Bits: easyJet and the £475 airport lounge, win a £1000 Dubai hotel stay on Monday

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• Mummy55 says:

  17 Jun17 June 09:57

  This may soon be the only way to get into a lounge when not traveling with an airline with its own lounge! . On Tuesday the aspire lounge in Newcastle was refusing entry to Priority Pass holders and others because it was fully booked due to their new contract with Thomson Holidays.
  I was told even though it didn’t look full they had to hold tables for three hours for ‘Thomson Clients’ even if they didn’t turn up. Looking at the Thomson website they pay £26 for 3hours in the lounge.
  The dress code rule does not seem to apply as most were dressed in football shirts and shorts( the normal Geordie travel outfit) . I can see why they would think it good value ,3hours of drink and bacon sandwiches! (at 5.00am). I was also told that Priority Pass was only for walk ins if there was room, implying that they were doing us favour should they ever have room to let us in.
  As Thomson uses most UK airports and most only have Aspire lounges I can see this happening quite often.

  • Joseph Heenan says:

    18 Jun18 June 07:07

    Similar experiences in other countries too – LoungeKey lounges in SFO and AMS both refused entry as they were ‘busy’. Former had space reserved for KLM business customers (so lounge only available to others if KLM flight is half empty). In AMS it seemed they were accepting walkin cash customers whilst denying LoungeKey & priority pass (complaint sent to HSBC about that one!).

    • Polly says:

      18 Jun18 June 09:22

      Joseph, gld you are taking it up with HSBC. That happened with my OH in Mid East. I complained to Amex, as it was with PP then. They gave us a £25 credit for each non entry. Had to submit BP tho, plus f and b receipts, so hold on to them….turned out it was a scam, they were not even supposed to be charging for pp entry, claimed pp were NOT free. Chaps on the take. But your example is more serious, as LK and PP should have the same right of entry as paying customers. After all, PP and LK pay our entry fee. Keep us posted on your outcome, as it’s totally immoral.

• Ben says:

  17 Jun17 June 11:05

  Surely anyone dropping £475 on lounge access wouldn’t be caught dead at Luton?! Or is this marketed at private jet customers?

  • the_real_a says:

    17 Jun17 June 11:30

    Im not so sure. There are plenty execs now flying Easyjet and if the office or your home is better placed for Luton then why no use it? Luton is pretty awful in terms of queues so i can see demand for this service even at this price.

  • Charlie says:

    17 Jun17 June 17:40

    The lounge is by Easyjet and I don’t think they offer private jets!

    • Rob says:

      17 Jun17 June 21:04

      The lounge is primarily for the private jet customers using Luton, yes.

• vol says:

  17 Jun17 June 11:38

  Are you sure it didn’t cost them £475 to build?? 😀 there must be some mistake

• Geoggy says:

  17 Jun17 June 12:31

  Not to mention the generosity of the lovely HfP reader that couldn’t use it and handed it back for all you lovely people

  ;0)

• FreddieTheFrog says:

  17 Jun17 June 19:14

  OK, calm down everybody, it was a typo… the actual entry fee is £4.75 🙂

  Phew, glad that’s sorted !

• Dan says:

  17 Jun17 June 19:54

  I pass through Signature frequently – it’s a lovely room but other than a well-stocked bar I can’t see who would pay this much money. There is no food or buffet as you’d get in a normal airport Business Class lounge. If you’ve got £475 to spend on a waiting room and a nice drink, then I imagine you’d also have enough money to book a private jet (for example a little Citation Mustang to AMS might “only” cost around £2.5K one way). Strange link up with Easyjet, in my opinion.

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