Is It Worth Paying For Priority Pass?

In any airport you’ve been to you’ve probably seen signs for different airport lounges typically made up of a range of airline and non-airline lounges. Most airline lounges are for status holders or passengers in premium cabins but there are a lot of non-airline lounges. These you can enter by paying for entry or by being a member of an airport lounge membership scheme like Priority Pass. If you travel regularly you might be wondering if it’s worth paying for a priority pass rather than pay as you go. Let’s take a look if the maths adds up!

What is Priority Pass?

Priority Pass is an airport lounge membership scheme that gives you access to over 1300 lounges in more than 600 cities across 148 countries, regardless of airline or class of travel. If you are interested in seeing what lounges are in the scheme at your local airport see Priority Pass’ website here – https://www.prioritypass.com/ – and click on Find lounges and more in the top left corner.

What do you get in an Airport Lounge?

This can vary heavily from lounge to lounge! But typically you would expect better seating, free Wi-Fi, free drinks (alcohol included), snacks, and a selection of newspapers and magazines. In some of the better lounges, you’ll find a full hot/cold food buffet varying on the time of day, IT facilities and showers.

What Priority Pass memberships are there?

There are 3 different membership tiers which are…

Standard – £69 a year – no free visits, you are your guest are charged £20 each for entry.

Standard Plus – £189 a year – 10 free visits for the cardholder, afterwards £20 entry. Guests pay £20 per entry.

Prestige – £339 a year – unlimited free visits for the cardholder. Guests pay £20 per entry.

Entries fees aren’t charged at the Airport lounge. When you swipe your Priority Pass it will charge your stored credit card the appropriate fee (if any) for you and any guest’s visit.

Which one should I choose?

There is no easy answer here! It depends on your circumstances and where you travel to/from (are there any lounges there?) For example, if you visit an airport lounge 10 times a year (that’s 5 return trips if both airports have lounges) you’d be paying £18.90 per visit with the Standard Plus membership. Will the lounge offering meet your needs in food and drink so you aren’t spending money elsewhere? £18.90 probably stretches to a small meal + beer in the terminal so you’ll probably get decent value here, particularly if you drink a lot.

If you travel more frequently you may find the Prestige membership better value. Here you’d need a minimum of 18 visits (which would cost you £18.83 per visit) to get better value than the Standard Plus membership.

The standard membership doesn’t offer any real value in our opinion. Particularly as with most of these lounges you can pay as you go for access. You can find airport lounge passes on sites such as Lounge Pass, Holiday Extras or Lounge Buddy. You can also book directly with lounge operators such as No 1 Lounges or Executive Lounges by Swissport. If you are a member of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (It’s FREE!) you can get access to the Clubrooms for £35, No1 Lounge for £25 & My Lounge for £15. If you are flying from Gatwick, Birmingham or Edinburgh you’ll also get FREE priority security! More details here (you don’t need to be flying with Virgin either) – https://no1lounges.com/virginatlanticflyingclub

Can I get a free Priority Pass?

In the UK The Platinum Card from American Express comes with two free Priority Pass cards. One is in your name (the cardholder) and the other is in the name of your first free supplementary cardholder.

Each Priority Pass from Amex allows you to take in a guest for free, which means if you are travelling with your supplementary cardholder you could get 4 people in total into a lounge. This is a little bit bizarre because you can’t actually buy a Priority Pass directly that allows you to do this, you can only do it with a Platinum Card Priority Card.

The card does have an annual fee of £575 but comes with a wide range of travel benefits and a generous sign-up bonus. You can read more details about them here – https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/charge-cards/platinum-card/

Conclusion

If you’d rather be sitting in an airport lounge than the concourse but don’t have status or fly business class Priority Pass is one of the easiest ways to access a large number of lounges when you travel. Make sure you do the maths before purchasing to make sure you get the cheapest one that suits your needs, to find out more information and to purchase see Priority Pass’ website here – https://www.prioritypass.com/