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British Airways Johannesburg airport lounge closing today

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The two British Airways lounges in Johannesburg, Club and First, close today for a five month refurbishment. Re-opening is currently planned for October.

During the closure, passengers will be split between Comair’s SLOW Lounge (First Class passengers only, NOT Gold card holders) and the Aspire Lounge (Club World and Gold and Silver card holders).

The SLOW lounges have a good reputation, but I don’t know anything about the Aspire facility.  This is the lounge used by Iberia, although it is dropping its Jo’burg service.  A photo is above.

There is little information about whether the two separate lounges will remain after the refurbishment or whether a ‘Concorde Bar’ will be introduced for First Class passengers – not Gold card holders – as is seen in Dubai.


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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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Comments (129)

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  • Michael says:

    The Slow lounge is actually far better than the BA lounge was. A major upgrade for First Class passengers!

  • Alan says:

    OT -sorry
    If you have a gold card with the 2 lounge passes do you actullay have to have the plastic lounge cards on you to use them or is it all linked electronically to your gold card and you just need to present that?

  • William says:

    Well, I think I’ve been lucky then, as the only time I flew Club World and went to the Elemis spa I got the neck and shoulders massage as a walk-in, though I have to say it was very early in the morning 🙂

  • Chas says:

    OT – looking to get the IDC plat card for my trip to the states this summer, but I can’t see the card when I follow the referral link from my Plat (even when selecting “show all cards”). Does anyone know if it is possible to get referral points, and if so what I’m missing?

    • Peter K says:

      The IDC is not a UK card so I imagine you can’t refer yourself to it from a UK amex.

      • Chas says:

        Makes sense. Does anyone already have one that wants to share their referral link for me to use?

  • Michael says:

    Where is article 3 today?

    • Peter K says:

      It was sent out early (ie Yesterday) about the ICC world cup.

  • Prins Polo says:

    In the BA Elemis Spa, I’ve never been able to get a walk-in appointment.

    In the VS spa (both Clubhouse and arrivals lounge), I never had to wait more than 15 minutes for a walk-in appointment…

    • Ben says:

      Agreed. It always seems they have 1 therapist working (normally either hiding away or busy) when I go in.

      I was also told that I am not able to book for the Arrivals Lounge even though I am now Gold. Not sure if thats correct but wasnt given much of a choice.

  • KevMc says:

    Called 28 days out for our first ever First trip last year and half of the options weren’t available (inc shave). Booked a massage each instead.

    Arrived at the allotted time slot and was told ‘You have booked it on the wrong day – it was booked for two days ago’. I enquired as to how I could possibly have booked it for the wrong day when
    a) I had to call to book, and
    b) You had to be physically flying first class to be able to book, and I did not have a flight in any class two days ago.

    …after some mumbling, toing and froing they managed to ‘fit us in’ for what can only be described as an underwhelming experience. When we flew First to Boston later in the year we didn’t bother pre-booking anything and had no great desire to ask as a walk-in.

    For me, the whole ‘spa experience’ is nothing but a marketing ploy to use in their First Class advertising blurb so that they appear to be competing with the big-boys.

    • Lady London says:

      The Elemis spa has the atmosphere f an empty classroom. At most it seems you will find 1 ‘therapist’ and one phone-answerer/ receptionist there. There are quite a few more ‘treatment rooms’ (i.e. cubicles with curtains) that could be used but there are no staff around bar, it seems, 1 or so to actually use them. It feels like an NHS clinic in the 1970’s. I suppose that matches the feel of the bathroom areas in the BA lounges at LHR too.

      It sounds awfully like a PR at Kelly Hoppen donated a few soft furnishings free of charge to BA in return for some publicity?

      Do it like the best if Virgin, BA, or don’t bother. If I was Elimis I’d be seriously embarrassed here. Even if the spa was, perhaps, wrapped up in ant deal to take Elemis products on BA aircraft?

      Time for a refresh on the offering not the cushions.

    • Scallder says:

      This happened to me last month!!! My wife and I were flying F out to Philadelphia – I called at 6:40am 28 days out and they only had 2 slots available but thankfully for the treatments we wanted.

      Turn up on the day and my wife’s appointment was all fine however my appointment had been booked for 2 weeks previous! Absolute joke. The spa staff on the desk were helpful though and managed to squeeze me in.

      Both of our seats didn’t have working IFE so between my appointment and that we got 50k Avios back which for a 80k flight was a decent return (with an 18 month old we wouldn’t have been able to watch much of anything anyway).

      But the complaint I put in they were specifically going to look at how You First could have screwed up the spa booking, so definitely make a complaint.

    • Morgan says:

      Bring back the Molton Brown spa… now that was a proper experience!

  • Graham Walsh says:

    OT Received in the post the Amex Plat fee increase letter pack. They could have reduced the membership fee increase by not sending out a book of info on Plat benefits. Could have put it all online/via email/PDF.

    • John says:

      They send me about 250g of glossy card every few months with my referral link, which probably costs about £1 to make and £2 to post.

      • Michael says:

        complete waste of paper and money

        • Shoestring says:

          presumably not, as it must inspire a few people to go ahead & make a referral

          • Charlieface says:

            Not convinced. The link is the same so how do they track whether the mailshot helped. Sometimes I wonder what goes through the marketing guys’ heads in these sort of companies.

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