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NEW: Amex Platinum (and Bus Plat) holders can pre-book UK airport lounges for FREE

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Good news! After a successful trial last year, American Express has brought back airport lounge pre-booking to allow you to make the most of your Priority Pass benefit.

Effective immediately, holders of The Platinum Card and The American Express Business Platinum Card can pre-book selected UK airport lounges for free.

This benefit is guaranteed to run until at least the end of 2027.

Full details are on the Priority Pass website here.

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

How many lounges can you pre-book?

If you have The Platinum Card or The American Express Business Platinum Card you will have received FOUR pre-booking credits which need to be used by 31st December 2025.

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

For 2026 and 2027, you will receive EIGHT pre-booking credits on 1st January.

Here is an important point: unlike the trial last year, supplementary cardholders DO NOT receive their own pre-booking allowance.

How do you pre-book an airport lounge?

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

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

Note that, due to an IT bug, pre-booking will not be possible for some people (including myself). You will find that, irrespective of whether you use the app or website, it is impossible to enter an email address to receive the necessary 2FA code.

What is the small print?

There are a few rules to note:

  • the primary cardholder must be one of the guests – you cannot pre-book for other people if you are not there yourself
  • you can reserve a lounge slot up to three months in advance
  • pre-booking credits do NOT carry forward if unused in any calendar year
  • a credit is counted as ‘used’ at the time of booking, not the date of your visit. If you book in December 2025 for a lounge visit in January 2026, the credit is taken from your 2025 allowance.
  • pre-booking credits will be returned if the booking is cancelled more than 48 hours before arrival. Cancellations within 48 hours of arrival, or no-shows, will result in the credit being forfeited.
  • credits will not be returned, irrespective of when a booking is cancelled, if the original booking was made in the previous calendar year (eg if you book in December 2025 for a January 2026 flight and cancel the booking after 1st January 2026, the credits will not be returned)
Amex Platinum (and Bus Plat) holders can now pre-book UK airport lounges for FREE

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?

This is the list of participating lounges, with links to the relevant pre-booking page on the Priority Pass website:

Lounge NameAirport
Northern Lights LoungeAberdeen
Aspire LoungeBelfast George Best City
Aspire LoungeBirmingham International
Aspire Lounge (South)Birmingham International
No1 Lounge BirminghamBirmingham International
Aspire Lounge (Gate 16)Edinburgh
Upper DeckGlasgow
Aspire LoungeHumberside
Aspire LoungeInverness
Aspire LoungeLiverpool John Lennon
No1 Lounge Gatwick – South TerminalLondon Gatwick
No1 Lounge Gatwick – North TerminalLondon Gatwick
My Lounge – North TerminalLondon Gatwick
My Lounge – South TerminalLondon Gatwick
Club Aspire Lounge – South TerminalLondon Gatwick
No1 Lounge Heathrow – Terminal 2London Heathrow
No1 Lounge Heathrow – Terminal 3London Heathrow
My Lounge – Terminal 3London Heathrow
Club Aspire Lounge – Terminal 5London Heathrow
No1 Lounge LutonLondon Luton
My LoungeLondon Luton
Aspire Lounge – Terminal 1Manchester
Aspire Lounge – Terminal 2Manchester
Aspire LoungeNewcastle International
Spitfire LoungeSouthampton

Plaza Premium lounges are NOT available for pre-booking via Priority Pass. This is a blow but – since No1 Lounge opened in Heathrow Terminal 2 – Heathrow Terminal 4 is the only UK airport terminal where Plaza Premium is the only independent option.

Clubrooms lounges are NOT included. This is a change from the trial last year.

HfP has reviewed most of the lounges listed above. Our index of UK airport lounge reviews is here.

Conclusion

This is a good step forward for holders of The Platinum Card and The American Express Business Platinum Card.

It’s a shame not to see Plaza Premium included, especially as it would improve capacity at Heathrow Terminal 5. With many British Airways flyers losing their Silver status next April, there will be a surge of people looking to use the two independent lounges – and only Club Aspire is available via this deal.

You can find out more about the offer – and check the current list of participating lounges, if you are reading this after the original date of publication – by visiting this page of the Priority Pass website.

PS. As a reminder, click here to learn more about The Platinum Card sign-up offer of 50,000 Membership Rewards points, which converts to 50,000 Avios.

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

The American Express Business Platinum Card

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

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American Express Platinum card

Comments (175)

  • Sandgrounder says:
    30 Jul30 July 05:19

    This is a good move, probably doesn’t cost them as much as the dining credit, but might create more goodwill.

    Reply
  • ChasP says:
    30 Jul30 July 05:39

    Good news but the exclusion of supplementary holders – even if they didnt get a separate set of reservations seems a bit mean

    Reply
    • Nick G says:
      30 Jul30 July 06:53

      Yeah as a family of three me and my son are ok but the wife with her suppl. isn’t……not sure how that will go down. Then again has she got more chance as a ‘single’ entrant rather than a family of say 4 turning up without pre booking?

      Reply
    • JDB says:
      30 Jul30 July 07:19

      Benefits have costs; would you be willing to pay more for pre-booking credits to be added to your free supplementary card? Would you wish every supplementary card to be chargeable?

      Reply
      • Rhys says:
        30 Jul30 July 09:12

        Don’t need to add more – it’s annoying that the allowance can’t be divvied up! Eg. if my boyfriend travels without me, he can’t pre-book the lounge, even though he has more use for them because he has no airline status.

        Reply
        • JDB says:
          30 Jul30 July 09:40

          Many are probably in a similar position, but I suspect that pooling the pre-booking credits would be logistically difficult and I’m sure there would be more howling from the usual never satisfied cardholders if the credits were equally divided.

          Reply
  • PJ says:
    30 Jul30 July 05:53

    Hi, how does this work, I am trying to pre book LGW south my lounge and it is trying to charge me £6?

    Reply
  • Sean Bhalach says:
    30 Jul30 July 06:11

    Lomond lounge in GLA allows pre-booking but still says £16 fee.

    Reply
    • Andy says:
      30 Jul30 July 11:57

      Isn’t that their “fancier” of the two lounges though ? Could that booking fee include an upgrade fee or is it just GLA doing their usual price gouging thing ?

      Reply
  • Etk says:
    30 Jul30 July 06:36

    Just logged into the app and it’s still showing a price of £6 per person to book, is that normal?

    Reply
  • Bill says:
    30 Jul30 July 06:39

    Does it work with the free gold card? I thought you got PP with that one too.

    Reply
  • r* says:
    30 Jul30 July 06:39

    Not adding it to supp cards too is pretty poor, it basically means you can only prebook 4 lounges a year unless youre flying on your own.

    Reply
    • JDB says:
      30 Jul30 July 07:34

      This is Amex’s problem; whatever they offer, some cardholders expect more so end up being dissatisfied and they stop offering it at all, or more likely, so you aren’t unhappy, they will make all supplementaries chargeable.

      Do you also feel it’s “pretty poor” Amex doesn’t offer dining credits on any free supplementary card you may have?

      Reply
      • MW says:
        30 Jul30 July 09:31

        To be honest, “unlimited” lounge visits are a listed benefit on the card, so the fact that you cannot use them due to availability/pre-booking requirement is not great.

        Reply
        • JDB says:
          30 Jul30 July 09:52

          @MW – firstly, Amex has never promised that you can get into any lounge; if it’s full it’s full and they can’t do much about that. You are presumably aware that PP is now increasingly widely offered so there’s also an element of caveat emptor.

          If Amex cardholders are either too tight or don’t sufficiently value pre-booking to pay for it themselves occasionally, that’s a different issue.

          There’s a great disconnect between posters on this site complaining of being unable to access lounges or finding them overcrowded vs posts asking how to get a family of six into a lounge on one card and receiving ideas of various ruses to do so.

          On your “unlimited” point Amex, perhaps mistakenly, assumes that its high flying Plat cardholders are sufficiently intelligent and commercially aware to understand what “unlimited” actually means in this context and how it realistically operates.

          Reply
          • MW says:
            30 Jul30 July 10:08

            I know where you are coming from, and you are right that this site or FT are not representative of the “average traveller” but then if someone is paying £600 for a card, they expect to see something.

            I see value in PP of when you are travelling economy without status. I used it last year while I was BA Bronze and travelled from T3 for example (ie Centurion Lounge). If I had to pay extra to book it, I may have decided to go straight to the gate.

            As Rob often says, if the benefit is not guaranteed, it’s valued at nothing. I think this is why booking fees are so unpopular with readership on this site.

            In relation to balance, well – the number of PPs issued is known. Usage patterns are known: Collinson needs to expand the lounge networks and quality of products rather than milk their customers without providing them the services promised.

      • r* says:
        30 Jul30 July 10:07

        No, but I do find it ‘pretty poor’ that amex only provide a cut down version of the priority pass card when other cards provide a full priority pass. Thats also the reason such a small prebooking limit is ‘pretty poor’.

        Do you think its good that on a £650 card they have carv outs of where the priority pass is valid, or would you say that was ‘pretty poor’?

        Reply
        • JDB says:
          30 Jul30 July 10:40

          @r* – I think the Amex Plat card offering is overall worse than “pretty poor” in terms of both quality and quantum, but anyone taking out the card ought to be able to ascertain that. Clearly the product works for some but it’s not really a very modern or relevant product generally, is more designed to mirror the US market rather than tailored to the UK and not actually aimed at the higher end of the market which one might expect.

          Reply
  • Steve R says:
    30 Jul30 July 06:41

    Thanks, Rob. Clubrooms at Gatwick South still wanting to charge £15 to pre-book on the app this morning.

    Reply
    • GM says:
      30 Jul30 July 10:02

      Is that more than the supplement for Clubrooms usually? Thought it was an extra charge (I’ve only used the BHX one as part of a business/status flight)

      Reply

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