You will soon see a ‘refresh’ of the British Airways Chicago, Berlin and Edinburgh airport lounges

British Airways has revealed the next batch of lounges to receive refreshes across its network.

This is not entirely ‘new news’, since it was included – possibly by mistake – in BA’s ’20 New Year’s Resolutions’ press release over Christmas.  British Airways shared full details of its plans this morning, although plans for Heathrow are still under wraps.

The BA lounges at Chicago O’Hare, Berlin Tegel and Edinburgh airports will all be refreshed this spring.  These lounges will receive new carpets and furniture in line with the full refurbishments recently opened in (links to articles) San Francisco, Johannesburg, Geneva (review), Aberdeen, Rome and Milan.

British Airways clearly feels these lounges are in good shape and only need retouching.  You won’t be getting a comprehensive refurbishment or reconfiguration of the space that has happened in other locations. That means you are unlikely to see the new bar that anchors all of BA’s recent lounge refurbishments:

Given this is a lighter ‘refresh,’ we can also expect the lounges to remain in service.  As happened with the Concorde Room in Heathrow Terminal 5 recently, presumably the lounge elves will come out at night and replace the carpets and soft furnishings to ensure minimum disruption. This avoids the 5+ months closure that recent lounge upgrades have required.

Chicago gets a bigger refresh with renewed decor, a new reception and redesigned buffet area.

Edinburgh and Chicago are set to be completed by ‘Spring 2020’ whilst Berlin should be refreshed in ‘early Spring’. 

Of all the places where you may want to update your lounge, picking an airport which is closing permanently in November 2020 – assuming Berlin Brandenberg finally makes it – seems odd.  Or perhaps the new chairs will be packed up and shipped off to the new airport.  We will be in Berlin during March for the massive ITB travel show so we may get to try it out then.

Given that all three lounges are set to be complete by Spring this year, it seems we can expect British Airways to reveal another run of lounge refurbishments in the coming months. Whether these will be refreshes or full refurbishments are yet to be seen.

British Airways is also working on their Heathrow lounges, which are now getting a little long in the tooth. We do not yet know what we can expect, although rumours have been circulating of an additional lounge in T5C to reduce disruption in the event of an extended lounge closure.  This would suggest that BA is considering an extensive lounge refurbishment program.  We have been told to expect an announcement and wait with bated breath ……

PS.  If you missed it, take a look at our recent article on the top 10 reasons why you should get the FREE British Airways American Express credit card.

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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.

If you have a small business, consider American Express Business Platinum instead.

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.

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.

PS. You can find all of HfP’s UK airport lounge reviews – and we’ve been to most of them – indexed here.