British Airways adds new Gold Guest List lounge benefits

British Airways has opened its First Dining Room and Concorde Bar lounges to all Gold Guest List members.

As we wrote a couple of weeks ago, Gold Guest List members were being allowed into the First Dining Room in the London Heathrow Terminal 3 lounge (image below) although no member communications had gone out.

This move is now official and it is extended to other previously off-limits facilities too.

What is Gold Guest List?

If you are wondering what Gold Guest List is, it is a sub-tier of British Airways Executive Club Gold status. You need to earn 5,000 tier points (3,000 if renewing) during your membership year. You can find out more about Gold Guest List in our article here.

There are, apparently, around 5,000 to 6,000 members of Gold Guest List.

Gold Guest List comes with a number of benefits including the ability to gift Gold and Silver status cards as well as additional upgrade vouchers and the ability to open up additional Avios reward seats.

It has not, pre-covid, conferred access to BA’s Concorde Room or First Dining Rooms.

This changed during the pandemic, when BA opened up access to the Heathrow Terminal 5 Concorde Room for all Gold Guest List members. Previously you had to earn 5,000 tier points – remember that Gold Guest List renewal ‘only’ required 3,000 tier points – to get a Concorde Room card.

Until this week, access to First Dining Rooms and other Concorde Rooms / Concorde Bars remained somewhat restricted, with no official policy in place.

British Airways extends pre-flight dining to Gold Guest List

In positive news, British Airways has now decided to extend access to all of these spaces across the network. It quietly updated the wording on its website for Gold Guest List members to include the following:

“Gold Guest List members travelling on British Airways flights, in any cabin, can enjoy our First Dining, Concorde Dining and ‘The Bar’ facilities with 1 guest.*”

The change means you can now access Concorde / First Dining at the following airports:

• Boston
• Chicago O’Hare
• Johannesburg
• London Heathrow T5
• London Heathrow T3
• Newark
• New York JFK Chelsea Lounge (review here)
• San Francisco
• Washington Dulles (review here)

You’ll also be able to use the Concorde Bars in:

• Dubai
• Singapore

Any guest you bring must be travelling on the same flight as you and entry may be subject to capacity constraints. If you’re flying in First, you can take up to two guests. Access is only when travelling on a British Airways flight – if you’re on another oneworld airline, you won’t be able to get in.

This HfP article goes into further detail about BA’s pre-flight First and Concorde Dining Rooms, including a sample menu.

Conclusion

These are – obviously – positive changes. With a reduction in the number First Class seats now flying, given the removal of the First-heavy Boeing 747 fleet, British Airways clearly feels it has spare lounge capacity. Opening these up to Gold Guest List members is a smart way of rewarding its top status holders.

It also simplifies the previous policy, which was all over the place in terms of who could access what and where.

PS. If you think that Gold Guest List status is out of reach, you may be mistaken. Whilst 5,000 tier points for the initial qualification is harder, renewal at 3,000 tier points is manageable for many. Someone travelling to Asia every two months in Business Class on Qatar Airways, for example, would earn 3,360 tier points in 12 months. Even the initial hurdle of 5,000 tier points would ‘only’ require nine Business Class return flights to Asia on Qatar Airways during your BA membership year.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 2023)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

EDIT: Applications for this card are temporarily suspended due to IT issues with the British Airways On Business SME loyalty scheme.

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.