Which are the best airport lounges?
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2023
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Following on from the amazing airport lounge survey, my thoughts on the cheapest/most expensive/best/worst – with a little help from my friends at frequent flyer website Head for Points, who have rather more experience of these oases of calm than I do.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. Gosh, it's Wednesday |
| 0:08.1 | the 25th of October already two months till Christmas. And if you're planning your trip around Christmas |
| 0:16.5 | and you were kind enough to listen to yesterday's podcast, which was all about lounges. |
| 0:22.4 | Well, I thought it would be fun to pick up on the idea of more about how to get into airport lounges |
| 0:30.1 | if you haven't got a business or first class ticket. |
| 0:34.0 | And I've been looking more deeply into this and got some thoughts which may or may not be |
| 0:41.4 | helpful the cheapest lounge that I have found of any is at London Gatwick North Terminal |
| 0:51.0 | and it's the Gateway Lounge which is kind of run for easy jet by number one lounges |
| 1:00.2 | and there's a special deal if there's two of you traveling together 19 pounds each that's only for an |
| 1:07.1 | hour though if you want to go for a total of two hours that's going to cost you |
| 1:12.8 | four pounds more and if you're going for three hours well that price goes up another |
| 1:18.1 | five pounds so those that's the sort of bottom end and the most expensive one I've |
| 1:24.7 | found is the premium 1903 lounge at Manchester Airport. |
| 1:30.7 | This one is 50 pounds and you can interestingly get in no earlier than two hours 30 minutes |
| 1:39.0 | before your flight. |
| 1:41.3 | That kind of slightly concerns me because, well, the, many of us like to get to the gate |
| 1:50.0 | half an hour beforehand, certainly if you're on a low-cost airline, they are going to insist upon |
| 1:54.7 | it 95 times out of 100, it won't matter, but on odd five occasions maybe it's bus being bused to the |
| 2:03.8 | aircraft whatever it is you really don't want to allow more than half an hour which means that |
| 2:10.0 | you're going to get sort of slightly less than two hours for your 50 pounds but what are you |
| 2:15.5 | going to get well they tell you tell you. Attention to detail, |
| 2:18.4 | sophistication and exclusivity, premium food and beverage offerings, and a conscientiously crafted |
... |
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