Terminal 3’s new First Lounge closed for Gold Guest List

[nick624]

It seems that BA have very quietly closed the restaurant part of the first lounge at T3 to gold and GGL holders. I wonder what other lounges they will close off? Perhaps GGL is disappearing? I have a picture of their new policy at T3 but can’t post it here, happy to send it to Rob or anyone who can post it. The BA staff were keen to keep the new policy hidden but I managed a picture anyway.

[Rob]

This is tied in to plans to create some sort of Concorde Room equivalent at Terminal 3.

Simply ban Gold and GGL from part of the lounge they could previously use and, voila, you have a Concorde Room.

[OldFashioned]

In some ways I don’t mind this, the current offering if you are traveling in F is pretty terrible, it would just have been nice if they did it by improving the F experience rather than just taking away from the current Gold GGL experience. What they really need to do is create a F boarding process and seperate that from the Golds and other Group 1 boarding so you can avoid the scrum. I realise you could just turn up last minute and board at the end, but surely the point of F is you can choose rather than have to work round the fact BA is incapable or orderly boarding!

[Blair Waldorf Salad]

OldFashioned wrote:

In some ways I don’t mind this, the current offering if you are traveling in F is pretty terrible, it would just have been nice if they did it by improving the F experience rather than just taking away from the current Gold GGL experience. What they really need to do is create a F boarding process and seperate that from the Golds and other Group 1 boarding so you can avoid the scrum. I realise you could just turn up last minute and board at the end, but surely the point of F is you can choose rather than have to work round the fact BA is incapable or orderly boarding!

Completely agree. There’s absolutely nothing premium about BA’s boarding process, even at their home hub. Others will have their own opinions but I am strongly of the view that cabin class trumps status and so F passengers and J passengers should be boarded as Group 1 and Group 2, followed then by BA Golds/OWEs as 3, Silvers as 4, and so on. It simply sends the wrong message to first time/occasional cash buyers of premium cabin tickets that they are boarded as part of a large scrum.

[e14]

Rob Burgess wrote:

This is tied in to plans to create some sort of Concorde Room equivalent at Terminal 3.

Simply ban Gold and GGL from part of the lounge they could previously use and, voila, you have a Concorde Room.

GGL would get access to CCR ??

[yonasl]

If you are in T3 and Gold, why would you not go to the CC lounge anyway?

[Rob]

e14 wrote:

Rob Burgess wrote:

This is tied in to plans to create some sort of Concorde Room equivalent at Terminal 3.

Simply ban Gold and GGL from part of the lounge they could previously use and, voila, you have a Concorde Room.

GGL would get access to CCR ??

Not in T3.

[Andrew J]

There never was a “restaurant” area of Galleries First at T3 – there is the area at the back which has restaurant style tables but the menu offered there was the same as the rest of the lounge – and like the rest of the lounge is a depressing space, despite the runway view windows. Just go to CX First lounge for a better experience anyway.

[JDB]

Andrew J wrote:

There never was a “restaurant” area of Galleries First at T3 – there is the area at the back which has restaurant style tables but the menu offered there was the same as the rest of the lounge – and like the rest of the lounge is a depressing space, despite the runway view windows. Just go to CX First lounge for a better experience anyway.

The changes to the BA T3 lounge likely herald changes to T3 lounge access that is currently overly costly to BA as many appear to enjoy trying out various overhyped lounges. BA’s entire use of T3 is rather bizarre, not quite the squatting they practise at LGW, but not a very different principle.

[Blair Waldorf Salad]

“likely herald changes to T3 lounge access that is currently overly costly to BA as many appear to enjoy trying out various overhyped lounges”

This feature is baked into OneWorld Sapphire and Emerald. Are they really going to unspool an alliance-wide benefit because of one terminal at one airport? I am quite sure the vast majority of T3 users with lounge access go directly to their airline’s own lounge/airline-instructed lounge and never budge from it. A minority, overly represented on here, like to choose their own T3 lounge. And a vanishingly small minority within that like to lounge hop in T3.

So long as no one starts writing letters to BA about it I’m sure it’s a manageable perk of OW at T3.

[JDB]

@BWS I’m sure you are aware that neither having BA Gold, nor a BA Club ticket gets you into every BA or OW top tier lounge around the world. There is additionally the problem of overcrowding in the T3 lounges, notably CX. There is absolutely no need to “unbake” anything to tweak access rules at T3.

[Andrew J]

OW aren’t going to change their lounge access policy just to save BA a few quid! Why would QF or CX decide to limit access for BA passengers when they are getting paid to allow access? Things will absolutely continue as they are at T3.