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How does the Priority Pass airport lounge card work?

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What is Priority Pass? Is Priority Pass worth the money? How can you get one for free?

We mention the Priority Pass airport lounge card quite a bit on Head for Points, but we very rarely go into the nuts and bolts for new readers about how it works.

Today I want to review Priority Pass in detail by showing you:

  • the different types of Priority Pass available
  • which UK airport lounges are part of the scheme

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

Is Priority Pass worth the money?

What is Priority Pass?

Priority Pass is a card membership scheme which gives you access to 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. 

A full list of UK airport lounges which accept Priority Pass is at the bottom of this article. There are only a handful of independent (non-airline run) UK airport lounges which do not take part.

Priority Pass lounges are generally independently owned, not airline owned.  In the UK they tend to be run by brands such as No1 Lounges, Plaza Premium and Aspire or directly by the airport.

There are many places where a Priority Pass gets you access to an ‘official’ airline run lounge. In the US, for example, Virgin Atlantic lets cardholders use its lounges during the day as Virgin Atlantic flights tend to be in the evenings.

Priority Pass is owned by a UK-based group called Collinson.  Collinson also owns a number of insurance businesses and a major loyalty consultancy, and runs the online shopping portals for many hospitality groups including BA and Virgin Atlantic.

Priority Pass offers restaurant and ‘airport experiences’ too

Priority Pass also has deals with selected airport restaurants and other service providers.

Some airport restaurants will offer a £18 credit against a meal if you show a Priority Pass. There are also deals for free treatments with some airport spas or free visits to airport gaming centres.

These offers are NOT available to you if your Priority Pass comes free with an American Express card. Cards provided by other banks such as HSBC do provide restaurant credits.

If you bought your Priority Pass for cash, the £18 restaurant credits are a terrible deal. You are likely to have paid more than £18 per card use based on the number of visits included.

The Vienna Lounge at Vienna Airport

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 wi-fi, free drinks (usually including alcohol, premium drinks may be chargeable) and free snacks.  In the better lounges you will find a full buffet with hot and cold food and showers.

Above is a picture of the buffet at the Vienna Lounge at Vienna Airport which recently won the Priority Pass ‘Lounge of the Year’ award (click to enlarge). The photo below is also from the Vienna Lounge.

Are you guaranteed entry to a lounge?

In theory, you can just turn up at a participating airport lounge, have your Priority Pass card or app scanned, and you will be allowed in.

You can visit multiple lounges on the same day if you wish if you are in an airport which has multiple options.

Some lounges in major UK airports become full at peak times and will not accept ‘walk up’ Priority Pass guests. However, you can now pay a £6 per person fee to reserve a slot in most UK Priority Pass lounges. This will guarantee you entry when you arrive.

You can book a reservation via the Priority Pass app or, for No1 Lounge / My Lounge / Clubrooms / Club Aspire, via this website.

Review: the Vienna Lounge at Vienna Airport

What are the different types of Priority Pass membership?

Priority Pass has three different levels of paid 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 – given the £69 flat fee and the £24 payment per visit – that I doubt you would be getting value for money.

How does Priority Pass work?

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 card?

This is the interesting bit.

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 Platinum card to.

Each Priority Pass card admits 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, selected Lufthansa lounges when flying Lufthansa and, more usefully for UK residents, you can access Eurostar lounges for free. American Express also has its own ‘Centurion’ airport lounges in selected airports, although Heathrow Terminal 3 is the only UK site.

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.

If you are a small business owner, the same rules apply to American Express Business Platinum.

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

airport lounge access with Amex Gold

Get four free airport lounge visits with ‘free for a year’ Amex Gold

If you are a light traveller, you might find American Express Preferred Rewards Gold a better deal.

For a start, this card is FREE for your first year but comes with four free Priority Pass airport lounge visits. You can either use these all for yourself across four visits or for you plus three guests for one visit (or, of course, you plus one guest over two visits).

You can four additional free lounge visits each year if you keep the card, albeit there is a £195 annual fee from Year 2. Lounge visits above your four free ones are charged at £24 which is usually a big saving on booking directly with the lounge.

Other options which come with a Priority Pass or its competitor DragonPass include:

  • HSBC Premier credit cards (free entry for World Elite, £24 for the free card)
  • Lloyds Bank World Elite Mastercard
  • NatWest Black current accounts

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.

Of course, you can’t beat the four free airport lounge visits which come with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold, especially as your first year is free.

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 full list of UK airport lounges which accept Priority Pass, along with links to our reviews.  There are another 1,400 lounges outside the UK too.

We have NOT listed restaurants at UK airports which give a £18 meal credit to anyone who does not get their Priority Pass from American Express. However, you can find the list in this article.

The Platinum Card from American Express

Bonus: 80,000 points
SPECIAL OFFER

Read our full review

Other information:

  • Two Priority Pass cards, each allowing two people into 1,400 airport lounges
  • Elite status in four major hotel loyalty programmes
  • Comprehensive travel insurance
  • £400 per year of restaurant credit (T&C apply)
  • £50 per half year of Harvey Nichols credit (ends June 2025)
  • Annual fee: £650

Representative 694.9% APR variable based on an assumed £1,200 credit limit and £650 annual fee. Interest rate on purchases 30.0% APR variable.

Apply here
See if you qualify for the 80,000 points sign-up bonus +

You will receive 80,000 American Express Membership Rewards points as a sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card if you spend £10,000 within six months of signing up.

This is a special offer which runs to 27th May 2025.  The standard bonus is 50,000 Membership Rewards points.

Membership Rewards points are hugely flexible.  You can transfer them into Avios, Virgin Points or other airlines (usually at 1:1) or into various hotels schemes, into Club Eurostar or use them for shopping vouchers.

This is the ONLY personal American Express card where you still qualify for the bonus if you already hold a British Airways American Express card.

To qualify for the bonus, you must NOT, currently or in the previous 24 months, have held any other personal American Express card which earns Membership Rewards points.  This includes The Platinum Card and Preferred Rewards Gold.

You are OK if you had a supplementary card on someone else’s American Express account.

You are OK if, currently or in the previous 24 months, you have held any other American Express card, including the British Airways, Marriott and Nectar cards.

For clarity, you can still apply for The Platinum Card even if you do not qualify for the bonus.  You would still benefit from the long list of other benefits.

Learn more about the card benefits +

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with an unrivalled list of benefits for the keen traveller.

Your personal travel patterns will determine which of these is the most valuable.  The key benefits are:

Full comprehensive travel insurance for you, your family and the family of your supplementary cardholder, subject to enrolment

Two Priority Pass cards, each of which allows the holder and a guest unlimited free access to 1,400 airport lounges

Elite status in four major hotel loyalty schemes: Marriott Bonvoy (Gold), Hilton Honors (Gold), Radisson Rewards (Premium), MeliaRewards (Gold)

Access to Eurostar lounges, irrespective of travel class

£200 per year to spend in over 170 UK restaurants (£100 per half year)

£200 per year to spend in over 1,500 international restaurants (£100 per half year)

£50 to spend at Harvey Nichols, instore or online (£50 per half year, this benefit ends on 30th June 2025)

You need a minimum personal income of £35,000 to apply for the card.

American Express Business Platinum

Bonus: 50,000 Membership Rewards points

Read our full review

Other information:

  • Get £200 per year to spend at Amex Travel
  • Two Priority Pass cards, each allowing two people into 1,400 airport lounges
  • Elite status in four major hotel loyalty programmes
  • Get £150 per year to spend at Dell
  • Get £300 per year to spend at job ads site Indeed
  • Comprehensive travel insurance
  • Annual fee: £650
  • T&C apply, 18+, subject to status

This is a charge card, not a credit card. You must clear your balance in full each month.  Annual fee £650.

Apply here
See if you qualify for the 50,000 points sign-up bonus +

You will receive a sign-up bonus of 50,000 American Express Membership Rewards points if you spend £6,000 in your first three months.

Membership Rewards points are hugely flexible.  You can transfer them into Avios, Virgin Points or other airlines (at 1:1) or into various hotels schemes, into Club Eurostar or use them for shopping vouchers.

There are no longer any rules on qualifying for the sign-up offer on this card, subject to hitting the spend target.  If you are accepted and spend the required amount you will receive the bonus, irrespective of what other cards you hold or have recently held.

Learn more about the card benefits +

American Express Business Platinum comes with an unrivalled list of benefits for the keen traveller.

Your personal travel patterns will determine which of these is the most valuable.  The key benefits are:

£200 of Amex Travel credit per membership year

Full comprehensive travel insurance for you, your family and the family of up to five complimentary cardholders, subject to enrolment

Two Priority Pass cards, each of which allows the holder and a guest unlimited free access to 1,400 airport lounges

Elite status in four major hotel loyalty schemes: Marriott Bonvoy (Gold), Hilton Honors (Gold), Radisson Rewards (Premium), MeliaRewards (Gold)

Other benefits include:

£150 of Dell statement credit per year – you receive £75 credit on Dell purchases betweeen January and June and £75 credit on purchases between July and December

£300 of credit to run job advertisements at indeed.com (£75 per quarter)

Digital subscription to The Times and The Sunday Times, worth over £300

You need a minimum personal income of £35,000 to apply for the card.

Terms and conditions apply to all card benefits.

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card

Comments (91)

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

  • David says:
    4 May4 May 10:38

    Get your act together Amex and include restaurant credits!

  • Sam says:
    4 May4 May 11:00

    Can the lounge passes with Amex Gold be used by anyone? (Or does the cardholder need to be part of the entry). I’ve got lounge access with my bank but would use the passes to bring in the family ‘for free’

  • Martin S says:
    4 May4 May 11:16

    Personally I think the pre booking has become an underhanded way to raise more revenue. If it was about capacity then why is there a fee for prebooking?

    Recently I was at a lounge and they were turning people away and making them join the virtual queue if you hadn’t pre booked. When I finally got in there were only four people in the lounge including me, and no one had left in the time I was waiting. I left 30 mins later and they were still turning people away due to “capacity” and making them join the virtual queue.

    Another issue is at places like Gatwick where there are multiple PP lounges. They all have the same IT with the virtual queue system but have separate queues. What inevitably happens is you end up joining multiple virtual queues and then they all ping at once. Wouldn’t it be better for them to all share one common virtual queue?

    • Rob says:
      4 May4 May 11:31

      It’s in the article. The seats are probably sold to airlines for passengers who don’t show, but they are sold and can’t be resold.

      If you think it makes sense to turn people away then you don’t get the underlying economics. Lounges have huge fixed costs. You lose money up to 70% capacity I reckon and all your profit is from the last few. You don’t turn people away on that basis.

      • HampshireHog says:
        4 May4 May 11:54

        Clearly they aren’t factoring an appropriate % of no shows as empty lounges at so called capacity is a common occurrence

        • Rob says:
          4 May4 May 12:58

          The seats are sold. They can’t be resold.

          • HampshireHog says:
            4 May4 May 14:44

            Why, airlines traditionally overbook?

          • TGLoyalty says:
            4 May4 May 19:15

            I think Robs saying the seats including the % of known no shows are sold … they can’t be daft enough to know who isn’t turning up since everyone either pays or is scanned it

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
          4 May4 May 18:05

          Airlines aren’t stupid.

          They won’t want to pay way over the odds for access when they know themselves not every passenger with lounge access privileges will take them up.

          They have all the historic data for who was entitled to access a lounge and who actually accessed the lounge and use that data when they negotiate their access contracts.

  • Lady London says:
    4 May4 May 13:08

    I’m guessing the Priority Pass owner is it Mike? is a really nice guy – genuinely, because over the years the HeadfotPoints team has done some excellent journalism making the best of Priority Pass. Which in the UK market – whether you paid for your Priority Pass directly or if you paid via Amex Platinum £700 sub – requires some heroism.

    In particular I commented on the recent-ish excellent article by Rhys presenting a list of the UK lounges you were highly likely to have to pay a (currently £6-odd) additional cash fee in order to be allowed in, that Rhys did a truly excellent job putting lipstick on a pig in presenting this fact and yet still publishing a positive article about Priority Pass to the UK.market.

    Lounges have indeed changed and so have their customers. If I want lounge access then I now pay for it another way or do something else.

    It’s time Amex gave up pretending the bare membership structure Priority Pass they include in the Platinum card has any value in the UK market. Amex has stood idly by providing a worthless Priority Pass membership that requires their cardholder to lay out extra cash to be useable at times and airports that matter in this UK market.

    Amex needs to provide a travel or restaurant credit as part of the subscription for their cards that can be used to fund a normal entrance fee to a lounge ideally of the customer’s choice.

    Of course Amex won’t necesarily be able to do contracts with all outlets the customer might choose so they get a thumping discount off what they pay the outlet for the lounge access if the cardholder uses his credit there (as is obvious from the restricted list of restaurants for the existing dining credit) but if Amex had a clue they’d at least allow uae if the existing dinng credit(s) for lounge entry. Or for lounge reservation fees if they atill want to maintain the oretenve that Priority Pass has any value in the UK market.

    • jj says:
      4 May4 May 14:00

      @LL, I agree that PP has limited value in UK airports, but UK residents use airports around the world. Airport lounges are usually much better places, but the value I’ve had from PP is in airports where my airline has no lounge (eg OneWorld in Calgary) or where the only available flight has only economy (eg from Athens to the islands), where my Amex PP has made the trip much more pleasant.

  • Max says:
    4 May4 May 13:13

    I expect ‘walk up’ airport lounge entry to disappear in the UK soon. What does it mean exactly?

    • Rob says:
      4 May4 May 15:37

      Compulsory reservations.

      • Bernard says:
        4 May4 May 23:17

        You will be ensuring Amex then provide a credit against each reservation cost then? (As the US platinum Amex does against Netflix, etc)

    • Lady London says:
      4 May4 May 15:45

      As in, legitimising what has for many years been extra charges to enter a lounge as a requirement because whoever sold you the pass is not providing what the lounge considers they should be extracting. The providers of passes, Priority Pass and in the instances that matter here American Express, are not making up the cost gap that has opened up a long while ago, to the lounges whilst continuing to market the pass in the same way as when lounge passes did routinely secure entry to lounges in the UK.

  • Kevin says:
    4 May4 May 13:43

    The turn away not only happened in UK. I was turned away and requested to join virtual queue by Aispire lounge while in Amsterdam Schiphol airport last Tuesday, around 10am due to capacity issue.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      4 May4 May 18:07

      Not unusual for AMS and it will remain that way even now the OW specific section has opened. There are still other airlines who contract with Aspire.

  • Domo1915 says:
    4 May4 May 13:45

    It’s OK saying pre book if it were that simple. Manchester terminal 2 is seemingly permanently full between 7:30 and 9am. I’ve got flights in February and can’t pre book. I’ve tested availability on serval different dates to see if it’s just how they release capacity.
    Does that mean get there early and plan for just getting in virtual queue?

    One other quirk I noticed which seems naughty. I’m travelling family 4 (2 adults 2 kids). The 1903 lounge shows availability for 4 adults but is “full” if you search 2 adults 2 kids.

    • No longer Entitled says:
      4 May4 May 14:29

      Unless it has changed recently, the 1903 is adults only.

  • MrMcBurger says:
    4 May4 May 15:39

    completely pointless if flying from somewhere that is full with on the beach type, as they get first dibs on lounge access.

    • HampshireHog says:
      5 May5 May 09:50

      Slightly odd if you think about it as guests such as these are most likely the heaviest consumers of f&b

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

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