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Heathrow unveils its refurbished The Windsor lounge – £3812 for cash, no Priority Pass

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Last week we reviewed aether, the ‘pay to use’ VIP terminal at Manchester Airport. This allows you to avoid the main terminal entirely and be driven to your aircraft for just £110 – or £230 if you want to spend some time in the lounge and enjoy a meal.

Heathrow has its own version of this. Previously known as The Windsor Suite, it has just relaunched as ‘The Windsor by Heathrow’. It costs £3812 for a group of 1-3 people so between 5x and 16x what you would pay at aether.

Let’s look at what you get.

Windsor Suite Heathrow Airport

The refurbishment of The Windsor is the start of a three year process to upgrade the ‘pay as you go’ VIP facilities at the airport.

The Windsor experience is, unlike aether, genuinely ‘door to door’. A chauffeur will collect you from your home (within a 25 mile radius) and drive you to The Windsor, which is inside Terminal 5 with its own dedicated drive-up entrance. Your group will be allocated its own room and you will be driven to your aircraft when it is time to depart.

As with aether, The Windsor has a dedicated Border Force team for inbound passengers. Like aether, it also has a celebrity chef to curate its menus – in this case, Jason Atherton.

Over £3 million has been spent on the refurbishment. To quote:

The spaces are accented with curated British design elements, including Axminster carpets in soft hues. Collaborations with luxury brands like Tom Dixon and Commune add layers of refinement, helping to evoke a ‘home away from home’ ambience, emphasising comfort and special details.

Windsor Suite Heathrow Airport

Guests will be indulged with in-lounge home fragrance products from luxury British brand AUGUST&PIERS, enhancing the guests sensory experience.

The Windsor suite doubles as a private art gallery, showcasing museum-worthy artworks from around the world. Modern British artists such as David Hockney, Tracey Emin and Francis Bacon, as well as American icons like Andy Warhol, feature on the walls. Guests can purchase them at the click of a button, through a QR code hanging next to each artwork.   

It certainly looks smart, as you can see from the photographs here. The airport hired Rankin to take these images which seems like a waste of his talent somehow ….

Jason Atherton has been overseeing the catering at The Windsor since 2016. New options include a signature dish of English butter shortbread with praline cream, Earl Grey tea ice cream, custard sauce and charred mandarin. 

Windsor Suite Heathrow Airport

Use of The Windsor / Windsor Suite has apparently doubled in the last decade. The plan is to double it again in the next three years via additional ‘ambitious transformation plans’, although it is not clear what these are.

The Windsor is, unsurprisingly, dominated by Middle Eastern clientele. The top five destinations served are Doha, Riyadh, Dubai, Los Angeles and New York.

If you think that The Windsor suite is uber-exclusive, think again. Apparently 50,000 passengers per year pass through it, which at £3,812 for a group of 1-3 people makes it a lucrative if niche sideline for the airport. You need to be flying First or business class to book but that is unlikely to be an issue for the clientele.

You can find out more at heathrowvip.com. We will be happy to do a full review if offered!

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Getting airport lounge access for free from a credit card

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (April 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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 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.

Category

Airport Lounge Reviews (UK)

Comments (111)

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

  • T says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:03

    Always good to know that everything is still totally wrong in this world

    • Andrew. says:
      11 Feb11 February 08:39

      I wonder if Dame Emma Thompson uses it when she’s flying in and out of the UK for Extinction Rebellion protests?

      • Ben says:
        11 Feb11 February 09:27

        Heaven forbid that people are concerned with the environment and don’t wear a hair shirt all the time

        • NorthernLass says:
          11 Feb11 February 11:24

          There’s a slight different between not donning a hair shirt and rampant hypocrisy!

  • NorthernLass says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:09

    Charge over £3k per visit but can’t afford a proof reader?! It should be “the guests’ sensory experience” (unless there is actually only one guest, and then it would be “the guest’s sensory experience).

  • Craig says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:16

    The people who use this facility don’t care about the cost but do care about privacy and their security. On that basis the cost is not unreasonable. Stating the obvious I know.

  • Michael C says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:31

    The Windsor Lounge is in / Doubletree Newbury is out.
    Swings and roundabouts!

  • Flying Bird says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:36

    I suppose if you are used to paying £10K for a first class ticket then an extra 3K or so is probably “fine” for the extra exclusivity. Not in my world sadly!

    • CamFlyer says:
      11 Feb11 February 10:33

      Can you get a discount on the F ticket if you use Windsor instead of the FastTrack security and premium checkin? Perhaps BA should offer a disaggregated F ticket, to encourage sales.😀

  • Barrel for Scraping says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:37

    Don’t be so cheap, review it. Maybe make it a time when you have a special trip anyway then writing the review makes it a business expense! Plus it locks in your Heathrow Rewards premium status for another year 😁

    It sounds truly end to end, so presumably the airlines have to support it. No climbing the steps to the gate area to scan in and join the queue here

  • Simon says:
    11 Feb11 February 08:44

    Used it once about 12 years ago travelling with a Government VIP. As others have said, windowless small rooms. All a bit soulless. Food not included, at least on the Government hire rate. And no chauffeur either – and not really set up for me to walk in from the HEx station.

  • Guy Incognito says:
    11 Feb11 February 09:56

    I’m assuming a lot of these are state officials / government (thus charging us taxpayers) .

    • Rob says:
      11 Feb11 February 10:22

      I suspect a) it’s cheaper than the alternative, which would be flooding the terminals with security and/or closing off large areas and b) you’d really prefer Government ministers to waste their time hanging around in queues at Heathrow? Grow up.

      • Susan says:
        11 Feb11 February 10:28

        +1

      • Bagoly says:
        11 Feb11 February 10:34

        a) would also be more disruptive to the rest of us.

      • John says:
        11 Feb11 February 14:12

        Your polite comments for someone who owns this site never fail me. Government officials should not get such treatment. Surely most of them could go through normal security with little additional cost.

        • Hector says:
          11 Feb11 February 14:39

          Most of them will. Big difference between a senior cabinet member and an entry level MP.

          • Rob says:
            11 Feb11 February 15:41

            You know what …. if you want to do a job which has a worse than 1 in 500 chance of getting you murdered (based on the last 9 years) for a pitiful amount of money (given that you need to pay for a home in London plus your constituency one) then I’m happy to fund your lounge access via my taxes. You deserve it.

        • T says:
          11 Feb11 February 19:01

          I don’t buy the excuse that they don’t get paid well so they get perks. Because a lot of those perks are pretty close to bribes. I don’t fancy my taxes being used to pay for this either. If the problem is simply not paid enough then I would be happy to pay them more and give them the same onerous gift and employment contracts the rest of us have. Additionally they often cash in afterwards anyway as their payoff for public “service”

    • Susan says:
      11 Feb11 February 10:28

      Probably not UK ones – my good friend is a senior civil servant who has to argue long and hard to get premium economy on overnight transatlantic/continental flights from which she’s expected to get off and go straight into meetings representing our country. Although maybe knackered and under-resourced for the job is quite a fair representation. of the UK.

      • Ken says:
        11 Feb11 February 17:19

        MPs get a budget of just over £25k a year to rent a place in London, but that ain’t getting much to live near HoC.

        Choose to stay in a hotel ?
        Capped at £190 a night for London which seems incredibly low.

    • Bagoly says:
      11 Feb11 February 10:34

      With those top destination (note no Washington or Brussels) I think it is unlikely to be UK government officials (Saudi ones yes).
      Top ministers use Northolt?

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

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