British Airways Johannesburg airport lounge closing today

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• Michael says:

  23 May23 May 08:47

  The Slow lounge is actually far better than the BA lounge was. A major upgrade for First Class passengers!

• Alan says:

  23 May23 May 09:30

  OT -sorry
  If you have a gold card with the 2 lounge passes do you actullay have to have the plastic lounge cards on you to use them or is it all linked electronically to your gold card and you just need to present that?

  • Michael says:

    23 May23 May 09:52

    Present the lounge card

    • Alan says:

      23 May23 May 17:20

      OK thanks

• William says:

  23 May23 May 10:14

  Well, I think I’ve been lucky then, as the only time I flew Club World and went to the Elemis spa I got the neck and shoulders massage as a walk-in, though I have to say it was very early in the morning 🙂

• Chas says:

  23 May23 May 10:18

  OT – looking to get the IDC plat card for my trip to the states this summer, but I can’t see the card when I follow the referral link from my Plat (even when selecting “show all cards”). Does anyone know if it is possible to get referral points, and if so what I’m missing?

  • Peter K says:

    23 May23 May 11:51

    The IDC is not a UK card so I imagine you can’t refer yourself to it from a UK amex.

    • Chas says:

      23 May23 May 14:11

      Makes sense. Does anyone already have one that wants to share their referral link for me to use?

      • Rob says:

        23 May23 May 15:24

        There isn’t one unfortunately.

• Michael says:

  23 May23 May 10:33

  Where is article 3 today?

  • Peter K says:

    23 May23 May 11:55

    It was sent out early (ie Yesterday) about the ICC world cup.

• Prins Polo says:

  23 May23 May 10:41

  In the BA Elemis Spa, I’ve never been able to get a walk-in appointment.

  In the VS spa (both Clubhouse and arrivals lounge), I never had to wait more than 15 minutes for a walk-in appointment…

  • Ben says:

    23 May23 May 11:03

    Agreed. It always seems they have 1 therapist working (normally either hiding away or busy) when I go in.

    I was also told that I am not able to book for the Arrivals Lounge even though I am now Gold. Not sure if thats correct but wasnt given much of a choice.

• KevMc says:

  23 May23 May 10:50

  Called 28 days out for our first ever First trip last year and half of the options weren’t available (inc shave). Booked a massage each instead.

  Arrived at the allotted time slot and was told ‘You have booked it on the wrong day – it was booked for two days ago’. I enquired as to how I could possibly have booked it for the wrong day when
  a) I had to call to book, and
  b) You had to be physically flying first class to be able to book, and I did not have a flight in any class two days ago.

  …after some mumbling, toing and froing they managed to ‘fit us in’ for what can only be described as an underwhelming experience. When we flew First to Boston later in the year we didn’t bother pre-booking anything and had no great desire to ask as a walk-in.

  For me, the whole ‘spa experience’ is nothing but a marketing ploy to use in their First Class advertising blurb so that they appear to be competing with the big-boys.

  • Lady London says:

    23 May23 May 12:11

    The Elemis spa has the atmosphere f an empty classroom. At most it seems you will find 1 ‘therapist’ and one phone-answerer/ receptionist there. There are quite a few more ‘treatment rooms’ (i.e. cubicles with curtains) that could be used but there are no staff around bar, it seems, 1 or so to actually use them. It feels like an NHS clinic in the 1970’s. I suppose that matches the feel of the bathroom areas in the BA lounges at LHR too.

    It sounds awfully like a PR at Kelly Hoppen donated a few soft furnishings free of charge to BA in return for some publicity?

    Do it like the best if Virgin, BA, or don’t bother. If I was Elimis I’d be seriously embarrassed here. Even if the spa was, perhaps, wrapped up in ant deal to take Elemis products on BA aircraft?

    Time for a refresh on the offering not the cushions.

  • Scallder says:

    23 May23 May 15:20

    This happened to me last month!!! My wife and I were flying F out to Philadelphia – I called at 6:40am 28 days out and they only had 2 slots available but thankfully for the treatments we wanted.

    Turn up on the day and my wife’s appointment was all fine however my appointment had been booked for 2 weeks previous! Absolute joke. The spa staff on the desk were helpful though and managed to squeeze me in.

    Both of our seats didn’t have working IFE so between my appointment and that we got 50k Avios back which for a 80k flight was a decent return (with an 18 month old we wouldn’t have been able to watch much of anything anyway).

    But the complaint I put in they were specifically going to look at how You First could have screwed up the spa booking, so definitely make a complaint.

  • Morgan says:

    24 May24 May 17:12

    Bring back the Molton Brown spa… now that was a proper experience!

• Graham Walsh says:

  23 May23 May 11:18

  OT Received in the post the Amex Plat fee increase letter pack. They could have reduced the membership fee increase by not sending out a book of info on Plat benefits. Could have put it all online/via email/PDF.

  • John says:

    23 May23 May 11:37

    They send me about 250g of glossy card every few months with my referral link, which probably costs about £1 to make and £2 to post.

    • Michael says:

      23 May23 May 11:43

      complete waste of paper and money

      • Shoestring says:

        23 May23 May 12:14

        presumably not, as it must inspire a few people to go ahead & make a referral

        • Charlieface says:

          23 May23 May 22:28

          Not convinced. The link is the same so how do they track whether the mailshot helped. Sometimes I wonder what goes through the marketing guys’ heads in these sort of companies.

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