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

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• lumma says:

  1 Aug1 August 08:58

  If I had to guess the reason why, I think it’s more likely it’s priority pass not paying the bar/restaurant enough of a cut, especially considering they all have the same ownership. Only with AMEX plat can you technically get £60 discount and as you said the vast majority of subscribers will have the pass this way. You may get £15 off but the bar might only get half of that.

  • JDB says:

    1 Aug1 August 10:34

    This, but also they probably hoped that by offering the £15 credit, lots of fancy Amex cardholders would then spend more, but I get the impression everyone just wants their ‘free’ £15 and that’s it; that stinginess unsurprisingly means the offer is getting restricted.

• Chad McChadface says:

  1 Aug1 August 09:01

  Rob… seeing as you promote a lot of Amex stuff maybe you could get onto them to explain what they’re going to do about this and being constantly turned away from UK lounges?

  • Rob says:

    1 Aug1 August 10:20

    What exactly do you expect them to do?

    Priority Pass pays so little to lounges that they will take money from literally anywhere before accepting a PP guest.

    However, as a lounge has huge fixed costs and virtually no variable costs, no one would turn down a PP guest unnecessarily unless they decided the extra heads would lower the experience for those who pay proper money.

    • tony says:

      1 Aug1 August 10:42

      Yes but the irony here is that the lounges where this seems to be endemic (admittedly there’s a sampling issue here) are Aspire, No, 1 and The Club. All three are half owned by Collinson who also own priority pass.

      What needs to happen is the lounge operator side tells PP that they need to pay more per visit. The PP side then have to hand that cost down the line to bulk and individual subscribers alike or absorb in their own margin.

      Take an arbitrary example. Revenue after marketing costs etc on an annual pass is £100. They know on average people will make 8 visits. Average cost per visit is £12.50 which matches the average revenue. Great if you’re running this as a charity, not so good if you’re running a business.

      So you can’t up the price charged without eroding your sales, but because you own both sides of the coin, you can artificially constrain supply. Trim that supply by 25% so each member only gets 6 visits a year on average and suddenly what was a break even proposition is showing a 25% return.

      And with the mediocre Aspire lounges now selling access B2C at £40 a pop, it can be no surprise that finding an extra £1 or £2 per guest via PP won’t cut it.

      • Rob says:

        1 Aug1 August 12:40

        Lounges have capacity constraints, so something has to give. I can tell you from my dealings with No1 pre-administration that they were doing everything in their power to sell more spaces direct (including add-on deals with package holiday companies, promos via newspapers, giving Avios / Virgin Points on direct bookings) to reduce their reliance on PP.

    • Track says:

      1 Aug1 August 10:46

      @Rob, PP/Collins are frustrating the contract (no de facto lounge access).

      It is very clear what AMEX should have done.

      • Rob says:

        1 Aug1 August 12:02

        If Amex drop Priority Pass without any change to the annual fee – which is what would happen – you’d be worse off. There is no way it would lead to a fee reduction given that I reckon the majority of Amex Plats don’t use the lounge benefit in the average year.

    • numpty says:

      1 Aug1 August 11:11

      Ditch PP and give us back CX Gold status (or another airline) – sounds like a great benefit but only really makes a difference when flying oneworld economy and dont already have status. Minimal impact on lounges [or would it…]

    • Alan says:

      3 Aug3 August 08:50

      Personally I’d like them to speak with PP and sort out a way of solving this mess. I appreciate that you don’t value it as a benefit but lots of us do and I’d certainly rather they spend some money sorting it out rather than the money they keep spending on London-only ‘experiences’ and massive chunks on pointless brochures and magazines they keep sending out. I know they won’t, but can dream!

  • Track says:

    1 Aug1 August 10:45

    Yeah, if AMEX not budging — not going to happen.

    Imagine if AMEX cancel PP contract and return Platinum fee to £495 (while keeping AMEX lounge access, Harvey Nichols, and dining credit). Martin Lewis will advertise the card on every occasion and half the country would subscribe. What a difference two hundred quid make.

• RoisinR says:

  1 Aug1 August 09:02

  We had the same experience in Australia in June this year. We were turned away from various outlets which took priority pass but not when associated with American Express. We tried various places in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane domestic terminals. My husband specifically got a platinum Amex so that we could get all the family into lounges for our trip. He has now cancelled it.

• rob keane says:

  1 Aug1 August 09:17

  priority pass directed me to a “corona beach house” at MIA at the start of the year. It was a good 10 min walk from the concourse we were flying home from. On arrival there was a signed, DATED 2019, saying that priority pass cards issued by Amex were not valid.

  I note this morning that it is still listed on the app.

  • Track says:

    1 Aug1 August 10:49

    Everything at MIA is a 10-minute walk (and LAX is 25 mins).

    • rob keane says:

      1 Aug1 August 14:09

      which was not the point of the comment, the point was it was a wasted walk because the app was giving out access information that was 3 years out of date.

• John says:

  1 Aug1 August 09:25

  Just returned from Hong Kong via Amsterdam yesterday. The lounge in Amsterdam only allows BA’s flyers; PP members were turned away. Looking like PP membership is getting less useful now more so PP through AMEX?

  • DJ says:

    1 Aug1 August 10:44

    It looks like they won’t be accepting any lounge consolidator cards for awhile, I remember they had a notice outside the lounge saying they are full for these cards.

• David S says:

  1 Aug1 August 09:41

  All the lounges in mainland Portugal and Madeira that you can access with PP have been closed since 2020

  • ginlover says:

    1 Aug1 August 10:47

    that’s not the case, I took my family into the lounge (via PP) at Porto airport in July with no problems

    • David S says:

      1 Aug1 August 15:21

      Great – it was Faro and Funchal where I didn’t get access but good if things are open again

• Anthony J says:

  1 Aug1 August 09:42

  On the other hand I have Lounge Key from Santander and was not able to access Priority Pass The Café By Mise En Place at TPA.
  Travelling around US/Europe I have noted that there are several restaurants/experiences that are accessible to Priority Pass but not Lounge Key members.
  I don’t understand why? Most sources suggest that Lounge Key has at least the same number of access points, but this is clearly not true.

• Smid says:

  1 Aug1 August 10:30

  Landside means we can use it the night before/day after flying or any other time at the airport.

  But add to the fact that the PP is pretty much useless at any peak time UK airport, means the benefit has degraded so much that it’s near useless.

  • The real Swiss Tony says:

    1 Aug1 August 11:10

    Think you’re wrong on both counts here. Certainly the T2 arrivals lounge used to request a boarding pass before allowing access – can’t imagine these places would be any different otherwise airport employees can get free food for a year for £339 (or all the Amex benefits too for double that price).

    And as I have already noted, on Friday late afternoon I was able to access both PP lounges at Edinburgh. The benefit has been degraded but it’s not useless.

    • HAM76 says:

      1 Aug1 August 18:08

      You can only eat so much of the same food for a longer period of time… Anyway, the arrival lounges accepted boarding passes for the next day without issues. If you really had to, you could book a fully flexible ticket to MAN and cancel after your visit. BA wouldn’t care if you don’t use their lounges.

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