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Exclusive HfP competition: Win access to the First Class Lounge at London City Airport

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Today we are launching a new competition to win a visit to the new and highly exclusive Business Class and First Class lounges at London City Airport.

Regular readers will remember my reviews of the new Business Class Lounge and the new First Class Lounge at London City Airport. Everyone else might wonder why they’ve never heard of an airport lounge at London City Airport before.  After all, not even British Airways has its own lounge, even for the BA1 flight to New York.

london-city-airport-first-class-lounge-logo

This is because the First Class Lounge and the Business Class Lounge are technically not inside the main airport but rather part of the Private Jet Centre next door.

When using the First Class or Business Class Lounge, your experience starts when you arrive at London City Airport.  A driver will pick you up and drive you the few minutes to the Private Jet Centre.

first-class-lounge-city-airport-jet-centre

When it is time for your flight to leave, you have two options.

If you are using the Business Class Lounge, you will be driven back to the main terminal and go through security in the airport.

If you are using the First Class Lounge (and not flying BA who, annoyingly, won’t play ball) you will go through a designated security check area inside the Jet Centre and have a car drive you to the plane.  This is a pretty cool experience and you will also be the first to board the plane.

first-class-lounge-city-airport-jet-centre-sofas-armchairs

Competition

London City Airport has kindly offered two prizes for a competition so two lucky readers can experience the lounges for themselves.

  • The first prize is access to the First Class Lounge for two (worth £190) including a car ride to the plane (if you are flying with BA you’ll be driven back to the main terminal for security and boarding)
  • The second prize is access to the Business Class Lounge for two (worth £70)

As always all you have to do to enter this competition is fill out the Gleam widget at the bottom of this page with your email address. Your email address remains private. We will not give it to London City Airport (unless you win) and we won’t be using it for anything else.

You need to enter by midnight on Monday 7th August.

Here is a quick summary of the rules – the formal version is in the widget below:

You must be a UK resident to enter

You are limited to one entry per person, and the named winner must be one of the guests

The winner and his guest must have a valid airline ticket for the day they want to use the lounge

Lounge access must be booked at least 48 hours in advance

The two passes must be used in the same visit.  A solo traveller can visit on their own but cannot have a 2nd visit on another date.

Enter here

If you cannot see the widget below click here to be taken to a special entry page.  Good luck.

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.

Category

General

Comments (31)

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

  • Phillip Hill says:
    5 Aug5 August 07:55

    Unfortunately I end up in a never ending loop due to gleam not recognising my previous login for previous competitions. Any ideas?

    • the real harry1 says:
      5 Aug5 August 08:08

      just use an alias

    • Alan Young says:
      5 Aug5 August 08:51

      Me to and usually give up

    • Aliks says:
      5 Aug5 August 08:51

      Clear your browser history. There is a menu option for this – I recommend clearing everything regularly, but if you don’t want to do that, just clear the gleam.io cookies login details etc

    • Graeme says:
      6 Aug6 August 08:58

      Me too. Clearing cookies etc doesn’t work, so I always have to go through Twitter.

  • AlanG says:
    5 Aug5 August 09:21

    Just booked my visit to the LCY first lounge later this month, making a rare flight on Swiss so looking forward to the experience.

  • barry cutters says:
    5 Aug5 August 09:23

    OT- was it confirmed that virgin offering a 20% bonus on transfers from Tesco? Iv just transferred over £10 as a test.
    I have £400 to change (2/3 of this from the 1000point offer on printer cartridges) . was going to transfer it to virgin to top up my 85k balance to get two tickets on airchina or maybe ANA.

  • Leejt says:
    5 Aug5 August 09:31

    9QH

  • cmcp says:
    5 Aug5 August 10:00

    Good timing! Hitting BA001 to JFK with Mrs CMCP in a couple weeks.

  • Genghis says:
    5 Aug5 August 10:11

    @Rob any idea what the uptake of these lounges has been?
    I still don’t really understand the lounge concept at LCY but will happily try it out if I win.

    • Rob says:
      5 Aug5 August 11:14

      No, but I’ve never actually spoken to them – Anika has the relationship and I leave her to it.

  • Andy S says:
    5 Aug5 August 12:57

    > After all, not even British Airways has its own lounge, even for the BA1 flight to New York.

    Have they got rid of the lounge at the gate then? When was that?

    • Rob says:
      5 Aug5 August 15:10

      That’s not a lounge! That is a table with some food on it in the area where you’d be sat before boarding anyway!

      • Barry cutters says:
        5 Aug5 August 15:50

        Totally agree. There is literally 32 seats in that room. If you arrive with not much time to spare as a couple – the whole point of lcy- you end up sitting at other ends of the room.
        Food and service is really good on ba001 , and every time the pilot will come and introduce him/herself , it does feel special . But Iv also had quite a rough ride coming back on the over nighter. I think the little a318 suffers more than the 747/777

  • KFHOME says:
    5 Aug5 August 15:16

    BA still offers lounge facilities at the gate for BA001. Enough comfortable seats for all 32 passengers, even on the very rare occasion the flight is full, plus a good choice of pastries, drinks etc and papers. Staff are also exceptionally friendly and accommodating. As someone who uses this service on a regular basis I would always choose it over the LHR galleries experience. You also have the benefit that the aircraft parks directly outside the gate so on boarding you simply step out of the gate/lounge and across the tarmac to board . No queues, no hassle and no worrying about the trek from the lounge to the gate. Don’t forget you also clear US immigration and customs in Shannon so arrive at JFK as a domestic passenger. Even when I have to collect luggage off the belt I am always in a cab within 15 minutes of leaving the aircraft.

    • Barry cutters says:
      5 Aug5 August 15:46

      Yea but the flight is longer . I find a regular flight quicker . I have global entry so that helps but The line in terminal 7 is never long anyway.

      Ba001 is a very nice experience , don’t get me wrong , but I think the hassle of getting off the plane in Ireland ruins it . It feels a bit like having a connecting flight . The new first lane at Heathrow is a very nice edition and I think that now Heathrow slightly has the edge for me

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

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