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Clubrooms lounge at Luton Airport only accepting DragonPass – no Priority Pass or Lounge Club

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No 1 Lounges has revealed more information on its new Luton lounge.

We recently ran an article on the top new UK airport lounge openings planned for H2 2019.  One of those was the new Clubrooms lounge at Luton.

This is an odd one.  Luton has one lounge, the recently refurbished Aspire which we reviewed here.  It is decent but frequently overcrowded.

Clubrooms lounge Luton Airport opening

It was therefore good news when No 1 Lounges decided to invest in Luton.  What no-one quite understands, however, is why it has gone for its premium Clubrooms format, with table service and a la carte dining.

No 1 is now taking bookings from 1st July for the new Luton Clubrooms.

For bookings by 23rd June, for visits until the year end, you can save 33% (£24, down from £36) by using code LUTON24You need to book via this page here.

Got a lounge club card?  You’re out of luck – with one exception.

Only holders of DragonPass – which is mainly NatWest Black cardholders – can pay £15 to reserve a spot in Clubrooms.  This option is not available to Priority Pass, Lounge Club or LoungeKey customers.  You can reserve your spot here.

I would be very surprised if DragonPass cardholders were allowed free entry in Luton on a walk-up basis, given the £15 reservation fee.  I would imagine a top-up payment will be required.

Note that no children under 5 are allowed, and parents with children over 5 may be seated together and kept away from other guests (read the T&Cs).

We will pop along and take a look in early July to let you know if it is worth the money or not.


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.

Comments (100)

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

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    Hi Bits fans. Question for you – the access to the heathrow T5 Pods through the Thistle carpark – is this available only if staying in the Thistle? The Premier Inn next door has rooms the night I need before a 6am flight but the Thistle itself does not…

    • Rob says:

      As Thistle invested in the infrastructure (ie the automatic gate) I would imagine no.

      The £5 goes to the airport.

      • Matt says:

        You can pay £5 each way at the desk in the Thistle for the access codes at any point – they won’t know if you’re staying or not.

        Alternatively time it right and follow someone through…

  • VJ says:

    O/T (Tesco Debit Card): Since 3% interest is dusted now, I wonder any good use of this current account.

    Any Credit Card bill that I can pay with Tesco Debit Card that earn points?

    • Richard says:

      they arent meant to earn as it is a transaction to a financial institution and usually dont in my experience

      • David says:

        Do you shop in Tesco? Tesco Pay+ linked to Tesco debit card is the highest possible earning rate from Tesco shopping: total of 2.25 CC points (5.4 avios) per pound, including normal Clubcard earning.

    • Thomas Howard says:

      I’ve recieved Clubcard points on payments to Interactive Investors, NSI and HMRC and its been implied to me that Curve will soon be restricting some or all of these payments so it might be worth holding on to if you’ll be paying any of them.

      • stevenhp1987 says:

        I’ve not had any Clubcard points on said purchases since Curve implemented the MCC change.
        Used to pay off all my credit cards with my Curve Card linked to my Tesco Debit Card!

    • Charlieface says:

      Double points for using the card as a clubcard at Tesco petrol stations. This is irrespective of whether you pay with the card. £50/month on fuel = extra 600 points

      • TGLoyalty says:

        You get that after you close the account anyway 😉

      • Genghis says:

        Yep. Paying on Pay+ with the clubcard set as your debit card clubcard number and using the debit card as the payment card = 2.25 clubcard points / £ (and Tesco are the cheapest for me – check out the PetrolPrices app).

  • Si**o says:

    OT/ Lloyds Avios upgrade voucher

    I currently have a trip booked for LGW-ALC -LGW next week that I now will not be able to use due to work.

    1)I take it I can cancel and get the voucher back?
    2)I will be working over in Poland now for the next few months, can I use the voucher for a trip starting in Poland back to the UK?

    • Anna says:

      1. If you cancel (as opposed to change), you forfeit the voucher.

      2. Yes, you can start your journey outside the UK.

    • Si**o says:

      Perfect thanks, rung avios and managed to get WAW-LHR-WAW for the dates I needed in the future.

      Flights/dates can be changed as long as the change is within the same zone.

      They made me pay 1,000 avios in difference due to peak/off-peak timmings which is fine, but did also make me pay the £35 change fee on top.

      • BigSi says:

        That is correct, you made a change to the booking and need to pay £35 fee.

  • Shoestring says:

    https://www.flyingblue.us/en/partners/hotel/hotel-le-club-accor-hotels/presentation
    Give yourself even more reason to indulge in a special treat by enrolling in the new Miles+Points service from Flying Blue and Le Club AccorHotels.
    With Miles+Points you’ll have the opportunity to double earn Flying Blue Miles and Le Club AccorHotels Rewards points simultaneously with each eligible flight taken or participating hotel stay:
    When you fly you earn Le Club AccorHotels Rewards points in addition to your usual Flying Blue Miles (2 euros spent on a flight or paid options related to the flight = 1 Rewards point).
    When you stay at a Le Club AccorHotels hotel you earn Flying Blue Miles in addition to your usual Rewards points (1 euro spent at Le club AccorHotels = up to 1 Flying Blue Mile).

    • Rob says:

      Doing this tomorrow or Sat – no brainer to register.

    • Lady London says:

      Interestingly, Qantas has just announced some kind of a tie-up with Air France and KLM (who are Skyteam) and Air New Zealand (Star Alliance) as part of the revamp of their loyalty program announced yesterday.

      Would be too good to be true to think you could book tickets on Qantas by flying on AF and KL, but who knows.

      Wonder if this means the old alliances are increasingly falling away, will be ignored and airlines doing their own individual tie-ups instead.

      • marcw says:

        Well it’s very interesting indeed. In fact, you can already book JAL and Malaysia Airlines with Flying Blue miles. Sometimes it’s better vale than using Avios, since on Flying Blue connections are included.

  • David says:

    Bits: About to book a €1000 prepaid hotel room. Have BA AMEX, Good Amex and Curve//Hilton VISA as options. What’s best? I don’t have time for getting a new card and rarely spend abroad.

    I’m thinking Curve//Hilton.

    • stevenhp1987 says:

      Personally I’d use Curve/Hilton for that.

      Amex Gold would be second as you’ll get double points, but pay 2.99% FX fee.

      • Lady London says:

        Hilton card would preserve more of your rights s75 etc as Curve is intermediary.

    • Shoestring says:

      if you hit the £15K spend on Gold (to trigger the 10K MR bonus, Gold is better than BA Amex (ignoring value of 2-4-1 etc)

      Normal GBP spend:
      1.67 MR/ £1 (Gold) vs 1.5 (BAPP),

      foreign spend – both pay the 2.99% – in this scenario you”d be earning 2.67 MR/ £1 on the Gold

      no idea about Hilton

    • Andrew says:

      Before doing anything, best to check through your card provider’s and employer’s offers to see if there are any deals that will give you a return?

      Just clicked through for booking my boss’s stay in an Accor Hotel. £2,300 for 3 nights. 20% Back means £460 for me. 🙂

  • Lee says:

    OT – Just applied IHG premium card added to Curve, got 2 questions if anyone could help.
    1. It shows Marriott card in Curve app, is that normal?
    2. Any cash advance charge for ATM currently?
    Thanks

  • Shoestring says:

    @Alan – we were discussing Morrisons Amex credit (non appearance thereof)

    sometimes you don’t actually get to see the credit appear until the PDF statement is produced! I follow my transactions online fairly carefully and always look to see £5 Shop Small credits pop up etc to make sure I got it.

    just disputed 2 statement credits I hadn’t received – because they never popped up in my online transactions dashboard/ monitor

    to find that they had been credited but only visible in the PDF statements

    could be the case with Morrisons SC

  • Lesley says:

    A bit late for a comment but I had never flown until four years ago when I went on a BA course – I cannot recommend them highly enough. The people were brilliant and out of 104 people only three did not make the journey at the end. I had to be talked back onto the plane before take off when I had a minor panic attach (I am claustrophobic). Since then I have flown in Europe more lately in economy, and Business class to Thailand and the States (twice). On the last trip there was a last minute technical fault and we spent over three hours on the runway and all I felt was a bit annoyed we would be late in. It was truely a life changing experience

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

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