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Got an Amex Priority Pass? There’s good news at London City Airport

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Airport lounge access card Priority Pass is not just about lounges. It also has deals with many airport restaurants where you can receive a free or discounted meal by showing your Priority Pass card.

At any of these restaurants, you will receive £18 credit towards a meal or drinks. If your Priority Pass allows a free guest and you arrive with someone else, you will receive a £36 credit between you.

Unfortunately these deals are NOT available to anyone who gets their Priority Pass via American Express.

Priority Passs London City Airport Juniper and Co

It is available to anyone who gets their pass directly from Priority Pass or via the £15 per month Lloyds Bank World Elite Mastercard.

It is also available on cards with stricter eligibility requirements such as the HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard (requires a HSBC Premier current account) or the Capital on Tap Pro Visa card (for Limited Company owners).

There was ONE place that Amex Priority Pass cardholders could go

There was, globally, a grand total of ONE airport restaurant that you could visit with an American Express-issued Priority Pass.

This is the Pizza Express in London Gatwick’s South Terminal.

Turn up there (it’s open for breakfast too!) and you can get an £18 credit towards literally anything on the menu by swiping your American Express-issued Priority Pass. If you are travelling with someone else, you get £36 of credit between you because your Priority Pass allows a free guest.

There seems to be a SECOND restaurant now

Something very interesting has appeared on the American Express Global Lounge Collection website.

If you look up London City Airport, you will see that Juniper & Co is there.

It also shows in the Priority Pass app if you have it linked to an American Express-issued Priority Pass.

Priority Pass London City Airport Juniper and Co

According to the London City website, Juniper & Co is:

A premium bar and restaurant offering locally sourced produce featuring Paul Rhodes’ bakery, Forman’s salmon, local cheeses and a fantastic selection of local spirits, Jeroboams’ fine wines and craft beers.

It is open from 5am to 9pm Monday to Friday, 5am to 1pm on Saturday and 11am to 9pm on Sunday.

Without any official announcement from Amex or Priority Pass, we can’t tell if this is a mistake or not. If it is, I’m sure I’ll have an email about it before lunch and we can update this article!

I doubt it though. There are no airport lounges at London City Airport. Your Priority Pass – and by default your American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card or The Platinum Card – are useless there.

Given that the passenger demographic at London City is one which would be very attractive to American Express and/or Priority Pass, I suspect it was in the interests of both parties to do a deal. It’s the same reason that continued overcrowding at the Gatwick lounges got the Priority Pass / Amex / Pizza Express deal done.

I checked all other UK airports and couldn’t see any other restaurants added to the Global Lounge Collection directory or the Priority Pass app (for apps linked to an Amex card).

Conclusion

Whilst we can’t yet be 100% certain, it seems that Juniper & Co at London City Airport is now giving £18 of credit (£36 if you are with someone else) for Priority Pass cards issued by American Express.

It brings American Express into line with the Priority Pass benefits enjoyed by HSBC Premier World Elite, Lloyds Bank World Elite and Capital on Tap Pro credit card holders.

Thanks to rho for flagging in our forum.

Comments (29)

  • StanTheMan says:

    JDB in coupon clipping meltdown.

    • JDB says:

      Well, we are certainly in the summer season when this coupon clipping update constitutes news worthy of a whole article and clarifies (if it needed clarification) why HN no longer wished to play.

      Also, cue complaints about Juniper prices meaning you need to put your hand in your pocket should you wish to tip or both to eat and drink as well as questions about using two cards for one person etc.

      • Andrew J says:

        Regarding HN – I notice they also no longer participating in the BA instore Avios collection, so they seem to have changed their customer acquisition strategy (or reduced the budget for it).

        • JDB says:

          They certainly need to work on acquiring some new customers! Totally deserted on a Friday at the end of June with my wife looking to spend her £50. Harrods a few minutes later was heaving. Not surprising as really quite difficult to spend the £50 on anything one might actually want. Very poor selection at Hermès scent counter. The wine shop which is shortly due to close permanently had a terrible selection at daft prices. The fifth floor in broad daylight had a horrible smell and looked rather dirty. General reminder of why we haven’t visited in many years.

          • jj says:

            Your wife must have different tastes from mine, JDB. Mrs JJ normally finds plenty of things she likes in HN, usually from one of the high street brands like BA&SH, Maje, Alice + Olivia, etc. Service in those parts of HN is always better than Harrods, too, although generally far short of what you find in their own boutiques.

          • JDB says:

            @jj – indeed, my wife dresses very smartly and is very into fashion but absolutely not into brands so HN really isn’t her sort of shop! She’s also extremely economical and while she did see some things she liked winding our way down from the fifth floor blanched at the prices, so rapidly moved on. Harrods was only to buy Sensai products (exclusive to Harrods in the UK) and blinis. We marvelled at the next door counter offering Japanese gifts – a melon for £150 or a pair of mangoes for £180.

    • Shamrock says:

      Re: Pizza Express in London Gatwick’s South Terminal.

      Big fan of Pizza Express however earlier this month visited and ordered a Pizza. Asked for a pizza cutter, told could not provide due to security nor a shaper knife to cut the pizza. Asked if they could cut in kitchen told, no. So ended up eating with my hands and promised myself never to return. Really disappointed but could see staff member didn’t care.

      • Rob says:

        Not sure what you expect in an airport …. if you spend any time at all behind the scenes airside you will be amazed at the high levels of security. It is likely that any knives in the kitchen are permanently secured to a surface and are basically on a leash or they are signed out to a specific person at the start of a shift who cannot leave until the knife is signed back in. Don’t even think about doing any naked flame cooking either ….

  • Pat says:

    Green salad is £19 given the service charge and is the cheapest thing on the menu. £18 is the Amex credit that hasn’t changed in ages.

  • PeteM says:

    Glad I could help with this article 😜

    • JDB says:

      Yes, I noticed that! As an interested party, how long do you think this slightly out policy arrangement will last?

      • Rob says:

        I suspect its permanent. The Gatwick one survived the transition to Pizza Express and the (re)opening of the South lounges which had extended covid shutdowns and encouraged them to do the restaurant deal in the first place.

        Let’s be honest, if you worked for Amex you would have been putting this forward as a good thing to do.

        The Berlin restaurant deal WAS pulled but only after Priority Pass did a deal to use one of the existing lounges (annoyingly the one a million miles from the BA gates).

  • Jim W says:

    Mock the coupon clipping all you like but as someone with a platinum card and additional cardholder (so £72 credit?) taking a family of four through LCY this weekend, I feel this article is AI-personalised to me! One happy reader!

  • Celia says:

    As we are going to LCY this morning, I was interested in this. However, the extrememly recent TA reviews on Juniper (I didn’t bother reading further back) are shocking…….we won’t be visiting.

    • Ben says:

      Have been there a few times – yes it’s overpriced but certainly still worth popping in if you’ve got e.g. £18 * 4 to work with (main+joint + 2 guests travelling together)

  • Barrel for Scraping says:

    Adding one additional restaurant doesn’t bring Amex in line with other Priority Pass issuers. That’s a silly thing to say. Even at London City other Priority Passes have two restaurants to choose from.

    • AET says:

      I am really surprised AMEX chose to partner with Juniper rather than Soul & Grain, which offers takeaway sandwiches, salads, and coffee. Then again, this may have been part of the point – fewer people will choose to utilize the credit at a sit-down restaurant at an airport known for its efficiency and where virtually nobody connects.

  • Greg says:

    Maybe this one is for Jim, but I can confirm this deals works. I used it on Friday. They were very helpful as we had 2 cards in party of six so they split the bill as can only get one discount per bill. We actually signed 2 guests in each somehow so got a total of 108 off.
    It’s an airport dining option, the food is as you expect. Nothing special but was fine. Against all the negative reviews a large glass of champagne is £18 in there so if nothing else grab yourself a free drink!
    Enjoy!

  • mzb says:

    I noticed that if you log in to your priority pass online account, the search seems to be taking into account what your associated PP card grants access to.
    I have two issued PP cards: one from Amex, the one other from Chase in the US.

    When logged in to the Amex-issued account – I can see Juniper & Co is available
    When logged in to to the Chase-issued account – nothing available at LCY (Chase got rid of all restaurants on PP last year)
    When not logged in at all – 2 restaurants available at LCY

    So maybe PP’s website is actually smarter than we thought?

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