EXCLUSIVE: New Terminal 5 Priority Pass landside lounge now open
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There is new lounge available at Heathrow Terminal 5 for holders of a Priority Pass or LoungeKey card.
It is the club lounge of the Sofitel hotel, Club Millesime, which is now open to the public.
Full details are on the Priority Pass website – search for ‘Heathrow’ in the drop down box.
Here are the key points to note:
To enter the lounge, which is located on the ground floor of the hotel, you need to pick up an access card from the Guest Relations desk in the hotel lobby. You cannot go straight in.
Whilst the lounge is open from 06.30 to 22.00, Priority Pass / LoungeKey access is only available between 07.00 and 21.30.
You need to pay for any food orders from the a la carte menu, although the buffet food is free.
There is a limit of four guests per cardholder although that is unlikely to be a problem for 99.9% of people.
Shower facilities are available.
Children are welcome but anyone aged 2 or over counts as a ‘guest’ towards your allocation.
Smart casual dress is required.
There is no implication that you need to show a departing or arriving boarding pass – you certainly don’t need to show anything to access the Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge in Terminal 2. This means that the lounge may also make a good waiting spot if you are meeting someone. I also assume that, if you were a guest at the hotel in a non-club room, you could use this to get five hours of lounge access which is the maximum allowed.
Annoyingly, I will be passing through Heathrow four times this week but none of the timings allow me to try the lounge out. If anyone wants to visit and report back on the process and what they found, I’d be keen to hear.
How do you get access?
The current options are:
Priority Pass – you can buy one here for cash, or you can get two free Priority Pass cards, each of which allows one guest (so four people in total) by taking out an American Express Platinum charge card (review here).
LoungeKey – this is the MasterCard World Elite benefit scheme. The new HSBC Premier World Elite MasterCard (£195 fee) comes with a LoungeKey card.
Lounge Club – sorry, Club Millesime is not part of Lounge Club which is bad news for American Express Gold charge card holders
Dragonpass – the lounge is not showing as part of Dragonpass either. However, Dragonpass cardholders can use the Regus Business Centre in the arrivals area of Terminal 5

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:

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.

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.
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