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British Airways adds lounge access at more European airports including Porto and Reykjavik

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Last September, we published a list of British Airways European destinations which did not offer lounge access.

There are some airports on the British Airways network which simply do not have an airport lounge, as I found out in Pula, Croatia last Summer.  There isn’t much British Airways can do about this.  There are others, however, where there is a lounge but British Airways simply refuses to pay for it.

British Airways is now doing what it can to set this right.  In early February, they added Innsbruck, Ibiza, Krakow and Seville.

As of this Monday, you can now also access a lounge at Porto and Reykjavik.

Anika reviewed the lounge in Porto last year.  Click here to see what you have been missing.

The campaign continues …..

These airports have a lounge which BA won’t pay for but you can use a Priority Pass instead:

Lanzarote ACE

Catania/Fontanarossa CTA

Madeira FNC

Heraklion International Nikos Kazantzakis HER

Humberside HUY

Mykonos JMK

Olbia/Costa Smeralda OLB

Palermo/Punta Raisi PMO (landside)

Paphos International PFO

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

Split SPU

Rhodes – Diagoras International RHU

Tallinn TLL

These airports have a lounge which BA won’t pay for and which only accept cash, not Priority Pass / Lounge Club:

Brindisi/Casale BDS

Bordeaux-Merignac BOD

Bari/Palese International BRI

Cagliari CAG

Dalaman International DLM

London City Airport LCY (in the Private Jet Terminal)

And finally, here is a reminder of British Airways-served airports which have no lounge at all so you can’t blame BA for not letting you in:

Bergen, Flesland Airport BGO

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

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

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

British Airways and Avios

Comments (144)

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

  • shd says:
    28 Feb28 February 05:36

    OT: have a new amex gold *business* card. webpage i signed up on said

    “20,000 Membership Rewards points if you spend £3,000 in the first 3 months of Cardmembership”

    have started earning the points but see no mention of a sign-up bonus target … didn’t it used to have a tracker?

    …or have amex decided not to give me a sign-up bonus for some reason?

    • roberto says:
      28 Feb28 February 06:10

      It takes a few days to show up on line. It probalbly already on the app , have a look there when you get a tick..

      • Intentionally Blank says:
        28 Feb28 February 09:04

        I only see a renewal bonus. I hit my target within the first month, so can’t even remember ever seeing it.

        Do you only get the bonus AFTER the 3 months are up?

        • Caroline says:
          28 Feb28 February 09:40

          My signup / renewal bonus progress bars for my gold card took a while to appear, then the signup bonus disappeared leaving only the renewal bonus for about a week and a half, now it has appeared again! I panicked a little but checked with an agent that I was entitled and they said yes so I think the website is just being funny lately. Last time I had a gold card the progress bar was there consistently. In the past I have had the bonus points applied when I hit the target, not after the 3 months are up

        • Lady London says:
          1 Mar1 March 00:35

          Other posters have said the progress bar tends to show up in the app on a phone even if it’s not showing online on a computer.

  • David says:
    28 Feb28 February 06:06

    Is the first section supposed to be a puzzle? Out of all Euro Traveller destinations, we seem to be allowed all domestics, plus Jersey, Isle of Man, Morocco and Algeria. Not sure why Israel is on the list either – isn’t that a World Traveller flight?

    • Riku says:
      28 Feb28 February 06:12

      it is british humour about the fun of seeing snow on the ground and not flying away to miss it? but “booking” a flight would only take five minutes and then you could go out to enjoy the snow.

    • Frenske says:
      28 Feb28 February 08:13

      It threw me off too especially since I bought flights yesterday … starting to think there would be a big sale today.

  • AH says:
    28 Feb28 February 06:13

    EU sale coming up?

  • capecam says:
    28 Feb28 February 06:13

    Mmmm – Rob – Should i be refunding my o/way flight to WAW I booked last night, and rebooking tomorrow – Purely to have a snowball fight you understand 🙂

  • Lewis King says:
    28 Feb28 February 06:44

    OT, just booked our yearly jaunt down to the south of France. Usually we go with BA but this year we are flying with Easyjet. This is the first year where I’ve felt there’s actually very little benefit to BA shorthal for the price difference I was usually willing to pay… Easyjet came out about £100 cheaper and better flight times….

  • James says:
    28 Feb28 February 06:53

    Cryptic first section 🙂
    Is there a cash sale coming up OR a promo / error making Avios redemptions crazy cheap ?

    Interesting……

  • TripRep says:
    28 Feb28 February 07:08

    I think I won’t be snowballing tomorrow, too busy booking flights by the sounds of things 😉

  • Matt says:
    28 Feb28 February 07:09

    Some advice would be useful please. I booked a BA holiday to Budapest in CE yesterday afternoon.

    Do BA holidays have the 24 hour cooling off period?

    Should I cancel and see what happens tomorrow? I need the tier points, so not interested in redemption.

    • John H says:
      28 Feb28 February 07:20

      I believe you only get the cooling off period if you booked over the phone not online. But it won’t hurt to phone BA if your flight is going to be affected by the weather we are enjoying now.

      • Myer says:
        28 Feb28 February 07:27

        The 24 hour “cooling off period” applies to all BA bookings regardless of how they are made.

        • Matthew Clark says:
          28 Feb28 February 08:00

          Yep “long distance selling regulations” apply to telephone and online.

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

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