Priority Pass pre-booking now allowed at Stansted, Manchester, Bristol and East Midlands

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• Mike says:

  15 Oct15 October 14:44

  I mean UK based locations as the issue of full lounges is here, as opposed to in Asia etc… I thought it was obvious as the article is about a crappy idea becoming more widespread.

  • Rob says:

    15 Oct15 October 14:52

    Struggling with the logic here. Last week you would have zero chance (well, next to zero – it’s so bad that I don’t even bother trying now) of getting into Escape at Stansted. Now you can guarantee you get in for £6. In what sense is that worse?

    Obviously if you pay your £6 then someone else loses out, but as you know about the £6 option and 95% of PPass cardholders don’t, it is to your benefit.

    It’s like saying you don’t like Uber surge pricing during bad weather. Why not? You had next to zero chance of getting a car if prices were flat, but you can guarantee a car by paying more. Surely that’s a win as long as you’re happy to pay? If you’re not happy to pay, keep clicking refresh until the rain stops.

    • mradey says:

      15 Oct15 October 16:04

      and when the other 95% cotton on?

      • HertsSam says:

        15 Oct15 October 17:26

        Demand increases while supply stays static so prices increase.

      • Rob says:

        15 Oct15 October 17:28

        That’s not happening, is it? Remember that your average UK PP holder is an Amex Gold first year free person.

        • Mike says:

          15 Oct15 October 17:55

          But it has increased, by £6, if you want to get in.

          Additionally, PP pays out when you go into the lounge, so full lounges means they get paid by AMEX etc. but do not have to outlay any cash to a lounge. If it was easy to get into a lounge PP would need to pay out more. I assume this is why PP and DP aren’t doing more to hold the lounges to account.

        • Rob says:

          15 Oct15 October 20:00

          Amex almost certainly pays PP on a ‘per use’ basis, perhaps with a £5-£10 upfront fee to cover the cost of setting up the account. No entries = no profit for PP.

          If Amex had to pay PP a high upfront fee they would force you to opt in to the lounge benefit.

    • dougzz99 says:

      15 Oct15 October 17:12

      Analogy only makes sense if you pay Uber a £250/annual subscription.

      • Mike says:

        15 Oct15 October 21:25

        @Rob In which case it’s in AMEX’s interest for people not to get into the lounge and the same logic applies. If anything it’s worse as AMEX sell their cards with the perk of lounge access and instead of a supplier failing AMEX’s customers, it’s AMEX themselves.

    • rob keane says:

      16 Oct16 October 10:08

      The logic is it’s £6 now, and £10 next year, and the judgement on when a lounge is “at capacity” may not so much be to based on capacity, but on whether they make more money in gradually pushing people to pre-book such that the “unlimited access PP card” is off itself worth less than what it was.

      If its bad weather then everyone knows it, but no one can see the real reason for being denied at entry to a lounge.

• Can2 says:

  15 Oct15 October 15:21

  I’d not be that excited.
  I am Flying out from STN during coming half term. The lounge is already sold out for PP — which makes me think perhaps there is limited availability.
  And yes if you want to book it with full price, there is suddenly some availability.

  What’s there to celebrate Rob? Rat race to pay £6 for a seriously limited PP capacity?

  • Rob says:

    15 Oct15 October 17:31

    All they are doing is pre-selling the PP allocation, so not surprising they are still selling for cash.

    Do you seriously expect they will give up slots they believe they can sell for £35 cash to PP in return for a £6 reservation fee and £10 from PP?

    • SM says:

      15 Oct15 October 19:34

      They are selling PP allocation that they can offer for free.

      I wonder @Rob why PP lounges outside of UK have better service, availability for walk in’s and no pre booking necessary?

      • Rob says:

        15 Oct15 October 19:58

        Fundamentally there is a direct correlation between the % of the population with a fee-carrying credit card and your % chance of getting into a PP lounge.

        Basically, outside of the UK and US you will rarely have an issue.

        • Can2 says:

          15 Oct15 October 20:47

          This is obvious. What’s not obvious is that we are paying for their aggressive sales policy. We all knew it was coming. But I’m writing all this here as I know Amex is reading this. And I naively hope Amex will do something more to compensate it.

    • Can2 says:

      15 Oct15 October 20:45

      I simply want Plat PP to be on par as PP’s own deals. Most people don’t pay attention to it.

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      16 Oct16 October 10:01

      Well yes frankly I’d say that’s the balance you strike when selling through a channel

      You think it’d be OK for a Hilton to have rooms held back to sell direct and not via Hilton.com?

      • Rob says:

        16 Oct16 October 12:30

        You already get different availability at OTAs vs direct. It can go both ways though, because the bigger OTAs will promise to buy a minimum number of rooms each night if they get a big enough discount, and so rooms from that block can be available when nothing is available direct. OTA bookings can also often get around minimum stay requirements put in for direct bookings.

• Can2 says:

  15 Oct15 October 16:01

  Also remember for STN, PP customers, not those thru Plat, gets £15 credit at a restaurant. So I blame the deal Amex has with PP

  • Numpty says:

    15 Oct15 October 21:08

    Just for info, HSBC Premier PP card holders qualify for the restaurant credit. Wonder if Amex will end up matching.

    • can2 says:

      15 Oct15 October 21:18

      ditto, I blame amex for it.

  • tw33ty says:

    15 Oct15 October 22:56

    I think Stansted is a bad example tbh, the lounge there is pretty poor anyway, plus even if pp on their own non Amex pp give you £15 credit at restaurants, the restaurants at Stansted are among the worst of any airport.

    However, paying £6 to definitely get access vs queuing to get no access has to be a tiny improvement.

• Voldemort says:

  15 Oct15 October 16:17

  Hi Rob – can you petition your contacts at Amex to see if they will include a certain number of “paid” lounge reservations in the Plat card membership benefits? It’s a kick in the nuts to have the increased card membership fee AND have to fork out £6 a pop to reserve a place at a UK lounge, however “welcome” the ability to pre-book with PP might be.

• BBbetter says:

  15 Oct15 October 16:21

  Rob, are there any chances Amex could dump PP and instead go with Dragon pass and plaza premium?

  • Rob says:

    15 Oct15 October 17:27

    More likely that Plaza launches its own reservation scheme.

• Nick G says:

  15 Oct15 October 18:34

  Not that I’m overtly happy about paying I can reserve for 05.30am Monday 23rd when we fly from STN.

  What do you reckon the chances are of gaining walk up access at that time in the school hols since PP reservations are bookable?

  I do agree though if someone from Amex reads this site please get rid of airport lounge access it’s not worth any kind of fee towards it!

  • Joe says:

    16 Oct16 October 07:47

    I disagree about getting rid of it – it’s the main reason I continue to hold Platinum. I travel a lot – but the U.K. access is immensely frustrating and needs to be resolved somehow. Charging more to reserve isn’t the answer – it just further devalues the benefit.

• the_real_a says:

  16 Oct16 October 16:04

  Time for more AMEX lounges in all UK terminals 🙂 How much do we think renting a shop space is for a year?

• pking says:

  16 Oct16 October 17:24

  Would be much more interested if they’d give a definitive answer on whether PremiAir and 1903 T1 will ever reopen at Manchester.

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