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Use your airline or hotel status to get a free Regus Businessworld Gold card

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The company Regus may or may not be familiar to you.   It is the worlds leading provider of ‘serviced office space’.  This is, fundamentally, treating office space like a hotel.

You want an office for a day / a week / a month / a year for 1 / 2 / 5 / 20 people?  It can provide it.  You don’t need to worry about furniture, IT, cleaning, receptionists etc – Regus provides it all.  It is an effective route for start-ups or for business which are growing quickly.

However, it is the other side of the Regus operation that is the point of this post.

Almost all Regus centres feature a ‘business lounge’.  I am writing this post in one, as it happens!  They vary in size, but most feature open-plan seating areas, 1-4 Apple Mac computers available for free use and 1-10 ‘pods’, available on a first come, first served basis (for free) which provide a semi-private work area.

Free Wi-Fi and free tea and coffee are provided in all lounges.   Here is a picture of 1 Poultry in the City of London, which is next to Bank tube station (the pods are the blue and white things at the back):

Regus lounge 1 Poultry

If your job takes you ‘out and about’ a lot, or you work for yourself but simply don’t like sitting in Starbucks or your house all day, then working out of Regus lounges is a very viable alternative.  Regus also has a global network, so you can pop into centres pretty much wherever you are in the world.

Frankly, even if you buy an annual pass for £299, it is a bargain if you use it a lot.  I use a Regus lounge 2-3 times a week, so £299 would be a steal.  However, you don’t even have to pay that.  You can get a Regus Businessworld Gold card for free.

I get my card for free via Business Traveller magazine who used to (but no longer) give one away with a subscription.  However, Regus has plenty of deals with airlines who give out a Regus Gold card to their elite members – or even, in some case, basic level members.

Priority Club, the Holiday Inn / Crowne Plaza / InterContinental loyalty scheme, also gives out a card to Platinum members.  Last month I ordered a new Gold card via the Priority Club link and it arrived within a week.

Virgin Atlantic also offers a free Regus Businessworld Gold card to holders of its Black credit card (£140 fee).  They also throw in two free vouchers for a one-day private office.

Loyalty Lobby did an excellent article recently which summarises the airlines who offer a free Regus Gold card.  The Virgin Black credit card deal link is not in that article but can be found here.


Getting airport lounge access for free from a credit card

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, here are the three options to get FREE airport lounge access via a credit or charge card:

American Express Platinum card Amex

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with two free Priority Pass cards, one for you and one for a supplementary cardholder. Each card admits two so a family of four gets in free. You get access to all 1,300 lounges in the Priority Pass network – search it here

You also get access to Plaza Premium, Delta and Eurostar lounges.  Our American Express Platinum review is here. You can apply here.

Nectar American Express

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for the first year. It comes with a Priority Pass card loaded with two free visits to any Priority Pass lounge – see the list here

Additional lounge visits are charged at £20.  You get two more free visits for every year you keep the card.  

There is no annual fee for Amex Gold in Year 1 and you get a 20,000 points sign-up bonus.  Full details are in our American Express Preferred Rewards Gold review here.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard

A huge bonus, but only available to HSBC Premier clients Read our full review

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard gets you get a free LoungeKey card, allowing you access to the LoungeKey network.  Guests are charged at £20 although it may be cheaper to pay £60 for a supplementary credit card for your partner.

The card has a fee of £195 and there are strict financial requirements to become a HSBC Premier customer.  Full details are in my HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard review.

PS. You can find all of HfP’s UK airport lounge reviews – and we’ve been to most of them – indexed here.

Comments (20)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Gabbai says:

    Does this card give access to any airport lounges and if so where is the list?

  • Stewart says:

    Raffles

    As a Regus regular, what are the ‘private offices’ like? Specifically if I need to work with a colleague for a few hours in peace are they big enough/ is it allowed? Or are they single occupants only?

    Thanks for the great blog, and pleased to see the punctuation is back up to scratch!

    • Tony says:

      It’s luck of the draw – IME you might get a ‘boardroom’ which is a room marginally bigger than the table in it with enough chairs stuffed around the outside to make a fire officer blush, or a bigger space with multiple desks in it – I had one that would have accommodated a small consulting firm!

      And note that the ‘business lounges’ aren’t all as glamorous as the photo above suggests. The one on Oxford Street is particularly pokey (seats 3 I think???), can be closed on a whim (Moorgate) or end up being used as call centres by office supplies monkeys (Bank). And they recently seem to have blocked Skype on their wifi networks.

      Oh, and guest access is the best part of £20!

      • Rob says:

        Oh, I agree totally. The lounges were only introduced a few years ago, which meant they were retrofitted, mainly badly, into older centres. The new purpose built ones are excellent, though – Poultry and Lombard Street are the best in the City, Berkeley Square probably the best outside

        I have also been given day offices all the way from a normal 2 man office through to boardrooms and indeed huge suites of rooms, as you say. You tend to get whatever is there on the day, although for £20 a day for an office you can’t complain.

        You just need to try a few out and see which work best for you.

  • Neil says:

    Great tip, thanks!

    Unfortunately my PC Plat card number did not work on the Regus website. It said invalid or used card number, of which it is neither. I’ll have to call them. I could only find the link to apply on Regus’ US site – not sure if that had anything to do with it.

  • Sandgrounder says:

    Aren’t airport lounges generally ‘on the ground’? 🙂

  • Peter Taylor says:

    One of the offers is the Flying Blue Gold card (which came a couple of days ago courtesy of a tip from this site) – Regus for a year. Thanks Raffles.

    Particularly useful since we moved into our new offices in the city two years ago and promtly expanded by 50% -so we are now uder pressure for space again!

  • Nick Burch says:

    Does anyone know if you’re able to apply for a new free one year under a different offer when your current one expires?

    I’m currently nearly at the end of my free year from TripIt Pro, and I’ve probably used it about 10 times, and generally it’s been good. When it does run out, I’m wondering whether I’ll be able to get another year from another route, and if it’ll mean signing up again / picking a different address / etc!

  • Nick says:

    I got one of these cards via Miles & More recently and it was delivered within a week. I have a question though; are you able to bring a guest to any of these lounges or is it just for the card holder?

    • Rob says:

      Guest is £15 if you pay when there. Far, far cheaper to buy a 5 visits for £10 voucher via Regus Direct or Staples online stores.

      • Peter Taylor says:

        Raffles – how can I buy a 5 visit guest membership? It could be useful.

        Have looked on the website and cannot see where. Probably being dim as usual.

        Thanks

  • av says:

    any truth to what i have read about these memberships auto-renewing after 12months into chargeable ones (i know you dont provide credit cardsdetails when signing up but apparently they post bill to your address?)

    • Rob says:

      No, they don’t auto-renew for a fee. There is nothing they can bill you for anyway, ignore that bit of the rules. The only things you might pay for (can of Coke, photocopying) you pay on the spot.

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.