The excellent Cathay Pacific lounges in Heathrow Terminal 3 are open

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• tazzy says:

  13 Jan13 January 05:18

  I’m travelling on a club Europe flight from T3 tomorrow. Can I use the Cathay lounge?

  • Rob says:

    13 Jan13 January 07:54

    Yes

• John says:

  13 Jan13 January 07:53

  CX is banned from flying London to Hong Kong until 21 January.

  So they’re obviously just opening the lounge to make money from BA and other OW airlines, which raises the question of why they didn’t open earlier.

  Since the airline part of CX has a reasonable chance of not surviving covid, maybe they should just become a lounge operator.

  I was told that the internal industry payment to enter the CX J lounge is US$60, but people pay £25+ for crap like No1 and Aspire, so they could get away with charging a bit more (for reference you can pay $96 to enter Al Mourjan)

  • Andrew J says:

    13 Jan13 January 08:05

    Isn’t the CX lounge operated by Plaza Premium though? I would expect that the front desk staff who used to be from CX will now be PP staff as I wouldn’t imagine CX will want to hire back staff at LHR just for this purpose.

    • John says:

      13 Jan13 January 10:12

      Yes but PP just does what they can with the money they are paid. Compare the CX lounges in HKG with the PP branded lounges in HK.

  • rich says:

    13 Jan13 January 09:00

    Or as a soft launch to get things back up to speed and to iron out the wrinkles before their own customers arrive?

    • John says:

      13 Jan13 January 10:11

      Transit through HKG will be banned for the foreseeable future except from (but not to) mainland China.

      Nobody flying to HK really cares about a lounge as they have a few days in jail to look forward to followed by another 2.5 weeks in hotel quarantine, which is hard enough to book in the first place, and given the paucity of flights, if you really need to go you will take what you can get

      • The Streets says:

        13 Jan13 January 10:28

        Haha I am definitely the exception to this… I flew to HKG in December and had hoped to have visited a lounge in T3 for the last bit of pleasure but all shut except for one which closed at 9pm… which didn’t bode well for a delayed 11pm Virgin flight :l

      • Sam says:

        13 Jan13 January 20:35

        @John very sensible comment, I have almost forgotten to remember there is no Cathay Pacific flight. Can someone report whether first class dining is open, I really doubt it’s the case.

  • Nick says:

    13 Jan13 January 09:02

    I won’t say the true figure but it’s more than John’s estimate.

    And I know no one will believe it on here, but pre-covid BA was cost-neutral in T3 – they took as much from other airlines in fees as they paid out themselves. The reach of HFP (and FT) is nowhere near as big as some think.

    • Andrew J says:

      13 Jan13 January 09:33

      Yes it always astounded me that people were sat in the BA F Lounge when I ran in to grab a copy of Business Traveller magazine – if only they knew they didn’t have to sit in there eating that slop but could enjoy the a la carte dining room in the CX lounge.

    • John says:

      13 Jan13 January 10:14

      It’s not an estimate, an airline employee I met at an event told me (and their figure was $80 for the F side). They might have been talking rubbish, or you might be.

• Dominic says:

  13 Jan13 January 07:56

  Can BAcGold take a guest on sane ticket to Cathal First?

  • Mike says:

    13 Jan13 January 10:03

    Only if they can get their keyboard to work properly

    • Dominic C says:

      13 Jan13 January 13:08

      Hahaha, so that’s a “yes” to a BA Gold being allowed a guest at Cathay First?

      • Andrew J says:

        13 Jan13 January 16:30

        Yes. And doesn’t need to be on the same ticket – standard OW lounge guesting rules apply.

    • meta says:

      13 Jan13 January 13:16

      They now have boarding pass scanners!

• meta says:

  13 Jan13 January 07:58

  Hong Kong has banned 150 countries from transiting. Cathay Pacific will soon have no passengers/flights apart from Mainland China or those that really need to go. Not sure how long Cathay can survive at this rate.

  • The Streets says:

    13 Jan13 January 10:30

    I get the feeling they’re prepared to let CX run down and then have Air China as the new dominant airline in HKG

    • JDB says:

      13 Jan13 January 11:17

      They have backed Greater Bay Airlines to make this look better.

    • Will says:

      14 Jan14 January 00:18

      I agree, it’s a great pity what has happened in HK.

      I’m sure I’m not the only one who won’t be visiting any part of the China while Xi or any of his fellow “philanthropists” are in charge.

• Greenpen says:

  13 Jan13 January 08:06

  I prefer the BA GF lounge to either CX or QF. However, if you cannot access GF then they are both streets ahead of GC.

  I know lounge preferences is subjective so arrive early and try them all!

  • meta says:

    13 Jan13 January 12:32

    You’re joking right? BA lounge in Terminal 3 is a disgrace.

    • Rob says:

      13 Jan13 January 13:02

      Last time I was there, admittedly 4-5 years ago, the F side was EXCEPTIONALLY unappealing.

      However, Mr Jones is now diarised to get to the bottom of this important question once and for all ….

  • Andrew J says:

    13 Jan13 January 16:36

    GF really is no better than GC except it has fewer people and the F&B is a bit better. It’s still a soulless place, which shows its age in terms of design and the toilets are worse than those in the main departures area.

• Andrew J says:

  13 Jan13 January 08:06

  The toilets alone are worth visiting the CX lounge for – a world apart from the NHS style ones in the laughably bad BA lounges.

  • Michael C says:

    13 Jan13 January 08:08

    They are definitely Asian hotel-level toilets: even my mum would approve.

    • Mike says:

      13 Jan13 January 10:05

      Perhaps you could trademark “approved by Michael’s Mum” – high praise indeed and for one it would attract me to a product/ service

• John says:

  13 Jan13 January 08:09

  The reason why you would visit the BA lounge is to get full size pastries for breakfast. Breakfast offering in the CX lounge was always pretty poor in my view.

  My routine was always to fill up in the BA (or QF) lounge then relax in CX, preferably in one of those nice seats facing the window.

  • Andrew J says:

    13 Jan13 January 08:46

    I always found the a la carte dining to be excellent and have a good range of options – the fish and chips was always a favourite of mine. Although the BA burger is decent too. The BA lounge was always good to pick up magazines to go; Qantas good for coffee and cocktails; and meal time with decent champagne in CX. Oh and AA for the pic n mix to go.

• Andrew S says:

  13 Jan13 January 08:30

  Re: Radfison.
  I recently had two bookings at Canary Wharf cancelled due to ‘whole hotel block booked’
  Impossible to book anything there at present.
  I did ask why and was told it’s ‘confidential’
  Does anyone know the reasons why it’s not currently available?

  • Rob says:

    13 Jan13 January 09:08

    Quarantine hotel at the time?

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