The much improved Venice Airport lounge for British Airways passengers

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When we were flying out of Venice two weeks ago, I was delighted to see that – as part of a major airport redevelopment – the Marco Polo lounge used by British Airways passengers (it is also in Priority Pass and Amex Gold‘s Lounge Club) has been overhauled.

The two photos above and below do not really do it justice. There is now an outdoor terrace, an indoor Winter garden and decent food, and the variety of seating works well for solo business travellers as well as holidaying families.

There is even a barista – you are not allowed to make your own coffee.

One other benefit from the redevelopment is that there is now a direct elevated travelator link between the water taxi dock and the terminal. You do not need to weave your way through the car park in the rain any longer.

If you have been to the Marco Polo lounge in Venice before and been disappointed, I recommend trying it again.

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

British Airways and Avios

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

Stu N says:

11 Sep11 September 09:16

OT: need to book a Delta internal flight. Any downside in going via Amex travel? Pricing is basically same as booking direct; Amex is in £, Delta in US$. If I go via Amex I should get 2MRs per pound. Have a few Skymiles but no Skyteam status and very limited interest in Delta miles.
- John says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 10:00
  
  The change and cancellation policy may differ and/or there may be extra fees from Amex to cancel. With US airline tickets, I believe you can almost always cancel and keep the money as airline credit, but I don’t know how this would work with Amex Travel UK.
  
  I almost always use Amex Travel for flights that cannot be priced in GBP online (except Norwegian where you can arbitrage their currency conversion, and I don’t think you can book DY/D8 through Amex Travel anyway), however I don’t go to the USA.
rob says:

11 Sep11 September 09:45

OT:

If I book 2 tickets on the same flight but in different bookings, is it going to be a nightmare to hope to end up sitting together? I’d like to take advantage of the Amex Travel offer for my partner and I.

Thanks
- John says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 10:20
  
  Completely depends on which airline, if you have any status, whether you can select seats in advance, whether you can check in online as soon as it opens, etc.
Anna says:

11 Sep11 September 09:47

OT – if you book a redemption ticket in WT, can you upgrade it to CW with cash? Looking at next year there is only WT available on my outbound leg.
- Stu N says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 11:45
  
  Don’t think so – you’d be relying on getting an online upgrade offer, which would probably only get you to WT+, or an airport upgrade to CW which would probably be very expensive (£800-£1000 per person), neither of which will be guaranteed. NB if you book WT, you can only upgrade one cabin with Avios.
- Memesweeper says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 11:54
  
  You are able to upgrade for cash at the airport subject to availability. Pricing is usually quiet reasonable.
Pierre says:

11 Sep11 September 10:40

Slightly OT: has anyone tried to book Eurotunnel Tesco vouchers below the 14 day mark?
If not, does booking at a later date and changing it to the desired travel dates would work?
Need to get urgently to France next weekend for a funeral but can’t afford it…
- Lady London says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 12:42
  
  Could you fly on Ryanair or Easyjet? Otherwise if you really needed to travel there by car then both DFDS and pandoferries.co.uk have started offering cheaper 5 day returns again. Aferries.co.uk could help you find any others.
- Bagoly says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 16:45
  
  Is there any BA redemption availability?
  8000 avios + £35 can be a lot cheaper than short notice “L”CC
- Pierre says:
  
  12 Sep12 September 10:55
  
  Actually need to go by car, no RFS for the 4 of us and FR/U2 not affordable on those routes
Boi says:

11 Sep11 September 11:29

OT: How can anyone living in the Republic of Ireland get on to mile collecting game? I have a few friends there and they are envious.
- Rob says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 12:35
  
  Not easy, especially as Amex is not there. There is a credit card which lets you earn SuperValu supermarket points which convert to Avios but that is about it.
  - David says:
    
    11 Sep11 September 13:27
    
    Although you should be able to get a UK issued Amex charge card in EUR.
    https://www.americanexpress.com/icc/index.html
    
    (With the key bit to point out being it uses a different rewards catalog, some partners and rates are different compared with non-ICC normal UK issued cards).
    - Rob says:
      
      11 Sep11 September 14:27
      
      New rule is that you must be an existing Amex holder to get one of those.
    - David says:
      
      11 Sep11 September 16:51
      
      Yes – just noticed that. It’s odd, as they still market them!
      Seems you can still be bank referred.
- BJ says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 20:46
  
  Have to laugh sorry…you first posted your question on a FF blog over 9 hours ago and nobody has yet volunteered the most obvious and fundamental answer 🙂
  - Peter K says:
    
    11 Sep11 September 23:09
    
    Which is?
    - Nick M says:
      
      12 Sep12 September 08:28
      
      See the world?
- JG says:
  
  15 Sep15 September 12:15
  
  Given the annual 30 Euro stamp duty collected on each card you have, surprised anyone uses credit or debit cards in Ireland!
Anon says:

11 Sep11 September 11:32

OT: Do the new terms for the Lloyds Avios Reward Cards (cancellation of Amex, implementation of FX fees, lower Avios earning rates) kick in for everyone towards the end of September? We still have not received any communications from Lloyds.
- Ben says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 12:22
  
  I havent heard anything more from Lloyds (the original letter said the card would close in October) but I can say that the voucher I earned in Aug has posted already to my Avios account.
  - Anon says:
    
    11 Sep11 September 12:39
    
    Thanks, we had confirmation our voucher would come in when the statement is released in September. Does it go to your Avios account or BAEC? (Lloyds keep sending Avios to this special Avios account they created rather than the BAEC number provided…when they can be bothered to transfer the correct amount at all). I imagine you have to call BA when booking to use the voucher?
    - Anna says:
      
      11 Sep11 September 13:33
      
      No, you call avios.com, but if you want to use your BA avios they can transfer them over instantly. I have done this twice in the last 3 weeks.
    - Jim says:
      
      11 Sep11 September 14:09
      
      Can this be checked online in advance on avios.com? i.e. to confirm availability & price?
      
      e.g. oneway INV-LHR-KUL
    - Anna says:
      
      11 Sep11 September 18:57
      
      Jim – I don’t know, but I took my availability from BA.com and there were no issues.
    - Ben says:
      
      12 Sep12 September 13:55
      
      Hi, Sorry just seen this reply. Mine got sent to my Avios account, the same one that has last years voucher on it.
Steve says:

11 Sep11 September 11:45

OT – (albeit this is bits). Arguably being a tad lazy here but can anyone provide any info’details on what I could expect to pay in taxes etc. if I [somehow] manage to score a ticket to Tokyo via a 241 redemption? Thanks
- Walty says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 11:59
  
  £500 – £600 each for club / first
- Nick_C says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 14:25
  
  Loads of availability in January /Feb both in J and F
- Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 14:58
  
  £528 each earlier this year. I wouldn’t say that it was a particularly difficult route to get a redemption seat.
  - Steve says:
    
    11 Sep11 September 16:14
    
    Thanks – I’m expecting it to get a little more lively from next week onwards….
    - Umba says:
      
      11 Sep11 September 16:28
      
      Hope you get your seats and have a fac time at RWC 2019
    - Umba says:
      
      11 Sep11 September 16:28
      
      fab!
Rash says:

11 Sep11 September 12:24

OT: I’m thinking of doing the Hilton Diamond status challenge soon as we have a few stays coming up this year and early next. A question when it comes to how Hilton count the stays, I have a 3 night booking at a Hilton and a 1 night Conrad stay booked on the last night for the family, so on the same night I have a Hilton and Conrad booked. Will this count as two stays?

Sorry if the message is a bit confusing!
- Rob says:
  
  11 Sep11 September 12:34
  
  No, one will be seen as overlapping and not count – this would probably the the Conrad. And, as the challenge is stay based, your 3 nights only count as 1 stay.
  - Rash says:
    
    11 Sep11 September 13:40
    
    Thanks Rob so it would more sense for all of us to stay at the Conrad on the last night if I want an additional stay…
    - Pangolin says:
      
      11 Sep11 September 14:14
      
      Yes, keep them separate if you want the stays to count separately. Check out of one then check in to the other.
      
      If you do the status challenge then you should get 3x points at the Conrad (I say ‘should’ because their initial list did not include some Conrads in the triple points offer, but I think they fixed that after being inundated with complaints).