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Amex Platinum cardholders can now pre-book UK airport lounges for FREE

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American Express has responded to issues over the unavailability of UK airport lounges for Priority Pass cardholders.

Effectively immediately, holders of The Platinum Card can pre-book selected UK airport lounges for free.

This is only a six month trial but if successful I would expect it to continue, possibly replacing the Harvey Nichols credit as a benefit from 2025 if that is not carried over.

Priority Pass airport lounge prebooking

How many lounges can you pre-book?

If you have The Platinum Card or the Centurion card, you will have received FOUR pre-booking credits which need to be used by 31st December 2024.

You need one credit per person entering the lounge, so a couple would require two credits.

Here is an important point: supplementary cardholders receive their own pre-booking allowance. If you haven’t issued the free supplementary card on your Platinum account to your regular travel companion, you may want to do so now. (This person also receives all of the hotel elite status benefits.)

Note that this offer does not apply to holders of American Express Business Platinum cards.

How do you pre-book an airport lounge?

You need to download the Priority Pass and register your card.

Search for a participating lounge and you will see a button which allows you to prebook.

If you visit the Priority Pass website here you can see some screenshots of how it is meant to work.

I tried to do a dummy booking to create my own screenshots but it wasn’t working. I’m not sure if it isn’t live yet or if an app update will appear later today.

Am I guaranteed to be able to pre-book?

No.

Some lounges do not release pre-booking slots at peak times. This is usually when an airline has pre-booked some or all of a lounge for its own passengers.

Which lounges are participating?

At the moment, the only participating lounges are those run by Swissport (Aspire), Collinson (the owners of Priority Pass) or Airport Dimensions, which is a Swissport / Collinson joint venture.

This means that you won’t, for example, be able to access any Plaza Premium lounges. The only Heathrow Terminal 5 option is the Club Aspire lounge.

Here is the list with links to the relevant page of the Priority Pass site:

Lounge NameAirport
Aspire LoungeBirmingham International
Aspire Lounge (South)Birmingham International
No1 Lounge BirminghamBirmingham International
Clubrooms BirminghamBirmingham International
Aspire LoungeInverness
Aspire LoungeHumberside
Aspire LoungeLiverpool John Lennon
Aspire Lounge – Terminal 1Manchester
Aspire Lounge – Terminal 2Manchester
Aspire LoungeNewcastle International
Aspire Lounge (Gate 4)Edinburgh
Aspire Lounge (Gate 16)Edinburgh
Aspire LoungeBelfast City
No1 Lounge Heathrow – Terminal 3London Heathrow
Club Aspire Lounge – Terminal 3London Heathrow
Club Aspire Lounge – Terminal 5London Heathrow
No1 Lounge Gatwick – South TerminalLondon Gatwick
No1 Lounge Gatwick – North TerminalLondon Gatwick
Clubrooms Gatwick NorthLondon Gatwick
Clubrooms Gatwick SouthLondon Gatwick
My Lounge – South TerminalLondon Gatwick
Club Aspire Lounge – South TerminalLondon Gatwick
No1 Lounge LutonLondon Luton

Note that two Clubrooms sites are included

‘Clubrooms’ is the premium lounge brand offered by No1 Lounges, with improved food and drink.

Pre-booking these lounges usually costs £15 instead of £6 because it includes a supplement to cover the premium Clubrooms product. American Express appears happy to pay the full £15 on your behalf.

If you are flying from Birmingham or London Gatwick, it makes sense to prebook Clubrooms instead of any other lounge.

Conclusion

This is a good step forward for holders of The Platinum Card.

Adding Plaza Premium would obviously be another step forward – although that would require Priority Pass to do a deal with the competition – but hopefully this will reduce complaints about UK lounge overcrowing this summer.

You can find out more on the Priority Pass website here.

PS. As a reminder, click here to learn more about the new Platinum card sign-up offer of £400 of Amex Travel credit and 40,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert to 40,000 Avios.


Getting airport lounge access for free from a credit card

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (May 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 in-depth review of The Platinum Card from American Express is here.

You can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

The American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card 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 Credit Card review here.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 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 The American Express Business Platinum Card which has the same lounge benefits as the personal Platinum card:

The American Express Business Platinum Card

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 (218)

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

  • BJ says:

    Rob, how does capacity control in lounges work where the lounges have a contract with airlines to accommodate their premium and elite passengers? This must be diificult to manage when combined with pre-bookings and walk-ins but I don’t ever recall being refused access to a lounge when flying business.

    • CdC says:

      The new lounge at Newcastle has three areas, a main lounge for PP & walk in’s, there is a separate section for airline business class passengers, and within that section there is a dedicated area for Emirates BC…

  • Mr Benjamin Murphy-Ryan says:

    Where is the suggestion of removal of HN credit coming from? They must make money from the platinum target demographic so seems unlikely – especially as fewer benefits and good offers to justify the fee now (although I did complain this week on that with my renewal fee and got a few rewards points chucked my way – so happy enough for this year). HM credit is useful for sales shopping or wine!

    • Roy says:

      I believe the initial Amex/HN deal was for there years. No one knows what will happen when it comes to an end – it might be renewed or it might not.

  • brian says:

    Acknowledging that the current offering is clearly not sufficient by trialing this out is a positive step.

    The reality is I’m only likely to use this when flying via Gatwick which is rare these days as Aer Lingus stopped flying to DUB from there.

    LHR T3 – will got to Centurion Lounge, LHR T2 and T5 – will try join the Plaza Premium virtual queue if needs be.

    The real test of my PP worth is the multiple trips through DUB this year.

  • Tom says:

    Good news! Slightly off topic, does anyone know how quickly priority passes get cancelled after cancelling platinum card?

    • Rob says:

      About 10 seconds later. A Priority Pass without a valid credit card behind it to pay for guest access is automatically voided.

      • C says:

        Not always, once got access on an old card by accident. It was quickly closed soon after though

  • Fraser says:

    I would value HN credit at £75 (eg can buy drinks I would have bought anyway, but paying their inflated prices).

    I would value four pre-bookings at zero. I expect to be able to access lounges with Priority Pass/Amex. Granted they are sometimes busy, but I’ve never paid for access and would only do so on a special personal trip when I expected it to be overrun with leisure travellers.

    Unlimited free reservations, but with a fee payable if you reserve and then dont’t show up, might be palatable but still worth less than the HN credit.

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    Well if it really as strongly hinted at: i.e. 4 pre-books (so £24 worth of pre-booking credit if you want to express it a different way) and in return they remove £100 of Harvey Nicks credit (so lets call that £50 of shopping credit to even account for those who think HN is overpriced) then that seems like the kind of, erm, “enhancement” that any loyalty scheme revenue director would be proud of.
    Suprised it got any positive reaction on that basis, but hey, I’m a business card holder and not a personal, so don’t have a bun in this fight; wait and see if there’s any change there…

  • Scott says:

    A good step, but worried about how quickly they get used up. I do a lot of GLA – LHR weekend trips and 8 passes would be used quickly if there are 4 of us each way – can you still go and see if you can get access without prebooking or is it now going to be prebooking only?

    Also, you said “(This person also receives all of the hotel elite status benefits.)” is this new or have I completely missed this benefit? My supplemental card also gets Hilton Gold?

    • NorthernLass says:

      Yes, they can register from their own Amex account.

    • Lady London says:

      …and they also get the offers on the supp card too.

      The thing is to take the supp card later and not at the same time as opening the main card as sometimes an unexpected reward may pop up for this.

  • Ben says:

    This is a terrible “enhancement” in terms of value. Removing £100 worth of HN spend (and depending on what you buy, the mark up can be nonexistent) and swapping it with a few booking tokens with about £24.

    Has Alex Cruz started working for Amex?

    • Rob says:

      We’re not saying it is definitely happening, I’m just speculating.

      • Lady London says:

        Hum. Don’t worry Rob our feedback here should take care of this for you 🙂

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

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