Review of the British Airways Galleries First lounge at London Heathrow Terminal 3

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This is my review of the British Airways Galleries First lounge at London Heathrow Terminal 3.

This is part of our series of reviews of airport lounges across the UK. You see all of the reviews here.

Weirdly, I had never been in this lounge until last week. Given that I have been flying BA for, well, ever, this is a bit odd.

There are three reasons. The first is that I rarely fly out of Terminal 3. The second is that you need to be flying British Airways First Class or have a Gold card to access Galleries First. The third is that you would have to be out of your mind to use this lounge when the Cathay Pacific First Class lounge is just a few feet away.

To be honest, even the new Qantas lounge is probably preferable to Galleries First. Where you really want to be, however, is in the private First Class dining room of the Cathay lounge, enjoying an excellent waiter service meal before having a couple of glasses of wine in the main area. We reviewed the Cathay Pacific First Class lounge here.

My review of the main British Airways Galleries Club lounge in Terminal 3, for Club World and Silver / oneworld Sapphire cardholders, is here.

Inside British Airways Galleries First at Heathrow Terminal 3

However, for the benefit of our readers, I decided to visit Galleries First instead.

To be fair, it isn’t a terrible lounge. It would be a perfectly adequate business class lounge if it wasn’t for the fact that it is very dark. It is not, in any way, exclusive in the way that the Cathay Pacific First Class lounge is.

It is a long and relatively narrow lounge. It looks lighter in these pictures than it actually was.

Turn left as you enter and you end up in this bar area. The fixtures and fittings will be familiar from other BA lounges, which is not a criticism as they look good:

The spirits display was well done. Apart from Johnnie Walker Blue Label, there was nothing that I would classify as super premium:

As usual, British Airways provides a large selection of reading material although it appears that many were chosen based on their ability to write a cheque than via editorial quality:

The main seating area was very quiet around noon:

Behind this is an underused business area. I think there is a case for drastically reducing the size of these in British Airways lounges as they are under-used now that most travellers have ultra-light laptops (I say this as someone who did use these areas heavily five years ago):

What DID impress me was the kids area. There was also a PS4 and another games machine out of shot. The Cathay Pacific First Class lounge is not really aimed at little ones and if you are travelling with children I think Galleries First may suit you better:

At the other end of the lounge you come to another seating area and another bar. There is a large wine selection here which is displayed beautifully. Note how dark it looks even though this was early afternoon on a clear day.

There is a private dining area which gets more sun. I’m not sure when this is in use, presumably it opens in the early evenings for pre-flight dining:

Here is the lunchtime buffet. It was not over-inspiring and I decided to stick to Victoria Sponge (BA lounges do excellent Victoria Sponge cake) and champagne.

Hot options included pork meatballs, pasta, Italian beef meatballs, steamed sugar snap peas, fish and chip bites, pea and mozzarella arancini balls, rice and herb roaster parmentier potatoes. It would have made a decent spread in a business class lounge but this was Galleries First.

Earlier in the morning when I first arrived they only had the usual finger sandwiches and salad:

Conclusion

Unless you have small children – in which case the presence of a decent kids play room may swing it – I don’t see any reason why First Class or Gold Executive Club members should visit the British Airways Galleries First lounge in Heathrow Terminal 3.

It isn’t terrible, by any means. It’s just that Cathay Pacific offers a more refined experience.

I didn’t head across to Cathay though. Instead, I decided to visit another Terminal 3 lounge I had never visited before – the American Airlines First Class lounge. That review will follow.

Here are my other Heathrow Terminal 3 lounge reviews:

Cathay Pacific (and video and video)
Qantas
American Airlines
British Airways Galleries Club
Club Aspire (Priority Pass, Lounge Club)
Emirates
No 1 Lounge (Priority Pass, Lounge Club)
Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse (and again)

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