Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Which British Airways European routes do not offer lounge access?

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

On Saturday we ran a review of the ANA lounge at Porto airport.  This is notable because – whilst it is the only lounge at Porto – British Airways refuses to pay for Club Europe or status passengers to use it.

(If you read HfP by email, you didn’t receive this review because I felt it was a bit of a niche topic to drop into 10,000 inboxes.  You can read the article here.)

Courtesy of Flyertalk, I have a list of all British Airways short-haul destinations which do not offer lounge access.  This is a great bit of crowd sourcing work from the FT community. Keep this list in mind next time you book a trip and are considering whether to upgrade to Club Europe or not.

These airports have no lounge at all so you can’t blame BA for not letting you in:

Bergen, Flesland Airport BGO

Biarritz-Anglet-Bayonne BIQ

Corfu / Ioannis Kapodistrias International Airport CFU

Chania International Airport CHQ

Chambery-Savoie CMF

Bergerac-Roumaniere EGC

Friedrichshafen FDH

Fuerteventura FUE

Grenoble-Isere GNB

Frederico Garcia Lorca GRX

Innsbruck INN (EDIT: a Priority Pass lounge opened 12/17)

Skiathos Island National JSI

Santorini JTR

Kos KGS

Kalamata KLX

Limoges LIG

Menorca MAH

San Javier MJV

Nantes Atlantique NTE

Asturias OVD

Pula PUY

Rotterdam RTM

Quimper-Cornouaille UIP

These airports have a lounge but BA refuses to pay for it:

You can use a Priority Pass instead at these airports:

Lanzarote ACE

Cagliari/Elmas CAG

Catania/Fontanarossa CTA

Madeira FNC

Heraklion International Nikos Kazantzakis HER

Humberside HUY

Ibiza IBZ

Mykonos JMK

John Paul II International Krakow-Balice KRK

Montpelier MPL

Olbia/Costa Smeralda OLB

Francisco de Sa Carneiro, Porto OPO

Palermo/Punta Raisi PMO (landside)

Thessaloniki Macedonia International SKG (as of 1st July 2017)

Split SPU

Sevilla SVQ

Rhodes – Diagoras International RHU

Tallinn TLL

These airport lounges only accepts cash and not Priority Pass / Lounge Club:

Brindisi/Casale BDS

Bordeaux-Merignac BOD

Bodrum – Milas Bodrum International BJV

Bari/Palese International BRI

Dalaman International DLM

London City Airport LCY (in the Private Jet Terminal)

Paphos International PFO

Stavanger, Sola SVG

These airports have lounges run by other airlines which BA cannot access:

Keflavik International KEF

Please bear in mind that this is crowd sourced list and 100% accuracy is not guaranteed – but it should be close enough.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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

The Platinum Card from American Express

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

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

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

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (124)

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

  • andijs2000 says:

    Krakow in Poland has a lounge but no access for BA. As I found out on a recent business trip.
    It does accept Priority pass.

  • Calum says:

    Split isn’t listed on the PP website – when I was there recently I noticed the *A lounge but admittedly didn’t try my PP.

  • @mkcol says:

    I didn’t realise BA went to some of these destinations!

  • Kilburnflyer says:

    Flew back from PUL (Pula) in late August and it looks like there is a small exec lounge (not listed on their website though), I didn’t go in but there didn’t seem to be any lounge club / priority pass signs outside, so perhaps only cash on door? I was flying Easyjet and didn’t have much time before flight left so wasn’t worth bothering with

    • Rob says:

      I was in Pula in August (were you there the Sat night of the massive thunderstorm?! We were.) Did not see a lounge at all ….

  • KeithS says:

    I got caught out on this and I wasn’t best pleased.

    Last year (2016) we were in the lounge at Thessaloniki (SKG). Upon our return we booked for this year. Therefore, the lounge was still in existence when I booked.

    At check-in this year at SKG they said there was no access to the Lounge as, basically, BA would no longer pay for it (although every other airline seemed to).

    To my mind I was denied a service that I had paid for, but BA refused any form of comp re their Customer Service.

    I wondered why I had bothered to pay for CE when one of the benefits had been withdrawn – I understand if it had never been there before, but as I said, it was available when I booked.

  • Mat S says:

    I flew Club Europe with BA from Kraków to London Heathrow last year. No lounge access. To make matters worse the flight was delayed as well :-(.

  • Markc62 says:

    Rob – what is the effective date of your list? I will be flying from SKG with BA on 8th October so was wondering if I would get Lounge access as this will be the fourth time I have flown out of SKG in 18 months and the first three times I was able to access a small Lounge, courtesy of BA. it’s not brilliant but is better than waiting in the main terminal. I’ll be intested to see if I get access this time.

    Thanks for the useful list Rob.

    • Rob says:

      It is a crowd sourced doc that gets amended as people feed info back. Not sure of the dates of any particular entries, hence the caveat at the end.

    • John says:

      As Rob says, it is not his list.

      If you clicked on the link to Flyertalk that Rob provided, and read the entry for SKG, you will see that lounge access ended on 1 July 2017.

      If things have changed when you go, you could always contribute this information to flyertalk yourself.

    • Jovanna says:

      I flew from Thessaloniki earlier this month. No lounge access for BA passengers in Club, nor with status. I was turned away (BA Gold, in CE).

      However, Agent did point out that I could enter with Priority Pass. Had a rummage and found my card.

      Aegean lounge also closed at the moment for refurbishment. You can board from the lounge, as you get your own bus. Nothing to do with BA and not much use to those travelling to the UK but thought I’d mention it.

  • Gin and Tonic Please says:

    Mykonos (JMK) is wrong – there’s a Priority Pass lounge available. It’s really nice, but very small.

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.