

      • Andrew* says:

        15 Jun15 June 11:05

        Same here: upgraded PRG (for which I also had a supp card holder already) to Plat, when filling in upgrade form I requested a supp (didn’t realise existing one would be upgraded automatically….heh ho) and was checking statement a day or so later and noticed £170 fee…

        Cue two supp plat cards arriving in the post (one easily cancelled) and two PP cards (a phone call to PP resolved which one was no longer valid)

        • Scallder says:

          15 Jun15 June 12:42

          I had this same experience this week. A quick call to Amex and my wife’s 2nd supplementary card was cancelled. Two days later a 3rd PP card arrived (between the 2 of us), so you do get the PP on a further paid supplementary card

        • David says:

          15 Jun15 June 13:20

          Well you certainly get it (in practice) in that upgrade scenario. And it would certainly be good if confirmed that all plat sups are supposed to get it.
          Then, the final question would be, how many people are covered by it, 2 (like a main plat PP), 1 or 0 (i.e. PAYG).
          As Raffles says above – there is a lot of confusion out there. While my own data points are older, they do contradict this – and they were not part of the ‘upgrade’ scenario.
          Thanks for these. Would love some more data points.

        • ankomonkey says:

          15 Jun15 June 14:50

          Third person to have this exact experience…

• Brian says:

  15 Jun15 June 08:33

  You say an arrivals lounge for Terminal 2 is in the pipeline – do you mean ANOTHER arrivals lounge is coming??? Or should that be Terminal 4??

  • Rob says:

    15 Jun15 June 08:47

    Sorry, meant T4, will correct.

    • Felix Flyer says:

      15 Jun15 June 15:53

      Was in arrivals lounge in Heathrow T2 the other week. They were conducting interviews for new staff when I heard them say they were opening a new lounge in T3.

• JP says:

  15 Jun15 June 10:14

  I’ll be cancelling my Amex gold with a view to getting Platinum in Mid December.

  Am i right in saying i have to wait 6 months to apply?

  Is anyone predicting any change to that card or it’s benefits between now and then?

  • Rob says:

    15 Jun15 June 10:50

    Yes, 6 months. No reason to expect any changes.

    • JP says:

      15 Jun15 June 11:06

      Thank you!

• Katy storie says:

  15 Jun15 June 10:33

  Can I just check that if myself and my partner both have platinum Amex (and therefore priority pass cards) we can each take a guest into a lounge? We went with our two children to the aspire lounge in Newcastle and were told we were not eligible for guests and so would be charged £15 per child?!

  • Alan says:

    15 Jun15 June 10:34

    The lounges often don’t know about the special Amex Priority Pass setup – normal PP would incur a guest fee but with Amex you will NOT be charged for 1 guest per PP card, so no issues taking them in. Just make sure they charge 1 guest per card and don’t put 2 on one card!

    • Katy storie says:

      15 Jun15 June 12:20

      Thanks! I’ll take the t and c’s with me next time!

      • harry says:

        15 Jun15 June 12:28

        I don’t think you need to do that, if I understand the way it works correctly. Newcastle lounge would just book you & the kids in, on your 2 Amex cards – but would not actually charge you anything there & then. They would (wrongly) expect that Amex would charge you the extra guest fee, which would then be passed back to lounge. (So you wouldn’t see a payment transaction going on in front of you.)

        No need to even mention the T&Cs, if I’m right. Just smile and go in, remembering as stated to only put 1 guest per card (not 2 on 1 card & nobody on the other).

        • Alan says:

          15 Jun15 June 12:33

          Correct – they’ve got no visibility on the billing side of things so just make sure they charge 1 guest per card and you’ll be sorted. Nod and smile if they say you’ll be charged 😀

  • Rob says:

    15 Jun15 June 10:49

    They were wrong although to be fair they don’t know what version of PPass you have. Most versions do charge.

  • Andrew* says:

    15 Jun15 June 11:16

    My wife managed not to get charged extra when taking our two children (who were at the time only 7 and 5) into Newcastle Aspire…

    Belfast weren’t so accommodating (not that they had to be, we were lucky at NCL!) – but were still helpful and only charged us their child rate, which was slightly cheaper than a paid PP guest…

• harry says:

  15 Jun15 June 11:31

  Do you reckon my Plat supp could be my son aged 15? Ie I & he could get into lounge as cardholders & invite (as guests) my other 2 kids?

  • Nick M says:

    15 Jun15 June 12:10

    I think supplementary cardholders are meant to be over 18(?)… you could ask AMEX to just use initials on the credit card rather than a full name which may help?

• McSalty says:

  15 Jun15 June 12:02

  Well this all makes me think it shows the growing disconnect between passengers wanting comfort and a sense of luxury and evidently happy to pay for it (e.g liu fes full at peak times) verses airline’s desire to reduce costs and mainly via reductions in service/quality to remain competitive…

  • McSalty says:

    15 Jun15 June 12:10

    ‘Liu fes’ was meant to be ‘lounges’

• Mervyn says:

  15 Jun15 June 13:03

  Heaven knows how it will work but there are some EXTRA benefits at Plaza lounges if entering suing an Amex Platinum Card. The article says in a box in the top left-hand side:
  ”PLATINUM BENEFIT Complimentary in-lounge services include premium cuisine and beverages.”

  Anyone have any idea what that is and how it works in practice?

  • Mervyn says:

    15 Jun15 June 13:15

    Sorry – ”suing” in line 2 should of course read ”using”!
    (it is an especially embarrassing typo for a lawyer to make!)

• harry says:

  15 Jun15 June 13:12

  O/T Europcar
  Just working out which rental co to use to get to the airport in summer – a 1-way as we’re driving back in my wife’s car in September – and came across this intriguing link https://www.europcar.co.uk/deals/one-way-uk.step?xtor=AL-3090-%5B47868%5D-%5BAW%5D-%5Btext_link%5D-%5Bwinteroffer%5D-%5B0%5D&awc=6795_1465992607_0606bcfb394117745ffb52cfd02c4865#fromHP=true&place=big-1
  What you get for £1
  1) One way car rental – You can drive from one city to another for just £1! Much cheaper than any bus or taxi!
  2) Generous time allowance – You get an ample time to complete your journey: Up to 24 hours. You also have a mileage allowance included in the price.
  3) Basic Protection -We have included Basic Protection, which reduces your excess amount in case of damage of the vehicle. You can add more protection at the rental location if you wish.
  WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
  You may be wondering why we are offering you car rental for 1 pound. You may think there is some kind of catch. But don’t worry, there is a logical reason behind our crazy offer!
  Often we need to re-locate a vehicle, to be ready for the next rental or to return it to the manufacturer at the end of its lease.
  Transporting the vehicle by truck is very expensive, so if you can bring the vehicle to where we need it, we charge you only 1 pound, and we both benefit!

  *** let’s see if I can get it to work 🙂

  • harry says:

    15 Jun15 June 15:08

    No good for me but there are plenty of £1 1-way hires dropping off @ Heathrow!

    Anyway, anybody else in the same boat as myself, go through http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-airport-parking#holidayextras car hire options, price it up and you’ll see a 20% discount to the best you’ll find via Europcar direct. £48 1-way car rental with airport drop-off is unbeatable, Octavia class but they’ll normally upgrade you to something a bit bigger such as Insignia.

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