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Get airport lounge access via The Gourmet Society

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Dining discount group The Gourmet Society – which offers discounts on meals in thousands of restaurants across the UK – is also in the airport lounge business.

Through a link with DragonPass, Gourmet Society members can buy passes for UK airport lounges for just £18 per person.

This is £3 more than you pay via Lounge Club or Priority Pass.  However, you need to be an Amex Gold, Amex Platinum or Priority Pass cardholder to access that rate. Trial memberships of Gourmet Society are available online for £1 if you google.

Dragonpass

You can see the list of accessible lounges at this page.

The UK list appears similar to what you can access with Lounge Club with the addition of airport Regus Business Centres which are exclusive to Dragonpass.  At Heathrow, for example, you have access to:

  • No 1 Traveller (T3)
  • Plaza Premium (T2)
  • Plaza Premium (T4)
  • Regus Business Centre (T5 Arrivals)
  • Swissport (now Club Aspire) (T3)

You don’t get the SkyTeam Lounge in Terminal 4 or the Aspire Lounge in Terminal 5, both of which would be covered by Priority Pass.

Note that you do not have to enter a Gourmet Society membership number at any point.  As long as you put the offer code GOURMET17 on the purchase form, you can order.


Getting airport lounge access for free from a credit card

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (April 2024)

Here are the four options to get FREE airport lounge access via a UK credit card.

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with two free Priority Pass cards, one for you and one for a supplementary cardholder. Each card admits two so a family of four gets in free. You get access to all 1,300 lounges in the Priority Pass network – search it here.

You also get access to Eurostar, Lufthansa and Delta Air Lines lounges.  Our American Express Platinum review is here. You can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

If you have a small business, consider American Express Business Platinum instead.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for the first year. It comes with a Priority Pass card loaded with four free visits to any Priority Pass lounge – see the list here.

Additional lounge visits are charged at £24.  You get four more free visits for every year you keep the card.  

There is no annual fee for Amex Gold in Year 1 and you get a 20,000 points sign-up bonus.  Full details are in our American Express Preferred Rewards Gold review here.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard gets you get a free Priority Pass card, allowing you access to the Priority Pass network.  Guests are charged at £24 although it may be cheaper to pay £60 for a supplementary credit card for your partner.

The card has a fee of £195 and there are strict financial requirements to become a HSBC Premier customer.  Full details are in my HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard review.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard

A huge bonus, but only available to HSBC Premier clients Read our full review

PS. You can find all of HfP’s UK airport lounge reviews – and we’ve been to most of them – indexed here.

Comments (26)

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

  • Tom says:

    Also still works on Telegraph / Dragonpass offer page – same price.
    Interestingly the price has increased from £16.50 to £18 in the last 4 weeks on both sites (we booked via telegraph on 2nd Feb and both sites were £16.50 at the time) – so they must be monitoring both sites and be happy to keep selling at these prices via these channels.

  • Simon Barlow says:

    So it will be even harder to get in if you don’t pay and pre book!

  • Trevor says:

    Hi Tom
    Do you have a link to the Telegraph/DragonPass page?
    Thanks
    T

  • Gareth says:

    Just for info, no1 have removed the option of pre booking a glass of champagne rather than paying the £5 reservation fee for pass card holders…

    • the real harry1 says:

      For T3, Club Aspire is not quite as good overall – though the food is all right & plentiful with as many helpings as you like – but not bad at all – a very decent lounge – and unlikely to be turning people away – so if No1 turns you away, pop downstairs to them instead – not worth the extra £5 IMV

    • flyforfun says:

      Eek! Just checked and you’re right – no option to pre buy the champers. I wonder how many people cottoned on to taking the champagne option as you at least got something for your money rather than just entry. Shame.

      Pleased to see the Club Aspire comments. Last time I got rejected from No 1 at T3 I didn’t bother to waste my visit at the old Serviceair lounge. It was so abysmal even the receptionist was warning guests who were bringing in people not to!!

      • steve says:

        Hey, at least the serviceair lounge has/d seats, which is more than I can say for the rest of T3.

        • flyforfun says:

          It had seats because nobody wanted to go in there!! 🙂

          Saying that, the last time I went it it was pretty busy, but then No 1 lounge was turning away all PP card holders at that time.

  • steve says:

    It this another “sorry its full” offer?

  • Wally1976 says:

    We get Gourmet Society membership for free via one of our Club Lloyds current accounts (also free). Don’t think we’ve ever used it though (always either not valid or can find a better offer elsewhere).

    • mark2 says:

      I too tried Gourmet Society via Lloyds Club and by definition they were restaurants which struggled
      to get customers.
      I swapped it for a subscription to ‘Car’ magazine which was not much moew use.

      • Wally1976 says:

        We have two Club Lloyds accounts. The Vue cinema offer is no good to us (none of these cinemas nearby) so we have the Gourmet Society with the one account and Runners World magazine with the other 🙂

        • Wally1976 says:

          PS not sure I’d agree that the restaurants on there are struggling, we have just found that the offers aren’t available at the times and days we want (e.g. Friday/Saturday nights) or there’s better offers elsewhere. You’re probably right regarding some of the restaurants though.

        • Sanya says:

          They do either Vue or Cineworld offers. We get 18 tickets between the two of us (2 individual and 1 joint account) and find them incredibly valuable given the price of current cinema tickets.

  • Bob says:

    Stay away from Gourmet Society, horrible company.

  • Alex W says:

    “for just £18 per person”? Are you sponsored by gourmet society?!

    • Rob says:

      £18 is cheaper than the ‘on the door’ price of almost all UK lounges.

      • Alex W says:

        Unless I wanted to get blotto I am not sure I would normally get £18 value out of a lounge visit!

        • Rob says:

          That is the same cost as 2 x GnT’s and a bag of crisps via BA’s buy on board, for comparison …. your money is better spent in the lounge first.

        • the real harry1 says:

          regardless of the merits of the GS deal, surely the point is to work out how value you can now ascribe to lounge passes?

          I won’t pay BA for on-board F&B – on principle – it’s too expensive & not good quality plus they might not even have the item you want or get to your seat @ an appropriate time for your snacking needs

          so my £12 or £15 or £16.50 or £18 has to be balanced against hunger pangs & alcoholic thirst & keeping the kids happy

          sure – you can pack a few sandwiches & apples from home & buy some drinks (or the whole lot) at Boots of WHS or somewhere else

          but I feel the £15 lounge offers some decent advantages: peace @ quiet/ not too many yobbos/ unlimited booze/ a snackysnack/ alternative to buying on board @ punitive prices plus beat the horrible BA/ smuggle out a few tinnywinnies for the kids etc

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