Review: Terminal 5’s new Priority Pass arrivals lounge, Club Millesime

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• Mike says:

  11 Sep11 September 09:03

  LoungeKey also accepted here.

• Flyoff says:

  11 Sep11 September 09:25

  I used the lounge as a convenient point to be picked up by a taxi. The taxi I ordered had an allowance of 15 minutes before a parking charge was due.

  I was there around 1 pm. The lounge food consisted only had a bowl of fruit. This was disappointing and I was underwhelmed. Soft drinks and tea/ coffee was available. Some of the other people in the lounge had bought sandwiches in the terminal and we’re eating them in the lounge.

  I could see this lounge being useful during breakfast, afternoon tea and evening drinks. I would have been disappointed if I had paid £15 for guests. The background music is too loud to try and work.

  I could see that the shower may be attractive if you had just arrived on a flight and didn’t have access to the BA lounge.

• Dwadda says:

  11 Sep11 September 10:24

  I’ve used it twice. It’s OK. You can go to the Spa but PP only gets you use of the shower. As others have noted the food and beverage is the same as you would get at a good hotel lounge. It’s on the ground floor, down the side of the hotel and there are NO windows so there is no view. And the toilets are back near reception behind the lifts. It was packed when I arrived during the evening.

  Audi owners (etc) will be pissed off to discover that the best parking at the hotel is reserved for BMW cars! I have never seen that before.

  • VFUK says:

    11 Sep11 September 12:29

    I went last Sunday for the fourth time in as many weeks as a PP member — and I am also an Accor Plat — and was told by the ESPA SA that PP holders get access to the spa facilities, not just to the showers: she even went away and came back brandishing the ‘rule book’. I mention this as my girlfriend had issues with us trying to use the sauna/jacuzzi/etc. under the pretext of “just using the shower facilities”, i.e. I had no scruples whatsoever with using the sauna or steam room, but my girlfriend did and she even ended up saying to the ESPA lady after being let through that she’d actually like to use the sauna now and could we actually pay to use it (!!) and could it be added to our hotel bill (!!!). I was not amused, frankly, as this made us look like idiots, as much as I may love the missus :o). Anyway, when we left later, the ESPA manageress was very apologetic and reassured us that no bill charge for use of the spa would be added to our hotel bill because PP holders get free use of the SPA facilities, not just the showers. So, from the horse’s mouth.

• Michael says:

  11 Sep11 September 10:39

  Is there a limit to ‘unlimited’ PP cards? Could, say, someone who works nearby or a limo driver meeting clients, theoretically use this every day without raising any eyebrows?

  • Rob says:

    11 Sep11 September 11:07

    This was happening at Plaza Premium in T2 which is why they have started asking for a boarding pass.

    • YL says:

      11 Sep11 September 17:01

      That is bad news.. The T2 arrival lounge has been very useful for me when waiting family and friends to arrive. I have use the lounge many times in the evening and most of times there was only 1 or 2 people actually.
      On the other hand when I visited Sofitel club lounge last time around 6.30 pm which was during happy hours, it was packed.

      • Simon Schus says:

        11 Sep11 September 23:15

        BOOOoooOOOoo, this is rubbish news. What are people’s experiences of this? Always denied, always asked for a BP?

        I used to wait for my wife arrive on her flight, and would just sit in the lounge waiting for them before heading to our hotel after she landed (she is terrible with jetlag, it isn’t worth my while to drive her straight home… we just get an airport hotel and she sleeps until she is ready haha). In my case, this doesn’t happen to often anymore but at some stages I was in the lounge once a month. I also distinctly remember having an early morning flight and so got an airport hotel… I headed to the lounge because I was frankly bored of my hotel room, got some dinner and a few drinks. Now that is presumably prohibited. Rubbbissssh.

        It is annoying because:
        – I tend to throw my boarding passes after I collect the luggage and check it is all as intended. I hate carrying little scraps of paper around when travelling.
        – PP stills get paid, so why does it matter to them? The lounge only ever really seemed overcrowded in the morning between 730am and 1030am when most of the morning flights were arriving.

        Anyway, rant over. It is their lounge and they can do what they want haha.

        • Simon Schus says:

          11 Sep11 September 23:17

          *once a week, not once a month

        • Rob says:

          11 Sep11 September 23:52

          There are only odd reports of this so it is not necessarily 100% guaranteed you will be asked.

          My feeling is that Priority Pass is finding that some people are buying unlimited passes and then going in 3-4 times per week. If you work at Heathrow you could go in for after-work drinks every night, or a free lunch. Priority Pass starts to lose money once you start to visit more than two lounges per month, assuming you pay £250 for unlimited access. They look at what these people are doing and, if it turns out they are using the same lounge on a very heavy basis, they will have a word.

• Paddy says:

  11 Sep11 September 13:28

  I’m going to be flying back from a California Big Holiday trip next September (2017), so just waiting on the return flights to be released. It looks like we’ll probably fly out of Phoenix or San Jose, as they seem to have the best availability for using Avios for 4 people in Club World or First. Our flight will only arrive around 13:30 and the Terminal 5 arrivals lounge closes at 14:00. I don’t have a Priority Pass, so can’t use this lounge. Can anyone suggest where we can go as we will be waiting on a flight to Belfast, as we live in Northern Ireland? Thanks.

  • reds says:

    11 Sep11 September 18:02

    If you are transiting at T5 from a BA international flight to a domestic leg, you can use the premium lounges in T5 if travelling in Club World/F prior to your domestic leg.
    We used the Concord Room following arrival from HKG in F prior to our domestic leg to BHD.

  • Tim says:

    11 Sep11 September 18:43

    Hi Paddy, we did the big California trip this summer – awesome by the way!

    I went through the same thought process as we used the free domestic add-on flight to fly to Glasgow and visit family. As the arrivals lounge was due to close shortly before we arrived back from SFO the Executive Club booking agent confirmed that we could use the T5 Galleries Lounge before our onward flight.

    As it turned out the SFO was delayed almost 4 hours so although we were bumped onto a later flight to Glasgow we had no time to use the T5 lounge. We did however have the joy of skipping the boarding que due to the Glasgow leg effectively being a business class ticket.

    As side note, I’m not sure how your onward flight to Belfast was booked but just to warn you that we spent well over an hour at SFO arguing for our baggage to be booked all the way through to Glasgow. Seemed such an obvious thing they should have been able to do but we eventually got the manger down and she signed it off.. bonkers! Anyway, if you get the same hassle just don’t give in… My complaint to the Exec Club is on it’s way.

    Enjoy the trip!

    • harry says:

      11 Sep11 September 20:52

      ‘Enjoy the trip!’

      I had an annoying ‘uncle’ (in reality cousin) who used to say that when we were kids and stumbled

      Now he is a very popular cousin who takes us all out en famille for blowouts in the local Indian 🙂

• James says:

  11 Sep11 September 19:57

  Does anyone know if you can access the lounge as a non hotel guest using your Accor Le Club Platinum membership without PP?

  • Alan says:

    11 Sep11 September 20:46

    I wouldn’t have thought so, lounge access as an Accor Plat is only if you’re staying in the hotel.

• fang says:

  11 Sep11 September 21:46

  Is anyone been denied spa access? Raffles’s review did mention that you only have shower access, but in the Priority Pass website it also claim that you get: Complimentary shower facilities and spa access

  But I recently got denied spa access and Hotel said the information in Priority Pass website was incorrect

• Chris says:

  12 Sep12 September 01:06

  This was good timing , I’m flying into Heathrow next week at 1pm with the family and the in laws. I was thinking about using the PP at the Sofitel before transferring to Gatwick but I am now reconsidering my options.

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