Priority Pass adds two new Heathrow ‘lounges’ you can’t access via Amex – is this sustainable?

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• Bill says:

  1 Aug1 August 07:48

  I got turned away from the lounge in Bristol due to it being full. However looking through the window I could see it wasn’t.
  I waited in the immediate vicinity and in the following 30 minutes a grand total of zero people entered the lounge. I then went to my gate.

  • Alan says:

    1 Aug1 August 07:53

    The issue seems to be where they have a deal with other airlines to admit business class pax they need to keep a set amount of capacity available for them when ultimately lots may not turn up. Assuming that LH, EI, KL all use their lounge at Bristol that is?

    • GM says:

      1 Aug1 August 08:46

      That’s what they say, and seems to be true at least sometimes. I’ve booked places in lounges at BHX and watched them turn people away while it was empty…but then 15 minutes later the hordes of TUI etc started to arrive

      • Smid says:

        1 Aug1 August 10:42

        TUI and Jet2 packages at BHX have ruined the Aspire access.

    • t0m says:

      1 Aug1 August 16:40

      Yes – and I think the other Aspire Plus lounge at Bristol closed, so there is only one lounge whereas there used to be 2…

  • JohnG says:

    1 Aug1 August 08:54

    I generally have doubts about anecdotal observations and how much can be construed from them. They gave up revenue by not letting you in which makes me reasonably comfortable they have a reason. I assume when judging capacity they look at time windows of a couple of hours for example.

    • Chas says:

      1 Aug1 August 13:26

      Their reason could be because focussing purely on revenue is vanity. Focussing on profit is sanity. Perhaps they have evidence that PP users drink / eat more, and so they may actually make a loss on PP customers especially if the PP income is lower than with other customers.

      • Rob says:

        1 Aug1 August 13:31

        You can be sure that anyone paying £35 intends to get value for money. However, on multiple occasions I have used a PP lounge for 10 minutes, just to grab a coffee on my way to the gate, and then left again.

        Perhaps I’m in the minority with an unlimited use Priority Pass, of course. If I was only getting 2 free visits per year via Amex Gold then perhaps I’d be more inclined to fill my boots.

        • Chas says:

          1 Aug1 August 15:25

          That’s a fair point, and it makes it even more difficult to understand the lounge behaviours. There are lots of different user cases, but there are plenty of situations where it’s essentially free money to admit some PP customers. But then that’s not going to be the case if you only had 2 visits – like you, I would use them judiciously. The thing we value most about having lounge access though is having somewhere a little calmer to sit comfortably – but not to the tune of £35 each!

• Leo says:

  1 Aug1 August 08:00

  It’s an issue if you are being denied entry to a lounge granted – but I don’t think not being able to use a pub will put the majority of people off the “benefit” of lounge access per se.

  • Stuart says:

    1 Aug1 August 08:06

    The pubs are quickly becoming the only ‘lounges’ that can be accessed due to the capacity restriction though

• Hatty H says:

  1 Aug1 August 08:05

  I’ve also been refused lounge entry with AMEX-issued PP when travelling internationally, and not due to overcrowding reasons. Istanbul SAW domestic terminal refused entry as AMEX account not issued to Turkish bank. Lounge doesn’t show on the app but means you can never rely on lounge access when domestic connections required.

• Lev441 says:

  1 Aug1 August 08:27

  I ended up phoning Amex after being refused entry in 5 out of the last 6 lounges I attempted to go to over June and July. I spoke to someone at Brighton who said they were aware of the issues people have been facing and that if I shared what dates and airports it was, they were correlating information and complaining about the situation to Priority pass. Got some MR points thrown my way too.

• Layerden says:

  1 Aug1 August 08:35

  Not sure that global comment is write. I remember the Mrs and I had a resturarant meal in an airside when we did our Latin American trip in Buenos Aires. This in on PP and no cost to ourselves.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    1 Aug1 August 08:46

    Was this recently as Amex have changed their stance all restaurants were excluded perhaps 2 years ago?

• Jonathan says:

  1 Aug1 August 08:39

  I got turned away from the lounge at Stansted at 5:00 AM due to it being full with reservations. However looking through the window I could see it wasn’t but was told reservations are held for 3 hours regardless of attendance. That meant the earliest I could get in was 7am at best and out flight was at 7:15. Lots of people in a similar position. Emirates has now restarted so I assume the problem will get worse.

  • lumma says:

    1 Aug1 August 08:59

    I bet if you offered £35 or whatever they charge on the door they’d have let you in.

    • JohnG says:

      1 Aug1 August 09:43

      Definitely the case at STN a month ago, actually got in eventually but the, perfectly nice, dragon managing the queue was open with people who asked that they could walk straight in if they decided to pay.

      As to the view that surely people won’t care about not getting a pub credit; I think the exact opposite is true. It’s frustrating enough having a largely useless PP membership already, knowing that an Amex PP card is even more useless than average is just rubbing it in.

  • Rob says:

    1 Aug1 August 10:28

    Emirates will pay for a guaranteed, say, 100 spaces per flight irrespective of how many turn up, and pay more than PP offers. No brainer.

    At Stansted, if course, the airport owns the lounge. You can be 100% certain that airlines who may move their flights if their premium passengers aren’t looked after get priority.

• Luke says:

  1 Aug1 August 08:51

  Priority Pass- if ever there was a customer proposition that has lost its way.

  • Rob says:

    1 Aug1 August 10:25

    What is your suggestion then?

    Let’s say PP removed lounges where you can’t get in for half the day. Who benefits from that? Off peak travellers lose out as they could have got in. Peak travellers aren’t getting in anyway.

    • Chas says:

      1 Aug1 August 13:35

      @Rob – how about PP negotiate a dual tier fee model with the lounges, where they pay a higher rate during peak hours and a lower rate during off-peak hours when the lounges benefit from covering their marginal costs plus a bit of profit?

• Axel Heyst says:

  1 Aug1 August 08:55

  Surprisingly got 4 of us into the lounge in Pisa with one PP and one lounge card. The receptionist couldn’t give a monkeys. Its airside but still in Schengen area so still behind passports.

  Bit annoyed as I had earlier paid for breakfast for everyone downtown.

  Seems you win some you lose some with these cards nowadays.

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