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The Amex airport and lounge benefits that you don’t know of
American Express Platinum is one of the most premium credit card product out there which is publicly available. One benefit that many people value most is airport lounge access.
Amex has a dedicated webpage listing all participating lounges. The mostly known and used ones are probably Priority Pass, Plaza Premium, and Centurion lounges. However, this list isn’t really exhaustive, so I’ll list a few more options which you may find useful. The list blow is not limited to airport lounges, but also other ones plus fast track services.
Obviously all benefits are applicable to the Centurion card as well, if not at all enhanced.
[United States]
Plaza Premium is one of the major lounge partners with American Express. What you probably don’t know however, is that they operate most of Virgin Atlantic’s clubhouses. Actually all five clubhouses overseas (except the London flagship) are operated by Plaza Premium:
- New York JFK
- Boston
- Washington DC
- San Francisco
- Johannesburg
You don’t need to be flying with Virgin Atlantic or Delta, and can bring one guest.
I went to the London Clubhouse recently which was swarmed with Delta passengers and it wasn’t the nicest experience one could expect. I was at the Boston one a few years back (when it was still operated by Virgin itself) and it was pleasant.
Note that Flyertalk has reported frequent access restrictions, which is unsurprising given how many Amex Platinum cardholders there are in the US.
[United Kingdom]
If you hold Amex Centurion or Business Platinum, you could use fast track security when departing from London Heathrow. Note that it doesn’t apply to personal Platinum cardholders.
You could also use the Business Premier lounges when travelling on Eurostar. It applies to all lounges across the Eurostar network, not just in the UK.
[Germany]
When flying Lufthansa, Swiss or Austria, Amex Platinum cardholders could use the Lufthansa business lounge regardless of the class of travel, or Senator lounge when flying business class; and Centurion cardholders could use the first class lounge.
The benefit was trialled at Munich and Frankfurt initially, and now extended to many global locations including Berlin, London, Paris, Milan, Dubai, New York and Boston.
According to Wikipedia, Centurion cardholders enjoy complimentary access to Deutsche-Bahn first class lounges when travelling by train.
[Canada]
Pearson Priority Security Lane (fast track) at Toronto Pearson Airport’s Terminal 1 and Terminal 3.
[Belgium]
Fast lane is available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders at Brussels airport.
[Austria]
Fast track service is available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders at Vienna airport.
[Italy]
Fast track service is available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders at the following airports:
- Rome / FCO
- Milan / MXP
- Milan / LIN
- Naples / NAP
- Turin / TRN
- Palermo / PMO
- Catania / CTA
[Spain]
Fast track service is available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders at any AENA airports. The exhaustive list is here, which includes many, if not all Spanish airports, such as:
- Madrid
- Barcelona
- Seville
- Valencia
- Ibiza
- Palma de Mallorca
- Gran Canaria
- Tenerife
Instructions say you must generate a QR code first via the Amex Experiences app. However, anecdotes suggest you can also show your (non-Spain-issued) card for the staff to take down the details manually.
[Scandinavia]
Fast track service is available to Platinum and Centurion cardholders at the following airports:
- Stockholm / ARN Terminal 2 & 5
- Gothenburg / GOT
- Malmo / MMX
- Helsinki / HEL
[Australia]
Platinum / Centurion cardholders can access Virgin Australian domestic lounges with one guest with a same-day departing flight.
Note that some of these benefits may be limited to cards issued by certain countries only. For example, the Eurostar benefit is limited to UK- and France-issued cards, and the staff at St Pancras do always check.
BA Sale – Get Oneworld Sapphire for less than £600
British Airways is running yet another sale. Like its previous rounds, such sales are usually a very good way to get BA, and thus Oneworld elite status relatively quickly and at low cost.
BA’s Japan flight surcharge has got really low
Just sharing an interesting observation by a friend today. We all know that BA can be really greedy when it comes to carrier-imposed surcharges, a.k.a. YQ, which adds to the cost of redemption tickets.
There are a few countries / regions in the world where YQ is strictly prohibited or limited, which means you pay very little fee for one-way outbound award tickets. Hong Kong and Brazil are two typical examples – Hong Kong revoked this regulation a couple of years back though, but interestingly very few airlines decided to increase their surcharge since, apart from Cathay Pacific.
Not sure if Japan has exercised a similar law or something, but BA’s flight departing from Tokyo carries a very low surcharge at the moment:
Going to the next page and you can see the actual fee is even lower than advertised, finalised to £26.6.
This is the same case for a return flight too, which is very rare. £244 is a very generous price considering a large percentage of it is UK APD.
If you want to visit Japan, it may be a good time to lock in the ticket given the wide availability and low surcharges. We’re still uncertain when Japan is going to welcome tourists again though – I’m hoping soon as I’ve got ANA first class ticket booked for Christmas…
My Review of the Principal Hotel, York
As I wrote recently, IHG is running a very tempting 50% off sale at the moment, and I took this chance to book a trip to York, staying at the Principal hotel.
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£5 voucher for downloading Amazon Music app
When I logged in to my Amazon account today I noticed a new offer, and think I should share here.
The promotion’s landing page is here. It seems to be targeting those who have Amazon Music membership but have never used their phone app.
You need to download the Amazon Music app and log in by 27 September, then a £5 code will be emailed to you within five days. The code is valid for a purchase of at least £20, until 27 October.
Very strange though, this promotion is showing on my homepage, but when I click through it tells me I’m ineligible 🙁 Hope you have a better luck than me!
Amazon Music is also running a 90-day free trial on their HD service, and you can sign up here.
Malmaison Hotel Sale – £100 Sunday stay with £50 dining credit
Malmaison is a small boutique UK hotel chain, with fewer than 20 properties in the country. Due to its size and lack of loyalty programme it’s not a very popular choice among frequent travellers, and I have never stayed with them.
Travelling in Covid times – LHR T5 BA First Wing and Galleries First Lounge
This is a report of my recent trip to Glasgow, flying British Airways from Heathrow Airport Terminal 5. I acquired BA Gold last year in November, and have flown BA only once since, from Terminal 3. Although very impressed by Cathay Pacific’s first class lounge, I wanted to give BA’s First Wing and lounge a try too.
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