Airport Lounge access by Credit card

dozy doctor

Hi All,

I do a lot of traveling with my current role, and it has just come to my attention that you can access to Airport Lounges with Certain Credit Cards.

I am not self employed so it would need to be a personal credit card at this stage, so if anyone has any information on this topic it would be really appreciated...

Thanks in advance.

DD

BoatMad

dozy doctor wrote: »

Hi All,

I do a lot of traveling with my current role, and it has just come to my attention that you can access to Airport Lounges with Certain Credit Cards.

I am not self employed so it would need to be a personal credit card at this stage, so if anyone has any information on this topic it would be really appreciated...

Thanks in advance.

DD

Hmmm, most personal cards do not have this type of feature any more, a few of the corporate cards have, Diners being on of the best.

for €399 a year you could subscribe to Priority Pass, again that used to free with corporate Visa but not anymore to my understanding

anyway many lounges , with the general exception of the US, are poor, badly situated and not worth bothering about

dozy doctor

BoatMad wrote: »

Hmmm, most personal cards do not have this type of feature any more, a few of the corporate cards have, Diners being on of the best.

for €399 a year you could subscribe to Priority Pass, again that used to free with corporate Visa but not anymore to my understanding

anyway many lounges , with the general exception of the US, are poor, badly situated and not worth bothering about

interesting, thank you for taking the time to post...
Was just that i was speaking to a chap from Emirates airline who told me they were quiet popular
and were easily available on credit cards in UAE...

As usual, the Irish are last to follow suit...
Perhaps Diners or AmEx may be the way forward or even Priority Pass at £229 a year will give access for one year...

Thanks again

BoatMad

dozy doctor wrote: »

interesting, thank you for taking the time to post...
Was just that i was speaking to a chap from Emirates airline who told me they were quiet popular
and were easily available on credit cards in UAE...

As usual, the Irish are last to follow suit...
Perhaps Diners or AmEx may be the way forward or even Priority Pass at £229 a year will give access for one year...

Thanks again

Actually many Irish corporate credit cards had such facilities , ( I had free priority pass from AIB for close to ten years ), but with the rise of discount airlines and the trend towards lower cost credit cards, most cards discontinued these offers as the feedback was only a few people made use of them.

IN that regards Irish cards are " ahead of The game" not behind it

if you really feel the need and you have the usage , then priority pass is a " reasonable option " over paying for individual lounges

personally if your flying is restricted to Europe , lounge access is a dubious value, the lounges are often poor, and in the wrong terminal and little more then segregated seating areas, Heathrow has some awful ones. Particularly as Ireland is not in the Schengen area , in europe the lounges tend to be outside passport control ( this is likely to change on Brexit however I suspect )

IN the USA , the lounges are much better and many credit cards offer access, the fact that discount flying is not really a feature of air transport in the US notwithstanding

coylemj

dozy doctor wrote: »

As usual, the Irish are last to follow suit...
Perhaps Diners or AmEx may be the way forward or even Priority Pass at £229 a year will give access for one year...

Having had both of those cards at different times in the past from work, I can assure you that getting an AmEx or Diners Card is not 'the way forward', it's most definitely a step in the wrong direction. When you offer one of those cards in any of the few places that accept them, they will almost always ask if you have Visa or Mastercard instead, they will only take AmEx or Diners as a last resort.

This story was widely reported about 15-20 years ago: American Express sent a new guy from the US to manage their UK operation so he and his wife moved to London. The wife set about buying furnishings for their new home so off she went to a branch of Laura Ashley. When she had selected what she wanted to buy, she handed over her AmEx card whereupon the sales assistant asked her if she had any other cards. Clearly in a chain store like Laura Ashley, her staff training must have told her to do it i.e. it was store policy. Needless to say, the woman's husband and AmEx were not amused!

Credit card usage in Ireland is very high but the vast majority of people want a card with no annual charge (other than Govt. tax) so there is significant resistance to any added value for which you would have to pay extra like access to airport lounges.

Bored_lad

Bank of Ireland premier banking give Shannon airport lounge access but the Shannon airport lounge could barely be called a lounge. I know they have corporate cards with lounge access but I'm not aware of any consumer cards in Ireland with lounge access.

ted1

Are you collecting your air miles and points? If you are doing enough flying to justify paying for annual usage you should be getting free lounge access

dozy doctor

ted1 wrote:

Are you collecting your air miles and points? If you are doing enough flying to justify paying for annual usage you should be getting free lounge access

I must look into it, but work pays for flights etc... I'll check it or... Thanks again to everyone for the valued input...

It is much appreciated 😀

Diziet

It doesn't matter if work pay for your flights - you should register on loyalty schemes (noting that it si better to register on the big ones that have lots of partners, like the BA one that includes Aer Lingus). Then just provide your loyalty numbers to whoever books your flights, or even provide them at checkin. Electronic check ins allow you to input your loyalty number, and if you check in at the airport, you just give your number to the check in person.

slicus ricus

Diziet wrote: »

It doesn't matter if work pay for your flights - you should register on loyalty schemes (noting that it si better to register on the big ones that have lots of partners, like the BA one that includes Aer Lingus). Then just provide your loyalty numbers to whoever books your flights, or even provide them at checkin. Electronic check ins allow you to input your loyalty number, and if you check in at the airport, you just give your number to the check in person.

Unless you are flying business class, you will find it tricky enough to accrue enough points for lounge access. In my old job, they used to fly us business class with BA on flights over a certain duration so I was able to get to Gold level pretty quick. Unfortunately I no longer have the luxury of business class with my new employer but I am lucky that the gold membership tier gets me into the lounges.