Review: Avanti West Coast First Class lounge at London Euston station

This is our review of the Avanti West Coast First Class lounge at London Euston station.

I haven’t personally reviewed this lounge since 2015 (Anika did a brief update in 2018) so it could well be nine years since I was there. This is despite an ever increasing number of trips to Manchester for various reasons – this was my third visit in as many months.

The reason is partly because Avanti West Coast First Class tickets are bizarrely expensive when compared to LNER, my usual long haul rail operator. I might still have begrudgingly paid, but Avanti West Coast offers Standard Premium too.

Like Eurostar, Standard Premium on Avanti gets you a First Class seat but without any of the bells and whistles. Travelling in First means that you are paying £70 or so extra each way for the lounge plus the on-train meal. Standard Premium is fine for me.

That said, for review purposes I decided to bite the bullet on Thursday as I headed to the launch party for the new (converted from Macdonald) Manchester Marriott Hotel Piccadilly.

The lounge hasn’t moved in the nine years since my last visit. It sits on the mezzanine level above the main concourse, which is a more pleasant place to hang out than downstairs – although that’s not a high bar.

After three days being fawned over by the staff of Park Hyatt Paris Vendome, it was a pleasure to get back to some good British hospitality. The man on the front desk did not lift his head or say a word as I scanned my boarding pass. Nothing pinged, no light went green and the guy did not move, so I just walked through the doors.

Inside the Avanti West Coast First Class lounge

The first thing I noticed was the number of people – very few.

Back in the days of Virgin Trains, when there was no Standard Premium and Advance First tickets could be quite cheap, the lounge was always rammed. No longer. At 9am it was around 15% full.

The second thing I noticed was that there is a half-decent food offering now, which puts it well ahead of the LNER First Class lounge at Kings Cross.

The third thing I noticed was that some (not all) of the furnishings have been updated in the last nine years, but sadly it is lipstick on a pig. The 1970s false ceiling with its 1970s lighting and air conditioning units just drags down the space. LNER uses a converted Victorian office space with more character.

Let’s have a quick tour ….

As you enter you have this long bar to your left ….

…. which leads to a long window overlooking the concourse:

Whilst the pastry offering looks a bit sparse, don’t be fooled. The chiller unit contained two options – a decent fruit salad and some smoked salmon:

The adjacent fridge had a slightly bizarre mix of orange juice, Pepsi, spicy tomato juice and a disproportionately large amount of FeverTree tonic water!

Whilst no-one was drinking at 9am, there were a wide range of spirits on display – I’m not sure what time these come out or indeed whether they are free. Someone had placed a pile of business cards for The Samaritans in front of the display as you can see in the photo.

The main coffee machine is behind the counter and needs someone to serve you, but there are two self-serve machines tucked away.

The business area was very underused at 9am and is identical to how it was in the Virgin Trains days:

(Someone needs to change the wi-fi password, by the way. It is a random string of 11 characters – a mix of numbers, symbols and upper / lower case letters – and there are only a handful of signs in the lounge with it on. Change it to Pa$$word and save everyone some time!)

There is a good mix of seating, eg:

and

and

and

At times it felt like there were too many different types of seating available – the lounge seemed to lack a sense of cohesion and felt a little random in design.

It’s worth noting that First Class and Standard Premium customers can opt-in to get a text message showing the train platform around 2-3 minutes before it appears on the monitors. This allows you to avoid the Wembley-style crush on the way to the gates.

Toilets are available in the lounge – there is no need to head out to the main concourse.

Conclusion

I was surprisingly impressed by what Avanti West Coast has done with the First Class lounge at Euston.

The addition of some ‘proper’ food, on top of the usual muffins, pastries etc, was a surprise and the lack of crowds was welcome. The LNER lounge at Kings Cross is always busier, because it is smaller and LNER has no Standard Premium carriage, and there is no food beyond fruit and biscuits.

I was also impressed by the breakfast that Avanti West Coast served on the train. There were a decent number of options, hot and cold, including a full English which looked OK.

Is Avanti West Coast First Class worth an extra £70 each way over Standard Premium? Not really – although I also benefitted from a very empty First Class carriage, getting a four seat table to myself.

However, if you can charge the extra £70 as a self-employed business expense and so cut the net cost (as I can) it makes it worth considering.

It’s a different story on the return trip, because the Manchester Piccadilly lounge is shoe-box size and the station itself is a far more pleasant place to hang around than Euston.