EXCLUSIVE: Gatwick’s Virgin Clubhouse reopens as a Plaza Premium lounge

Plaza Premium has, with no fanfare, gained a new lounge in London.

It has opened the ex- Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse lounge at Gatwick Airport’s North Terminal as a Plaza Premium lounge.

This means that it is now accessible to DragonPass and American Express Platinum cardholders.

With Gatwick’s South Terminal remaining closed for the forseeable future, you will be using Gatwick North if you have any flights out of the airport. This includes all British Airways services.

With Plaza Premium no longer part of the Priority Pass network, and with the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse being bigger than most independent airport lounges, this should be a particularly quiet and laid back place to visit.

The photos in the article were released by Virgin Atlantic in 2017. Plaza Premium is using some of the same images in its marketing so I assume that little has changed inside, including the retention of the Kids Zone.

In retrospect, we should not be surprised about this. As we covered here, Virgin Atlantic recently struck a deal with Plaza Premium to manage all of its lounges outside the UK. This would have put Plaza Premium in a good position to do a deal to take over the lease and fittings of the Virgin Atlantic space at London Gatwick.

(For anyone who remembers the old V-Room lounge, used by Virgin Holidays, this was closed some years ago and split into two to form the Club Aspire and My Lounge lounges.)

According to the Plaza Premium website, the lounge is open from 6am to 5.30pm daily.

You can book slots for cash via this page of the Plaza Premium website.

If you are a regular user of Gatwick North, you can get permanent free access to the lounge with an American Express Platinum charge card.

The lounge is NOT in Priority Pass but American Express has a global deal with Plaza Premium to allow Platinum charge card holders, with a guest, to access its lounges. You would also get access to the Plaza Premium lounge in BA’s Terminal 5 at Heathrow, reviewed here.

There is currently a ludicrous 60,000 Membership Rewards points bonus, which converts to 60,000 Avios, for getting Amex Platinum. Our full review of Amex Platinum is here and you can apply here.

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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.