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Which UK airport lounges are open and accepting Priority Pass?

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This article is sponsored by Priority Pass.

Right now, UK airport lounges are a patchwork quilt of openings and closings.

Given the uncertainty, we thought it would be worth looking at which UK lounges are currently open to Priority Pass holders. Priority Pass supplied us with a list of lounges that were open as of the end of last weekend. The lounges below are, of course, also open for cash visits if you don’t have a Priority Pass.

Priority Pass is currently running a sale on its annual memberships. You can save up to 40% on the entry-level Standard membership which reduces the cost of lounge visits to £20. Alternatively, the Standard Plus membership is reduced to £141 (25% off) and comes with 10 free visits. You can find the discounts here. The deal ends on 30th September.

Alternatively, you can get a Priority Pass for free with the American Express Platinum card. Both the main cardholder and one supplementary cardholder receive a Priority Pass, and each card admits two people for free. This means that you can get a family of four people into a lounge for free, as many times as you want if both the main and supplementary cardholder are travelling together. There is NO LIMIT to the number of lounge visits you can make for free.  Our full review of Amex Platinum is here.

You can also get a ‘two free visits’ Priority Pass if you apply for American Express Preferred Rewards Gold. As Amex Gold is free for the first year, this is an easy way of getting totally free airport lounge access for a couple. Further visits after the first two free ones are charged at £20.

Which UK Priority Pass lounges are currently open?

Aberdeen International

Belfast City

Birmingham

City of Derry

Doncaster Sheffield

Edinburgh International

East Midlands

Leeds Bradford

London Gatwick

London Heathrow Terminal 2

London Heathrow Terminal 5

Liverpool John Lennon

London Luton

Manchester

The new Aspire Lounge in the T2 extension will open on 23rd October.

Teesside International

Newcastle International

Cornwall Airport Newquay

Southampton

London Stansted

Over the next few months we will be visiting some of the most impressive Priority Pass lounges on this list to bring you updated reviews and to show how the lounges are responding to the new environment. Keep an eye out.

Category

General

Comments (59)

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

  • EddL says:
    10 Sep10 September 07:59

    I was hoping the No1 lounge in Heathrow’s T3 would be open today but I guess that’s not the case 🙁

  • Reney says:
    10 Sep10 September 08:05

    I have ignored the priority passes that came in the post on the last year.How do I work out which one is associated with a card that is still opened?

  • Voldemort says:
    10 Sep10 September 08:06

    Bristol Airport Aspire reopens today (10th September)

  • roberto says:
    10 Sep10 September 08:27

    The biggest issue is getting turned away due to “space management”. This has been going on since before covid so PP can’t use that as an excuse.

    I spoke to a chum this week that queued at the No1 Gatwick to meet a friend already inside . 7 people left and 2 were allowed in, after more waiting he went to the (empty) Aspire lounge. He later heard the No1 was practically empty inside but they were saving space for those that booked.

    Seems pointless paying for a card to gain entry to a lounge that does not guarantee entry.

    • Rob M says:
      10 Sep10 September 08:57

      In Newcastle an issue is that the Emirates – and I guess now the BA flights also – have Business passengers which take up a lot of the space. Which means you often get turned away. You can pay £5pp I think to book and guarantee your space – but ideally wouldn’t want to have to pay more.

    • Rob says:
      10 Sep10 September 09:26

      Pay your reservation fee and No1 guarantees entry. Problem solved.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        10 Sep10 September 09:30

        I disagree. It’s not problem solved at all because if you genuinely make last min trips on business etc you don’t have time to book.

        Hopefully now they’ve been bought by collinson No1 sort their BS out.

        • Rob says:
          10 Sep10 September 09:32

          Let’s see ….

          Take £15 per head off, say, Qatar to block book 50 seats per day, of which only 25 will turn up on average

          or

          Take £12 per head off PP from people who eat and drink heavily

          Tricky one.

          If you think this will change under Collinson part-ownership then you’ve never met anyone from Collinson. Colin Evans, who I know, is in his 70s, worth hundreds of millions and still flies the world in economy if he can’t get a cheap deal on a J ticket.

          • TGLoyalty says:
            10 Sep10 September 09:49

            So what you’re saying is they are too cheap to accept their own card customers and therefore all their customers will merrily keep paying for a product they can’t use? That’s BS.

            It’s so bad in the U.K. I value the lounge access cards at £0 and activity tell anyone who asks not to bother buying a PP.

            then again you’ll always get a blog that’s paid to advertise that will gloss over the fact the PP they are buying won’t actually get them access to a U.K. lounge unless they pay another £5 fee on top.

          • TGLoyalty says:
            10 Sep10 September 09:53

            What I love most about this attitude is the complete lack of customer first approach.

            The complete opposite of where every successful business and corporation is focusing today.

          • Rob says:
            10 Sep10 September 11:01

            No1 (50% not owned by Collinson) has made a sensible strategic decision to accept (guess) 50 people x £15 x 365 days per year from Qatar et al. This is the sort of contract that lets you invest in new facilities and staff.

            They couldn’t care less about PP customers who earn them very little and eat and drink more than the average Qatar customer on top. The issue is what you think PP should do about it. The answer is either a) drop No1 or b) keep it in because they will sell far fewer UK passes without No1 in it.

            Swissport, which owns the other 50% of No1, will insist those Qatar contracts remain.

          • BuildBackBetter says:
            10 Sep10 September 11:30

            Does that mean plaza premium breaking off from PP is a huge benefit for Amex plat holders? Thousands of PP holders will be left fighting for sub-standard PP lounges while leaving the better ones for amex plat?

          • Rob says:
            10 Sep10 September 11:39

            Plaza broke off because of the money. They think they can do better with their own lounge card product and direct deals like the Amex Plat one.

            It’s certainly a good deal for us because it now gets you T5 access, which was never in Priority Pass due to Collinson’s desire to protect Club Aspire (which it also half owns).

          • TGLoyalty says:
            10 Sep10 September 12:22

            1) it’s likely the PP customer is the Qatar customer on another occasion and neither is there to eat and drink as much as possible (isn’t No1 1 dish only anyway!)

            I’d say your customer buying via the no1 website if far more likely to be the leisure customer that eats and drinks them dry.

            2) a 50% owner still needs to make sure their customers are catered for and not just turned away on a regular basis. If pre booking is the only way to manage capacity then PP customers should be able to book for free (charge them £5 if they no show)

          • MW says:
            10 Sep10 September 14:56

            The real challenge for PP (especially considering they let lots of accounts lapse during the pandemic) is that once enough people realise they are not guaranteed access to the lounge they paid for (as part of their subscription), they will dump PP and never pay for it again.

            Not letting in customers into the lounge is counterproductive long term.

      • ChrisW says:
        10 Sep10 September 20:09

        But that’s not what PP are selling. It’s not “unless you pay an extra fee to reserve entry you will probably be turned away” they are selling “entry lounge access whenever you travel, virtually everywhere”

  • Gothbe says:
    10 Sep10 September 08:29

    Visited the aspire lounge in Edinburgh yesterday. There were about 30 guests and staff said it was getting busier by the day. I’d never used the lounge as an arriving passenger before. No 1 lounge next door closed

  • Neo says:
    10 Sep10 September 08:42

    You forgot about LHR T3 NR 1 Lounge….use it yesterday with PP

    • Blenz101 says:
      10 Sep10 September 09:06

      Did they have menus? Was there last week and breakfast service had no menus, poor bar staff had to list all options each time. At the time the EK lounge wasn’t open so the bacon and sausage sandwiches came with additional queries about which meat for many passengers. Ordering was at the bar.

      Then they switched to lunch at about 12.30 which was on a printed menu which could be collected from the bar but they were asking this was ordered from the table each time someone came to the bar.

      Confusing set up and felt sorry for the staff trying their best.

      • Pawel says:
        10 Sep10 September 10:07

        its mess with food there now….sometimes they gave menus….sometimes not.
        They don’t have regular coke….none snacks….

    • Rob says:
      10 Sep10 September 09:22

      Long story about that!

  • MW says:
    10 Sep10 September 09:36

    Gatwick N No1 is showing up on the Amex app as open. I’m likely to have a non-Ba flight from there soon, which is the better of the lounges to use (if both open)?

    • Phil says:
      10 Sep10 September 11:31

      No 1 is the nicer as it’s not in the basement, but only open until 12:00 at the moment.

      • Phil says:
        10 Sep10 September 12:07

        I’m just doing a mini lounge crawl at Gatwick North…

        No 1 is only until 12:00 and doing a “supermarket” quality sausage breakfast.

        Aspire has a much better food offering at the moment. Very busy though.

    • Fenny says:
      10 Sep10 September 21:58

      I was looking for lounges at LGW and it seems none open in time for a 5.40 am departure. Can’t find the PP pass AMEX sent me in Feb, so I contacted them via chat. Very helpful person gave me my membership no and number to call to set up my account on the app. But as there’s nowhere to use next week, I don’t need to rush to domit.

  • James says:
    10 Sep10 September 10:14

    +1 for the Northern Lights Lounge at ABZ. It really is very good and blows the BA Lounge out of the water in my opinion. Especially at the moment.

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