What methods do any regular travellers (business or otherwise) here use to gain airport lounge access? e.g. do you have a specific credit card that allows access, do you hold a membership like LoungePass or PriorityPass, or something else? I have heard that the Diners Club card, which onnly has a fee of £30 ($50) per year or something similar, comes with complimentary use of a number of airport lounges worldwide, although they are not always the best and brightest examples apparently.

Any thoughts?

cheers
Steve

PS. Merry Christmas!

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I fly the same airline company all the time now since NineEleven and always maintain a Platinum or Gold Card status. Platinum is one level above Gold with my airline. With this status I get free lounge use when flying international flights, even with a cheap ticket. Not to mention 100% bonus miles for free flights or upgrades and other perks. (Started with Northwest and they got bought out by Delta. Mileage and other perks transferred to Delta.)

Flying within the U.S. all of my flights are upgraded to First Class for free providing there is an unsold seat. On the long run from the U.S. to Asia (through Japan) or back every now and then I get free upgrades. So I keep the card current. Some airlines do this same thing with a Gold Card or equivalent for international flights. A dozen years ago when I was using China Airlines and Thai Air working courier they used to give free lounge privileges for Gold Cards. With these "elite" cards you also get on first with the Business Class passengers, greater weight allowances, priority wait-listing, better seats and with Gold and above private reservation lines. Some of the seats flying from the U.S. through Japan are configured "Premium Economy" seats for more leg room and more incline . You get this free with a Gold Card or above on some airlines. These seats have more knee room and recline more. The airlines charge for these better seats.

There were times where because of breakdowns or other problems I used these free lounges for 6 or 8 hours at a time. Once or twice over the past dozen years because of this "elite" status I got use of hotels for free. Some of the Business Class lounges allow you to take showers too besides the free food. Alcohol is also free but I never drink when flying.


Happy New Year.

Thanks for that, Koonel - I am glad to hear someone has actually managed to get the most out of a frequent flyer program as it's damn near impossible for me with the airline I fly with most (British Airways). I basically don't fly enough... I'd need to fly about three times as much just to get enough "tier points" to go up to Bronze. There are various tricks you can do to get "tier points" by flying special routes in Europe on business class which you can pick up cheaply when BA have their sale, but generally speaking the rule of thumb with British Airways is that unless you fly on business, lounge access through the frequent flyer program is pretty much impossible to obtain.

Luckily we have other benefits here in the UK. If you shop with Tesco supermarket, you can gain clubcard points which can be traded up for Avios (Air Miles) which can buy BA flights. Sometimes you get offers that essentially mean you get clubcard points for very cheap or even free - I just bought a mobile phone contract from Tesco that came with enough points for me to fly to Singapore and back, I just need to pay taxes. So we win in other ways at least

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Steve

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Flying from the U.S. to Asia most of the cheaper flights go through Japan, Korea or Taiwan. No problem racking up lots of miles just on a single trip. Boston to BKK is over 9000 miles one way. Even though going through Europe is a little shorter the tickets cost more than going the longer Asian route.

I save up the miles and every now and then use them for free Business Class seats round trip to Asia. When I pay, I do pay it is for economy seats and make the bests of it. Eventually to keep any elite status you have to pay for your rides. Use of a lounge during the long flights sure comes in handy.

Miles are no issue for me also - as I said, I can get them from buying promotional items in a UK supermarket, and accrue them for very cheap or sometimes even nothing - but the pain is that BA also require you to obtain a certain number of "tier points" for you to progress in their loyalty program. You gain these tier points easiest by flying business class regularly; but on the cheapest economy seats there are few or sometimes no tier points to be had.

Absolutely! If I had lounge access I would get the cheapest 2-leg flight I could via the Middle East and put up with a long layover in a VIP lounge... as it is, I tend to go for more expensive direct flights, as the prospect of a 6 hour layover in Oman at 1am in the communal lounges is not my cup of tea...

I have started promoting a 10% Priority Pass discount and if I manage to drive any sales at all, I might put the money towards a membership for myself That is if their website ever gets back online, it's been down for the last day or so.

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Hi Steve,

We have a platinum amex card that gives us a Priority Pass card for lounge access. It has a pretty high annual fee, but it comes with some decent benefits, including travel insurance that our kids and our parents are also covered by.

Cheers,
Immo

Thank you for that info Immo, it looks very interesting. As a young(ish) single traveller I don't think I would get the full benefit out of the card for the fee advertised (£300 p.a.), but it could certainly be great for a family, I agree.

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Immo,

Do you have to pay Priority Pass each time you go in, or is entrance part of the PP deal?

At the moment, I'm lifetime Gold with BMI (part of Star Alliance). However, since Lufthansa have just sold BMI to the Dark Side (British Airways), I'm expecting to lose Gold forever. Looking for alternatives...

Entrance is included (I'm immo's husband :) ) Beware - priority pass lounges are not as good as Star Alliance or oneworld lounges generally. I'm a BA Gold card holder and will always choose the oneworld lounge over the Priority Pass lounge.

The huge benefit of the plat amex is the fact that it gives you excellent travel insurance for all of the supplementary card holders and you can have up to 5 of them. Until recently that meant that my parents in law could have free travel insurance up to 80. If you've looked at the cost of travel insurance for such people you'll see how good a deal that was. Unfortunately, the age limit has just been reduced to 70.

In addition, the travel insurance covers kids on a gap year (up to 25). My son is travelling on this too.

The plat also comes with elite membership of a few hotel and hire car programs. I find the Hertz No1 Club Gold membership very useful as it means I just turn up and my car is ready.

Re hire cars, you can reject all of the additional insurances on the hire agreement as the Amex covers it too. This has saved us far more than the annual fee at times.

One thing you can't get now but we have is a free BA Amex Premium card - they used to waive the BA Amex fee for holders of the Plat but they have stopped that now - we're lucky enough to be grandfathered in for it though.

If you fly BA much it is *well* worth getting the Premium Plus Amex - spend 10k per year and get a 2 for 1 on your BA miles (or Avios as they are now known). We use this for an annual trip in club or first - effectively doubles the value of your miles. Even with the fee (£150 pa I think), that's what you are paying for a club ticket. Good deal in my book.

I sound like an advert!

I don't know if there are any referral deals on at the moment but if there are and you are interested in picking up the plat or BA let me know and I'll be happy to refer you.

From what I've seen, there seems to be a referral scheme for one version of the UK Amex Platinum (you get "paid" in Avios). I'll look out the details as it would be nice for you guys to benefit.

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