Review: the Qatar Airways Gold lounge (for BA Silver) at Doha’s Hamad Airport

Late last year, Qatar Airways opened three new lounges at its home at Doha’s Hamad International Airport.

Two of the three lounges are open to elite members of the oneworld airline alliance, with the third reserved exclusively for the lowest tier of Qatar Airways elite members.

They can be used by elites who are flying Qatar Airways or another oneworld airline in Economy or on a ‘no lounge access’ Business Light cash ticket.

There are three new lounges:

• Qatar Airways Platinum Lounge, open to oneworld Emerald members (including British Airways Gold), with 140 seats

• Qatar Airways Gold Lounge, open to oneworld Sapphire members (including British Airways Silver), with 85 seats

• Qatar Airways Silver Lounge, open to Qatar Airways Silver members ONLY (oneworld Ruby, including British Airways Bronze, cannot enter), with 195 seats

We reviewed the Qatar Airways Platinum Lounge last week – click here. Whilst I also saw the Silver lounge, I won’t write about it as only a handful of our readers would qualify for entry.

Inside the Qatar Airways Gold Lounge

This article is an overview of the Qatar Airways Gold Lounge. This is based on a guided tour I was given when in the airport in February. I spent less than 10 minutes there – I had five lounges to see! – so please forgive the superficiality.

As the smallest of the three new lounges, by far, there is less to show here. This may be an issue – logically the British Airways Silver equivalent lounge should be bigger than the Gold equivalent lounge, not almost half the size!

I was there during a lull in the ‘banks’ of flights which head out from Doha so these photos don’t give a fair impression of how busy it will be if you there in the 1-2 hours before a flight bank departs.

Basically you have a large oblong space with a variety of seating types. There are burnt orange sofa chairs:

and

… and on the other side, behind smart wooden lattice, you have some brown sofa chairs:

At the top end are some dining tables:

…. where you can help yourself from the breakfast buffet:

and

Hot items during the time I was there (breakfast) were plain omelette (self serve), potato wedges and a creamy mushroom stew. Congee was also available, as were cut fruit plates.

A well stocked bar is also available:

The Qatar Airways Gold Lounge clearly doesn’t have the scale, the architectural investment or the waiter service dining of the Platinum lounge.

That said, if you are a British Airways Executive Club Silver member flying on an Economy Qatar Airways or other oneworld ticket (or on a Business Light ‘no lounge’ cash ticket) then this is a more than acceptable place to spend time. It will make your Doha stopover far more palatable if you have no interest in hitting the shops.

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How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (September 2023)

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 Plaza Premium, Delta Air Lines and Eurostar 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 LoungeKey card, allowing you access to the LoungeKey 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.