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

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Manchester Airports Group, which owns London Stansted, Manchester and East Midlands Airports, will now allow you pre-book airport lounge access via a Priority Pass card. It is also offering it at Bristol Airport when it manages the two lounges.

DragonPass is also supported. Whilst LoungeKey is not named, the logo does appear so I assume this is also accepted.

This will, I’m sure, appeal to many readers who complain about the difficulty of using Priority Pass cards at these airports.

You need to prebook your lounge slot via the relevant airport website. There is a fee per guest, similar to the one that No1 Lounges and Club Aspire charge at Heathrow, Gatwick and Birmingham for a reservation.

London Stansted airport lounge prebooking

London Stansted

Click here to make a booking and to check lounge opening times. Scroll to the bottom of this page and there are separate links for Priority Pass and DragonPass holders.

The only lounge available is the Escape lounge. This costs £6 to reserve.

Our last review of the Escape lounge at Stansted airport is here, albeit from 2019.

Reservations can be cancelled up to 24 hours before arrival.

Manchester Airport lounge prebooking

Manchester Airport

Click here to book and to check opening hours. Scroll to the bottom of this page and there are separate links for Priority Pass and DragonPass holders.

Your options are:

Terminal 1

  • Escape lounge – £6

Terminal 2

  • Escape lounge – £6 (review)
  • 1903 lounge – £21 (this is a premium lounge, review)

Terminal 3

You are not guaranteed to able to make a pre-booking. Reservations do not seem to be available at times when airlines have contracted large parts of the lounges for their own use. Reservations can be cancelled up to 24 hours before arrival.

East Midlands Airport lounge prebooking

East Midlands Airport

Click here to pre-book and to check lounge opening times. Scroll to the bottom of this page and there are separate links for Priority Pass and DragonPass holders.

The only lounge available is the Escape lounge. This costs £6 to reserve.

Our last review of the Escape lounge at East Midlands Airport is here, albeit from 2019.

Reservations can be cancelled up to 24 hours before arrival.

Bristol Airport

Click here to pre-book and to check lounge opening times. Scroll to the bottom of this page and there are separate links for Priority Pass and DragonPass holders.

Whilst the website says that both the Escape and 1903 lounges can be prebooked, the only lounge that I could bring up was the Escape lounge. This costs £6 to reserve.

Our last review of the Escape lounge at Bristol Airport is here, albeit from 2017.

Reservations can be cancelled up to 24 hours before arrival. Reservations do not appear to be available during peak morning hours.


Getting airport lounge access for free from a credit card

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (February 2025)

Here are the five 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 1,500 lounges in the Priority Pass network – search it here.

You also get access to Eurostar, Lufthansa and Delta Air Lines lounges.  Our American Express Platinum review is here.

You can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard gets you get a free Priority Pass card, allowing you access to the Priority Pass 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 £290 and there are strict financial requirements to become a HSBC Premier customer.  Full details are in my HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard review.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard

A good package, but only available to HSBC Premier clients Read our full review

Got a small business?

If you have a small business, consider American Express Business Platinum which has the same lounge benefits as the personal Platinum card:

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

You should also consider the Capital on Tap Pro Visa credit card which has a lower fee and, as well as a Priority Pass for airport lounge access, also comes with Radison Rewards VIP hotel status:

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

PS. You can find all of HfP’s UK airport lounge reviews – and we’ve been to most of them – indexed here.

Comments (98)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Mike says:

    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:

      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:

        and when the other 95% cotton on?

        • HertsSam says:

          Demand increases while supply stays static so prices increase.

        • Rob says:

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

          • Mike says:

            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:

            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:

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

        • Mike says:

          @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:

        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:

    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:

      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:

        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:

          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:

            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:

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

      • Rob says:

        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:

    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:

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

    • tw33ty says:

      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:

    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:

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

  • Nick G says:

    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:

      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:

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

  • pking says:

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

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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