How does the Priority Pass airport lounge card work – and why did Rhys visit four in a week?

We recently partnered with airport lounge group Priority Pass to produce some reviews for its member blog. Rhys was sent on a whistle-stop tour of Europe, stopping at some of the highlights of the Priority Pass lounge network on the way.

Over the next few days we will be running extended versions of the reviews that we produced for Priority Pass. Our lounge safari will see Rhys visit Barcelona, Venice, Vienna and, erm, London Gatwick’s North Terminal.

The reviews kick off tomorrow with a look at the Clubrooms lounge at Gatwick North.

To see more of our substantial collection of UK airport lounge reviews, click here.

As an introduction to the series, I want to review Priority Pass in detail by showing you:

• the different types of Priority Pass available

• which UK credit and charge cards offer you one for free

• which UK airport lounges are part of the scheme

You can find out more, and buy a Priority Pass, on its website here.

What is Priority Pass?

Priority Pass is a card membership scheme which gives you access to 1,300 airport lounges worldwide. 

In the UK, this includes the Club Aspire and Plaza Premium lounges in Heathrow Terminal 5, the British Airways terminal.

A full list of UK airport lounges which accept Priority Pass is at the bottom of this article.

Priority Pass lounges are generally independently owned although the company that owns it – Collinson – is also involved in lounge ownership.  Collinson has a 50% stake in a company called Airport Dimensions which owns the Club Aspire (but not Aspire) and No1 Lounges brands.

What do the airport lounges offer?

Facilities vary by lounge, as does the quality and scale of those facilities.

As a minimum, you should expect comfortable seating, free newspapers and magazines, free drinks (usually including alcohol), free snacks and free wi-fi.  In the better lounges you will find a full buffet with hot and cold food, IT facilities and showers.  That said, facilities in some lounges are currently restricted due to covid, as are lounge opening hours.

Is it easy to gain access?

Outside the UK, you will rarely have issues getting into a Priority Pass lounge due to overcrowding.

In the UK, where Priority Pass ownership is proportionately higher than probably anywhere except the US, you may be turned away from a lounge at peak times. 10 lounges now allow you to pay a £6 fee in advance to reserve a spot and guarantee entry.

What are the different types of Priority Pass membership?

Priority Pass has three different levels of membership as you can see on its website here.

Here are the tiers:

• Standard membership (£69) – no free visits included, you and your guests pay £24 each time

• Standard Plus membership (£229) – 10 free visits then £24 for every additional visit or for every guest visit

• Prestige membership (£419) – all your visits are free, your guests pay £24 each time

When there is an additional charge indicated, you do NOT pay this to the lounge on the day you fly.

What happens is that, when you enter a lounge, your Priority Pass card is swiped and the number of guests marked down.  If payment is required, your stored credit card is charged by Priority Pass at a later time.  No money changes hands in the airport.

Which Priority Pass membership tier is best?

There is no ‘right’ answer here.  It depends on how often you fly and whether you are using airports which have lounges which accept Priority Pass.  You can search the Priority Pass website by airport to find participating lounges.

The Standard Plus membership is the most attractive option for most people.   As long as you hit 10 visits within your membership year, you will only be paying £22.90 each time.  My personal value benchmark is how much a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine would cost in a terminal restaurant versus the lounge access cost – so £22.90 seems OK to me.

It is possible that the Prestige card could be a better deal, but you need to do the maths.  You would need to do 18 lounge visits per year before the Prestige card became better value than Standard Plus.

Standard membership is not huge attractive.  If you made seven or more lounge visits per year you would be better off with Standard Plus.  If you are doing fewer than seven lounge visits, the ‘cost per visit’ of the Standard plan would be so high that I doubt you would be getting value for money.

Does Priority Pass have an app?

Yes, and it is a good one, allowing you to easily find participating lounges.

Priority Pass has a digital membership card inside the app, which saves you from carrying your plastic card with you.

Can I get a Priority Pass via a UK credit or charge card?

You can also get most of the benefits of Priority Pass via selected UK credit and charge cards.

You should note that Priority Pass cards issued by American Express do not come with restaurant credits. This means that you cannot use them at The Big Smoke Taphouse in Heathrow Terminal 2 or any of the other airport restaurants which offer a £15 credit to Priority Pass cardholders. There are two global exception to the ‘no restaurant credits’ rule – The Grain Store in Gatwick South, and a cafe at Berlin Brandenburg.

The Platinum Card from American Express

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with TWO free Priority Pass cards.  One is in your name, and one is in the name of whoever you give your supplementary American Express Platinum card to.

Priority Pass cards issued by Amex Platinum admit TWO people to a lounge for free.  This means that, if you travel with your partner and your partner is your nominated supplementary Platinum cardholder, you can get four people into a lounge between you.

I will repeat this point because it is a little odd:

• you CANNOT buy a Priority Pass direct from the company which lets you bring in a guest for free, but

• you CAN get a free Priority Pass via American Express Platinum which does give you one free guest on every visit

American Express Platinum also comes with other lounge benefits.  You can access Delta airport lounges when flying Delta, Lufthansa lounges when flying Lufthansa and, perhaps more usefully, you can access Eurostar lounges for free.

The Platinum Card is not cheap but comes with a LOT of travel benefits.  There is also a fat sign-up bonus for new cardholders.

You can find out more in our American Express Platinum review here.  You can apply for The Platinum Card here.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

You can try out the benefits of Priority Pass for free with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold, which is itself free for the first year.

Amex Gold comes with a Priority Pass card loaded with four free lounge visits.  You can either use these for yourself plus a guest, or for yourself on four separate visits.  This is worth at least £80.

If you make additional lounge visits during the year, or bring in additional guests, your Amex Gold card is charged £20 per person.  When your Amex Gold card renews after 12 months, you get four more free lounge visits credited to your Priority Pass.

We call Amex ‘the best card for a miles and points beginner’.  As well as being free for the first year (£160 thereafter) and coming with four free lounge visits and £120 of Deliveroo credit (24 x £5 vouchers), you currently receive 25,000 American Express Membership Rewards points for signing up.  These convert to 25,000 Avios or many other airline and hotel schemes.

You can learn more in our full review of American Express Preferred Rewards Gold here, and you can apply here.

HSBC Premier World Elite

Whilst it doesn’t offer a Priority Pass card, we should also mention HSBC Premier World Elite.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard gets you get a free LoungeKey card, allowing you access to the LoungeKey network.  LoungeKey is a sister product to Priority Pass but has a slightly smaller number of participating lounges.

Guests are charged at £20 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.

Conclusion

If you are fed up of sitting in airport terminals but do not have airline status or do not fly Business Class, Priority Pass is the easiest way to access airport lounges across the world.

You need to think carefully about which of the three membership tiers is best for you.  If you always travel with your partner, you may find The Platinum Card from American Express to be a cheaper option.

You can find out more about Priority Pass, and buy one, on their website here.

Appendix – Which UK airport lounges are in Priority Pass?

Here is the list of UK airport lounges which accept Priority Pass.  There are another 1,300 lounges outside the UK too!

• Aberdeen International – Northern Lights Executive Lounge, pictured above
• Belfast City – Aspire lounge
• Belfast International – Causeway lounge
• Birmingham – Aspire lounge, Aspire Lounge South, No1 Lounge, Clubrooms
• Bristol International – The Escape Lounge
• Derry – Amelia Earhart lounge
• Teesside International – The Middleton lounge
• East Midlands – The Escape Lounge
• Edinburgh International – Aspire lounge x 2, Plaza Premium Lounge
• Exeter – The Executive Lounge
• Glasgow International – UpperDeck
• Humberside International – Aspire lounge
• Inverness – Aspire lounge
• Isle of Man Ronaldsway – Rendezvous Executive Lounge
• Jersey – The Executive Lounge
• Leeds Bradford International – The Yorkshire Lounge
• Liverpool John Lennon – Aspire lounge 
• London Gatwick (North) – The Gateway, No1 Lounge, Clubrooms, Priority Pass Lounge
• London Gatwick (South) – Grain Store Cafe and Bar (£15 discount per person on final bill), No1 Lounge, Club Aspire, Clubrooms, My Lounge
• London Heathrow (Terminal 2) – Big Smoke Taphouse & Kitchen (£15 discount per person on final bill), Plaza Premium Lounge
• London Heathrow (Terminal 3) – The Oceanic Pub & Kitchen (£15 discount per personal on final bill), Club Aspire Lounge, No1 Lounge
• London Heathrow (Terminal 4) – Plaza Premium Lounge, Blush Lounge by Plaza Premium
• London Heathrow (Terminal 5) – The Globe Pub & Kitchen (£15 discount per personal on final bill), Plaza Premium Lounge, Club Aspire Lounge 
• London Luton – Nolito / Avalon Crafted Coffee / The Big Smoke Taphouse & Kitchen (£15 discount per personal on final bill), Aspire lounge
• London Southend – Skylife Lounge @ Pilot Cafe
• London Stansted – The Escape Lounge
• Manchester International (Terminal 1) – Aspire lounge, The Escape Lounge
• Manchester International (Terminal 2) – Aspire lounge, The Escape Lounge
• Manchester International (Terminal 3) – The Escape Lounge x 2
• Newcastle International – Aspire lounge
• Newquay – Executive Lounge
• Norwich International – Executive Lounge
• Southampton International – Spitfire Lounge

Thank you to Priority Pass for partnering with us on this project. Look out for our first lounge review tomorrow.

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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.