My review of the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse lounge at London Heathrow Terminal 3 (part 2)

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This is part two of my review of the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse lounge in Heathrow Terminal 3. Part 1 of my Virgin Clubhouse review can be found here.

EDIT: You can read a more recent review of the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse lounge at Heathrow Terminal 3 here.

There are four other corners of the Clubhouse lounge that I didn’t cover in part 1. This is the library which is meant to be a quiet area:

This is the nearest Virgin gets to a business centre – a handful of laptops in the middle of the room:

To the left hand side of the lounge is a flight of stairs. Go up and you find yourself in a secluded seating area. I sat here for 20 minutes doing the interview with the Daily Express which appeared recently.

Take another flight of stairs and you find yourself somewhere very unexpected – a roof terrace!

Due to the joys of the Summer 2016 weather it wasn’t somewhere that anyone was choosing to linger but I can imagine it is a pleasant spot to use on a sunny day.

The restaurant

Finally, I want to talk about the restaurant. This is an open plan area in the lounge, although the layout means that you don’t have people walking past you all the time. Service was attentive but casual in a typical Virgin style.

The food was excellent. I was genuinely surprised. My meal was up there on a par with the Qatar Airways restaurant in their Terminal 4 lounge.

On the day I was there it was offering as starters:

Cauliflower soup with truffle oil

Confit Asian duck bao bun (see below) with spring onion, cucumber and hoisin sauce

Potted salmon with tartar salad on toasted sourdough

For main courses you could pick from:

Sweet and sour chicken (see below) with jasmine rice and prawn cracker

Pan fried rainbow trout, warm Jersey Royal potato salad and toasted sourdough

The Clubhouse cheese burger with beef tomato, American cheese, red onion, lettuce, gherkin, cocktail sauce and chips (there is also a vegetarian burger option)

Three salads were also on offer.

Finally, for dessert, they had:

Warm doughnut, strawberry jam and clotted ice cream (see below)

Home made gin and tonic and elderflower sorbet with fresh lime

plus fruit salad and ice cream.

There honestly wasn’t a duff note anywhere. If you heading to the Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow, make sure you leave time and stomach space for a full meal.

I haven’t mentioned the bar in this review but, trust me, there is one, it is very long and it seems to stock pretty much anything you could possibly want!

Back in 1997, I remember the lounge having a sound proof room with some very expensive hi-fi equipment in it. You could put on a CD, crank up the volume and take a seat in a comfy armchair. That seems to have gone which is a shame.

Conclusion

You can, in general, believe the hype about the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at Heathrow. Excellent food, a great bar, lots of space, the novel roof terrace, a free haircut and a sauna and jacuzzi (and a table tennis table) – you need to be pretty churlish not to find fun in that lot.

It could be better, of course. A few bottles of Krug or Dom Perignon, a better kids playroom, a broader magazine selection, a full buffet for people who don’t have the time or inclination to sit in the restaurant ….. you can always add something else.

Making more of the spa treatments free would also be good, although to be fair Etihad has just gone down the same route and started charging for most of the treatments in its Heathrow lounge. British Airways still has free ‘mini’ treatments but they are nowhere near as comprehensive as what Virgin offers.

The Virgin Heathrow Clubhouse should definitely be on your airline bucket list. In a few days I’ll tell you whether I believe that the Upper Class in-flight product should be on your list too ….

You can find out more about the Clubhouse on the Virgin Atlantic website here.

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, one has a bonus of 15,000 points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

The UK’s most generous free Visa or Mastercard at 0.75 points / £1 Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 points bonus and the most generous non-Amex for day to day spending Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points:

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

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 30,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 30,000 Virgin Points:

The Platinum Card from American Express

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

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points.

(Want to earn more Virgin Points? Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

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

Smid says:

17 Jul17 July 12:50

Virgin Clubhouse LHR is still my favourite lounge in the world, JFK and SFO one are nice too (latter is airside which is a bit of a pain). Seen BA’s T3 Club, T5 Club and FLounge (will see CCR next month, I don’t expect it to be better than Clubhouse), Centurion LAS, Business and First LAX, various AA Flagship and Admirals, and will be seeing Qatars Doha, Cathay Pacifics HKG and Quantas SYD, all first, so will have further ones to compare with….

Remember this is a Business class product, so should really be comparing it with BA Club lounge…
- dps says:
  
  17 Jul17 July 18:23
  
  …while in fact it is far superior to anything else (including “First” lounges) in Europe or N America
Lemeng says:

17 Jul17 July 14:22

Rob, you missed out on the shoe shine – just as you enter the Clubhouse there’s a guy who polishes your shoes while you’re using the facilities. It’s also worth mentioning that wherever you sit in the Clubhouse, the staff will come over to take you order for food and drinks. The Virgin Clubhouse at LHR remains the most impressive business class lounge in the world, in my view – even though it’s now about eight years since it was re-done.
- Rob says:
  
  17 Jul17 July 15:00
  
  True, didn’t mention him but he was there. There are still quite a few shoe shine guys in the City so I don’t really notice them.
  - Smid says:
    
    18 Jul18 July 15:01
    
    Yeah, but those don’t take your shoes, provide you with slippers and then let you go about your business (all for free). I suspect you’d not be seeing your shoes again with those…
    
    Also a shoeshine dude at Gatwick Clubhouse, which while nice, is smaller, and much less in it. Less food too, tends to be breakfast food, and a burger, because the VS LGW flights are pretty much done by 1pm.
Johnny Tabasco says:

17 Jul17 July 16:42

Can’t say I done them all but the Virgin Clubhouse in Heathrow is certainly provides the best experience I have had in an airport lounge, anywhere.

From the Upper Class drive up wing through to the hairdressers, the bar, the bathroom and washing facilities and best of all the salmon deli! It’s a wonderful place.

The only slight criticism would be that from my experience it can get a little overcrowded in the mornings. I’ve struggled to find seating for a party of four for instance (and it’s a big place). You may have to patient for table drink and food service too during these times. But maybe that’s a little picky, there isn’t a lot VA can do about that. Overall it’s a stunning experience. And that salmon….

Looking forward to the review of the flight, from my experience the Virgin UC experience varies dependent on which plane you get. Some of the older ones can be a little worn and dated – but it’s still good overall , especially for a miles redemption). The crew service remains consistently superb though, and puts BA to utter shame.
Johnny Tabasco says:

17 Jul17 July 16:51

The salmon/deli bar last week http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p383/barnyd/6E750438-2BBE-4DC3-8DE5-B351431960F9_zpssy4xds0s.jpg
Aliks says:

17 Jul17 July 17:58

I have just about built up enough points for an Upper Class redemption for myself and wife so I am looking at destinations like Cancun as the jump off point for a trip to Yucatan. Unfortunately, Virgin flies out of Gatwick to Cancun, so we would only get the Gatwick Virgin clubhouse.

This is the only Upper Class flight we will take in the forseeable future, so the question is whether we would be missing out by flying out of Gatwick. Should I make a point of flying out of Heathrow just to experience the main clubhouse?

Any thoughts?
- Rob says:
  
  17 Jul17 July 18:50
  
  No. If you want to go to Cancun, go to Cancun. That is more important.
  - Cat says:
    
    17 Jul17 July 20:20
    
    I’d disagree – I had the same dilemma with heading to the Caribbean. I desperately wanted to try out the Heathrow clubhouse, but when I was almost ready to book, I realised my planned destination of St Lucia goes from Gatwick.
    
    After a bit of scouting around, I found cheap return flights from JFK to Turks & Caicos instead for only slightly more than 200 quid, and spent 20,000 fewer flying club miles on a upper redemption to JFK, which seemed like a fair deal, especially considering the beaches in T&C look incredible!
    
    Have a look at the 80,000 return destinations, and see if you can find a bargainous flight to Mexico. Good luck!
  - harry says:
    
    17 Jul17 July 20:45
    
    I went diving off Cozumel for a couple of weeks (with Cancun as nearest). Cancun itself is a bit of a hole but as the gateway to somewhere else, no problems at all. Cozumel also gets over-run by our pondy cousins but as I was mostly 20 metres under, not an issue.
- Pjh says:
  
  18 Jul18 July 07:41
  
  Though the LGW Clubhouse doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of its LHR cousin, it isn’t so far behind that I’d change my destination. Indeed some on VS travel forums prefer the LGW CH based on the attitude of the staff who always seem genuinely happy that you are there and about to go on holiday.
  
  A “new” CH will open in January 2017 when VS move their operations to the North Terminal.
dps says:

17 Jul17 July 18:21

VS is simply the best – and never ceases to show that they appreciate my business.
AndyR says:

17 Jul17 July 20:47

Looks great. It’s just a shame Virgin don’t offer an upgrade voucher or 2-4-1 for Upper Class on any of their credit cards.
- Yuff says:
  
  17 Jul17 July 21:32
  
  Virgin redemptions are already cheap, in comparison to BA, adding a 241 would make them ridiculously good value compared to the competition.
- Fenny says:
  
  17 Jul17 July 22:39
  
  UC costs about £500 in tax and 80K points to the East Coast. If I could get BA flights for that, they wouldn’t be anything like as good!
ana says:

17 Jul17 July 21:37

I am also a big fan of Virgin and I will prioritise collecting VA miles over BA any time!
- dps says:
  
  19 Jul19 July 14:42
  
  Me too; not least because – unlike Avios – I have a reasonable chance of redeeming them!