Review: the British Airways Galleries lounge at the London Heathrow Terminal 5 ‘B’ satellite

This is my review of the British Airways Galleries Lounge in Terminal 5B of London Heathrow airport.

It is part of our collection of UK airport lounge reviews which is well on the way to completion now.  You can see our full list of UK airport lounge reviews here.

If you are flying long-haul on British Airways from Heathrow Terminal 5, your knee jerk reaction is to use one of the two Galleries Club lounges, Galleries First (if you have a Gold card) or The Concorde Room (if you are flying in First) in the main building.

This is not necessarily a good idea, in my view:

The lounges in the main building are frequently overcrowded

The majority of long-haul flights depart from Terminal 5B or Terminal 5C

You need to leave the lounge early to ensure you get to 5B or 5C in time

British Airways has a perfectly pleasant, and usually empty, lounge with an Elemis Spa in 5B for anyone flying from 5B or 5C

Heading out to Hong Kong, it was clear – as it was an A380 departure – that we would be on a satellite gate.  It made sense to head over the to lounge in 5B using the transit train, even though our flight was from 5C.

This is what you find there.  I apologise for the poor quality of some of these photos – it was 5pm, the sun was low in the sky and, flooding into the glass walled terminal, it played havoc with the exposure settings on my iPhone.

How do you get into the British Airways lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5 (Satellite B)?

The lounge operates the standard British Airways policies.  To get in you must:

• be flying in Business Class or First Class on a British Airways or oneworld alliance partner airline
• hold Silver or Gold status in British Airways Executive Club
• hold comparable status with another oneworld alliance airline

It is NOT possible to get into British Airways lounges for cash, and you cannot use lounge club cards such as Priority Pass. 

There are two lounges in the main part of Heathrow Terminal 5 which accepts lounge club cards – Club Aspire and Plaza Premium (review here).

How is the BA Galleries lounge in the Terminal 5 satellite terminals?

The good news is ….. no people.  Remember this was 5pm with the evening peak about to get into full swing.

There were no people in the area to the left as you go in (click on any of the pictures to enlarge):

…. which connects to the (empty) kids room:

There were no people over to the right hand side of reception, where the spa reception is:

The dining area was a little quiet too:

This area also contains the business centre.  I was excited to see two people but it turned out they were my kids!

There is also a large seating area which links the left and right-hand sides of the lounge together (it is shaped like an arch):

There is a real person, not related to me, in the shot above if you look closely enough!  And:

Perhaps everyone except me had heard that you won’t be getting food at 5pm in the Galleries Terminal 5B lounge:

and:

Although there was no shortage of wine (I didn’t check if champagne is available on request, as it is in the Terminal 5A Galleries Club lounges):

…. and the usual coffee and biscuits selection was there.

If you are familiar with the Galleries lounges in the main Heathrow Terminal 5 building then you will recognise everything you’ve seen above.  British Airways has used the same fixtures and fittings.

To be fair, I have been in 5B lounge in the morning and found it far busier.  I’ve no idea why it was so quiet at this point.

If you are looking for peace and quiet, and you are flying in Club World, it makes sense to head over to the 5B lounges ASAP if you know your flight will be from 5B, and potentially if – like us – you are off 5C.  If you have access to Galleries First in Terminal 5A you need to trade off the loss of the better food offering and better drinks to found there.

And something you might not know …..

After a lengthly wait for a transit train to get us from 5A to 5B, we decided to walk across to 5C.

If you press the bottom button in the lift in 5A, 5B or 5C then you go below the level of the transit train and into this tunnel.  It has travelators so the walk from 5B to 5C is surprisingly quick.

Again, not surprisingly, we were alone.

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