Priority Pass guest fee for American Express Platinum cardholders rising to £20

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Priority Pass has confirmed that the guest fee for anyone who has a card via American Express Platinum is rising to £20 from 1st October.

This is not a surprise as Priority Pass has already told its own members of a similar rise as we covered here.

Priority Pass

This is unlikely to have a major impact for American Express Platinum cardholders. You can already get FOUR people for free into any of the 1,200 Priority Pass airport lounges worldwide. The main cardholder is allowed to bring a guest and the Platinum supplementary cardholder, who gets their own Priority Pass, can also bring a free guest. Nothing changes here.

The strategy for a family of four is to give your partner the free Platinum supplementary card, allowing you to each guest in one child if you are all travelling together.

It seems that Priority Pass is not increasing the credit you get when eating at one of its airport restaurant partners, such as The Grain Store in Gatwick South. This will remain at £15, which means that you should pay cash if taking an extra person rather than charging a guest to your Priority Pass account. This rather confusing comment (given that the actual answer is ‘No’!) has appeared on the Priority Pass Q&A page:

“With the lounge visit fee increasing, does this mean the equivalent value of credit available at Priority Pass’ airport partners (cafes and restaurants) will increase accordingly?

Where Members pay for their visit or guest visits, these particular offers may not represent best value. We advise Members to visit our app or website to review full conditions of access before visiting.”

There is no word yet about changes to the Lounge Club card issued with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.

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:

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.

Category

American Express Platinum card

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

Mike G says:

31 Aug31 August 16:18

The PriorityPass changes are a pain in the backside for us, as my wife regularly travels with our two kids but without me. That means we have to pay the lounge fee which, at £15 was borderline acceptable, but at £20 is not.
Nick G says:

31 Aug31 August 16:47

Has anyone had issues trying to use their Curve card (linked to my IHG) to purchase foreign currency in the UK? Had my card declined at Thomas Exchange earlier this week and it had happened previously at another place.
- Rob says:
  
  31 Aug31 August 17:12
  
  May be coded as ‘financial services’ and so blocked (although their blocking is very random as most people have realised!)
- Memesweeper says:
  
  31 Aug31 August 20:11
  
  Standard for it to be blocked. There’s nothing you can do.
Mark says:

31 Aug31 August 17:36

Apologies if I have missed but is there any more news on the new Marriott credit card?
- Rob says:
  
  31 Aug31 August 17:53
  
  No
Russell Evans says:

31 Aug31 August 18:16

Slightly OT, related to Lounge Access and may well have been covered elsewhere but I’ve been offered, as a Vodafone customer, the option of buying an annual Dragonpass for £20 including one free visit. Not sure whether that represents good value or not, I don’t need it, but the details, for fellow Vodafone customers are here: https://offers.vodafone.com/gb/offer/details/gb-dragonpass-standalone-PK_DragonPass
- GeoffGeoff says:
  
  31 Aug31 August 19:28
  
  I think that must be a targetted offer as the link doesn’t work for me.
  - Crafty says:
    
    31 Aug31 August 19:50
    
    You have to log in.
    
    It should be open to all Vodafone pay monthly customers.
- Joe87 says:
  
  31 Aug31 August 21:44
  
  Dragon Pass website says you can buy access for guests and additional visits past the free first one for £16 in the FAQs. I took the Vodafone offer out as didn’t think it was too bad but to buy guest access or extra visit the actually charge is £20 so feeling abit misled and ripped off.
  - tartan says:
    
    1 Sep1 September 11:30
    
    You can buy single visit DragonPass access for £18.50 via the telegraph (you don’t have to have to be a subscriber – use the code TELEDP16). If you are only using lounges a few times a year then this might work out cheaper than a subscription
    - tartan says:
      
      1 Sep1 September 11:30
      
      Forgot the link : https://thetelegraph.dragonpassuk.com/
Tracy says:

31 Aug31 August 18:24

O/T my husbands iberia avios from the 9k promotion finally posted today. He wants to move them from IB to BA. However, he is unable to do it on either BA or Avios. Both sites say “sorry your login details have not been recognised” for the Iberia part. He is definitely inputting the correct login that allows him to login through Iberia website and he even did combine my avios for 1 avios from BA to IB on the IB website. Any ideas?
- simon says:
  
  31 Aug31 August 18:45
  
  We higly recommend you to enter your profile using Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox due to compatibility settings.
  quote I got when I had similar issues
  - Tracy says:
    
    31 Aug31 August 19:40
    
    And did it work?
    - RussellH says:
      
      31 Aug31 August 23:04
      
      Firefox almost always (95%) woks for me, but if you run Ghostery you must pause it in der to move your avios
- Callum says:
  
  31 Aug31 August 22:15
  
  You are aware that this risks effectively blocking both his Iberia and BA accounts after Iberia take back the Avios in December? BA and Iberia balances will eventually merge into one.
Graham Walsh says:

31 Aug31 August 22:21

OT Referring g/f from my Amex Plat to SPG and it says that I’ll get 9k points. That isn’t right is it? If I change the card to Amex Plat it says 18k points. Anyone else know why?
- Mark2 says:
  
  31 Aug31 August 22:47
  
  My wife got 18,000 for referring me from Plat to SPG last week.
Andrew S says:

1 Sep1 September 02:08

OT: Anyone waiting on SPG Amex points on retention offer/welcome bonus to be corrected as 3 Points/GBP, I had this from an Amex Rep:

“Yes, all Starpoints not yet converted to points at a 1:3 ratio will be corrected by mid-September. This includes welcome bonus and adjustment/retention startpoints previously issued.”

So I would be checking back in a few weeks to make sure they’ve been adjusted correctly.
- Rob says:
  
  1 Sep1 September 11:54
  
  Thanks. I was sure it would work out in the end – Amex is not totally daft.
- Jay says:
  
  3 Sep3 September 12:36
  
  Hoping this is the case as speaking to Amex this morning they were adamant the 11k Starpoints bonus would not be tripled in value following a case being opened to look into this for me.