Any good? Worth an extra £50 for the family on a Saturday flight in June from Mcr??

Snob alert! 😉

When the budget airlines realy started flying to useful places, and my former company decided they wouldn’t pay for ‘proper’ business travel any more, as a concession they allowed the frequent travellers to join priority pass which allows access to all these sorts of lounges – usually servisair or similar but in some of the foreign airports they had deals with the home airlines to use those lounges.

Particularly as changing to budget airlines also meant changing the airports from usually Heathrow to stansted or Luton or…. the pp lounges were great, it meant we didn’t have to crease our suits on plastic chairs surrounded by people in flip flops with big bags of duty free vodka and fags, and we could convince ourselves we were still executives.

Then gradually people realised they were accessible to all and the duty free fags started following us in. Maybe not the full flip flop brigade, but the slightly better off ones. With their bloody kids moaning about being bored and playing those bloody nintento things.

So yes, I think they are probably still worth it, but don’t expect it to be an oasis of calm, just a few layers of Hades above the main terminal departure lounge. If your measure is ‘would CFH be seen in one’ then the answer to that is probably no.

If you fly a lot, look at getting pp, you can take guests in for a nominal fee, might work out similar cost and then you benefit for the rest of the year to get over the experience of MCR airport in June.

I wouldn’t bother, it’ll be full of ‘business executives’ in cheap suits talking loudly on their blackberrys, and preparing PowerPoint presentations on their laptops.

depends how long you’re going to be at the airport for, if you’ve timed it right, and you’re just going to be sat for 20 minutes before boarding the plane then I wouldnt bother, however if you get there with 2 hours to kill or your flight is delayed then yes its worth it.

You do also get the free food and drink (inc beer & wine in most) in the lounges, so if you were going to spend fifty quid on food/drink, you probably wont have to if you stay in the lounge.

I have priority pass membership which gets me (and the wife) in for free, so we just go there even if we only have 20 mins to spare, I get this as part of the benefits package with my credit card.

I wouldn’t bother, it’ll be full of ‘business executives’ in cheap suits talking loudly on their blackberrys, and preparing PowerPoint presentations on their laptops.

Saturday flight? it will be full of people with darling and precious and those who just paid for the upgrade…
I used the Geneva one a while back as I was there for far too long. Worth it to get out of the way and chill out.

Probably nicer on the way home.

But only if your kids behave!

It’ll be the especially cheap suited execs on a Saturday, travelling on a Saturday to go the extra mile to seal a deal, and climb the corporate ladder!

If your measure is ‘would CFH be seen in one’ then the answer to that is probably no.

lol!

Funnily just left one a Heathrow. Packed, too hot and not much in the way of food. Much nicer out here on the plastic seats.

servisair lounges are hateful – normally busy and the food/coffee is horrendous.

Most airports have a quiet corner you can hide in.

Airport frequent flier lounges on the other hand are generally quite good , except when they are servisair run….. like the Airfrance lounge in aberdeen. – the Ba lounge next door is top notch and usually quiet(but mostly i fly AF :()

It depends.

I use to fly a lot and sometimes in really crappy places it was nice to have somewhere that you could actually go to that meant you weren’t paranoid about your bags/coats etc.

But never paid for any.

i really like the option of the servis lounges, some places the food is good and in others its rubbish. some are nice some arent.

one tip is only use the lounges after you have been through passport control as its not so relaxing thinking you have to jump up at any time and rush to passport control

one tip is only use the lounges after you have been through passport control as its not so relaxing thinking you have to jump up at any time and rush to passport control

I was just ambling to security a couple of weeks back after thinking I had time for another champagne when they called my name…

They’re up their with the weekend first class train travellers, replete with Daily Mail and M&s picnic
😈

Thankfully, my home airport is quite a nice place to be outwith the lounges – so long as you don’t stray too near the gates Ryanair use.

😀

They’re a good way of escaping some of the masses if you can’t get in to a proper lounge, it’s true, but it does rather depend on the flight and location. If you’re off on a long haul, and have a long check in time, and want to calm down a bit before the flight, and it’s £50 for all of you, it sounds good. If your flight is 8hrs or under, I’d just suck it up, meander around the airport for a while and spend the £50 on needless fripperies instead!

i have the priority pass and pay to sign a guest in, if you travel more than once a year i reckon its well worth having. however living a mile from Stansted its only an issue when i go from Gatwick or Heathrow, although some of lounges abroad have been really nice and some have been s**t

£50 for a leather seat for half an hour and a free coke / small beer and a plate of peanuts each?

We’ve just gone down the economy route at work. I think we’d all prefer to have priority lane at security to avoid the flip-flop brigade carnage, rather than lounge access via Priority Pass.

If you travel a lot its worth weighing up (particularly to the States, its worth looking into getting an AMEX Platinum card, OK its not cheap, at over £300 a year, but gets you Priority Pass, with free guest sign in’s, I know that doesn’t represent great value alone, but you also get an annual travel insurance policy that is about as comprehensive as it comes. Including all your CDW, EDW car hire extra’s that are most relevant in the States, and can really mount up. Fantastic lost luggage / cash coverage etc. And covers not only the cardholder and all family members. Great policy. They have changed it a bit recently and made some exclusions to people over a certain age, and also you now need to book using the AMEX card.
Of course this only represents great value if you travel a fair bit

UK AMEX Platinum charge card is £450.00! You’d need to be hiring a lot of cars and spending a lot of time in non-airline lounges to justify that one!

£450 gets you a new user into one of the lounges over here in Oz, I coughed it for Qantas as I wasn’t getting points fast enough but spending too much in airports. It’s not hard to rack up the bills in those places

I have priority pass membership which gets me (and the wife) in for free, so we just go there even if we only have 20 mins to spare, I get this as part of the benefits package with my credit card.

look at getting pp, you can take guests in for a nominal fee, might work out similar cost

So are there different classes of PP? The one I get with my bank account gives 2 free entries each year then £15 for any after that (and £15 to sign in visitors). If you look online and pre book it looks like you can get the for £15 anyway.

The quality of the lounges varies wildly. We spent 6 or 7 hours in one when we were in transit in Nairobi – fully stocked bar with self pour spirits and a choice of beer. 3 of us got absolutely lashed. In Asia some had full meals available.

The lounges I’ve used in Europe are not great with Food mostly limited to crisps and nuts. If you’re going to have a few beers they’re good value for money.

UK AMEX Platinum charge card is £450.00

Yes so it is, blimey that went up. However we have supplementary card holder in that fee, (currently only one allowed), and yes we both travel a fair bit, I guess between us 25-35 trips a year, so thats 2 x priority passes, with complimentary guest sign in’s so if travelling with spouses, mates etc, that’s access for 4 people to PP lounges, very comprehensive travel insurance annually, not just for one cardholder but for all family members of primary and supplementary cardholders, so theoretically that could be a lot of people. You do have to check some of the exceptions, like the newly introduced age restrictions, but it can work out a good deal to some people.
Start getting a few 3 hour delays and buying refreshments (G&T’s) at airport prices, few bits and bobs to eat, and see how much that represents when you do the expenses !

I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in lounges, mainly StarAlliance ones round the world and they can be quite good. I did have a lovely meal in the Emirates First Class lounge at Heathrow before i was loaded into my special ‘wankclass’ suite 😯 Generally if you travel a fair bit, even domestically, its worth it when you get the first delay. I’m in NZ just now and fly a lot, every time i have a problem or there is GOF or plane hassles the lounge staff sort it out.

I travel a lot with my job and my company has recently taken business class travel off us to save costs but offered me a pass to a generic lounge scheme similar to service air, but I turned it down. If I’m travelling with an airline I’ve not got points with so don’t get lounge access with an economy ticket, I do miss the lounge access as much as the seat on the plane. Proper airline lounges are great. Service air lounges ( and other generic lounges) are crap. Not full of business people at all, more like the stereotyped Brits Abroad type of people trying to get the most out of what they paid and stocking up on the nasty food and drink they serve up. I’d save your money if I were you or spend it on fast track access through the airport (if available) and have an extra hour in bed and turn upto the airport later.

So are there different classes of PP?

yes – mine get me and the wife unlimited visits to any of the lounges in their scheme at no cost, and guests in at £15 each.

The credit card I get the PP membership with does cost £270 per year, but also gives me a decent family worldwide travel insurance policy, comision free foreign exchange on purchases made abroad (and at a decent exchange rate), and most importantly 1% cashback on any (not just foreign ) purchases with no upper limit. I tend to end up with a cheque for about £400 a year off the cc company for the cashback, so from my point of view I’m up on the deal.

If you travel a reasonable amount and/or spend a lot on the card it works out quite nicely I reckon.

And which card is it?

Its a barclaycard i24 card, but I dont think theyre available to new applicants anymore.

one tip is only use the lounges after you have been through passport control as its not so relaxing thinking you have to jump up at any time and rush to passport control

Doesn’t work at Schipol where the security is done at the gate. I have nearly been caught out a couple of times now. It doesn’t help that the KLM lounge always seems miles away from my assigned gate.

Agreed that the Aberdeen servisair lounge is cack, it always seems more busy than out on the normal seats. I guess that comes from a bigger portion of people than normal being on business flights not holidays.