London Heathrow Airport Plaza Premium Lounge

0/5 sexist and rude staff, sweltering heat, lack of clean eating area and no glassware

This was my first visit to the Plaza Premium Lounge. Upon checking in, the male front desk employee only greeted my male partner even though I am the priority pass holder. When I handed my phone to be scanned to the woman at the front desk, she threw my phone on the counter after scanning it. No one mentioned the aircon was broken and the lounge was stiflingly hot. There were no water glasses, so I asked for one which seemed like a huge inconvenience to the bartender. The food area was quite messy, so we didn't grab anything. The heat was too overwhelming so we left after about 5 minutes. I see after that I've been charged $100 for the visit. I had mentioned that I'm an Amex Gold member at the desk and our visit was meant to be complimentary as part of that. I've since contacted both Amex and Priority Pass who have each told me it's the other companies problem. Good luck getting priority pass to email you back as well. I had to chase them multiple times. 0/5 for me because of the sexist staff member, the heat, lack of clean eating area and no glassware.

Oversubscribed and mediocre

This lounge is oversubscribed. There is often a virtual queue with no indication of wait time, only a position number. The food is usually warm, but not hot and the choice is limited. There is no natural daylight and the furniture is in need of deep cleaning (or replacement) The bar is fine, but all in all this is not a relaxing way to start a holiday

Qatar Airways lounge does not disappoint

Excellent lounge. It's clean, nice seating options with good views and large windows. It has a decent hot food selection and lots of fancy beverage options.

DREADFUL

Do not waste your money, it was dreadful. I did email them to complain and after more than a week still no reply (NO SURPRISE), hence this review. Below is copied from that letter/email. Plaza Premium Lounge at Terminal 5 Heathrow. At 08.30 on 31 May myself and 2 others arrived at your lounge, we pre-booked for breakfast prior to take off. I am afraid that we were VERY disappointed with all aspects of this experience. I can also add that we spoke to three other guests of yours, who had very similar issues. Below are these concerns, in no particular order. • Two women at the welcome desk were painfully slow, disappeared into the lounge often and simply had no interest in customer service or urgency as the que became longer. • The place was packed, we and others had difficulty getting a table/chair, very uncomfortable. • I went to get hot drinks, no mugs there, a lady told me she has asked for mugs twice and no one has been interested. I walked to a hatch nearby to ask, at which point a waitress came over and gave us just 6 mugs. 3 were taken buy the lady and 3 by me, other guests had to continue waiting. Absolutely ridiculous. • The self-service food area was a mess, no attempt to clean/tidy this area from staff. Also, no surprise to me, the food was cold. I could go on and on, but I am now very bord at this point, to sum up, staff, no urgency, no customer service, no interest from staff, staff not happy and evidently do not care. We are seasoned travellers, usually we use Aspire or No1 lounge, I shall not make the mistake of using you again. It is my considered opinion that staff training is very in need at this time. Steve

Limited food and seating...

I have to say, I was not overly impressed. In fact very disappointed. Food was limited, And cold, seating was too. Coffee machine was faulty. So not great to be honest.

Food is bad and wait time is too long

Artificial scarcity is being created to avoid guest eating. They don't let anyone come in for Atleast one hour saying they are very busy. Inside there were Atleast 50 chairs

Worst waiting space in T2

This lounge is overcrowded, stuffy, windowless and offers no peace and quiet. I could not find a suitable seat so turned around and left after 2 min. Went to the new Starbucks for coffee and sat in the main terminal. Much better.

Empty food trays with many waiting passengers.

Waited in line for 20 minutes, and once inside all the food trays are empty. You would think they’d take the time to refill these with food for all the patrons they have here paying to come inside. It’s crazy how much they charge per person and nothing is available. I’m so very disappointed I would suggest going to the aspire lounge, I went there last week and they had food and were very attentive to everything.

Terrible.Not worth visiting.

Good grief.If this is the world’s best i cant imagine the others.Place is small and crowded with very limited food & drinks. Reception staff told me to go to the Lufthansa lounge.I told her i was flying IcelandAir. Very few charging points and you need a 3pin plug.Please dont pay for it. If you want a quiet place to relax go downstairs to gates A1..next to the outdoor smoking.Plenty of seats because no one goes there and there are 2 recliner seats.So much more peaceful.

Not a good experience.

One of the poorest lounges I have visited. Very crowded, they had to stop people entering at one point, poor, limited, choices of food and snacks, only one beer on draft, and you had to pay for “ premium” beers, such as Asahi, seating old and tired, and service was very slow with long queues to get a drink as there was only one person serving.

Joana was the host of the day ..

The View was good - the service qualify of Joana ( Service clark ) deeply enlight my day … Very welcoming ..i will defenetly come back

Hot and grotty

Really poor. Hot and uncomfortable. Tired and grotty. Wish I’d stayed in the terminal. Poor selection of food. No snacks, staff looked tired and brow beaten. Really not worth paying for. Just pop in if you have free access.

Not worth it even if you don’t pay

Gosh ! Terrible food, cheap wine and so hot ! The only plus was the hardworking and friendly staff !! There were bugs flying around f!!

Very crowded and wait...

Very crowded and wait staff was rude. There was no place to sit. There were not a good selection of drinks

Comfortable start to a long journey.

Just to be able to relax in one place away from the hustle and bustle. Lovely buffet breakfast and coffee.

OK if you have free access, absolutely not worth paying for

A bit crowded when I was there, but I got a comfortable chair so that was fine. Very limited selection of food, not that frequently replenished. The chicken tikka masala was tasty. Very little in the way of snacks. If I had paid to access this lounge I would be really disappointed. As a freebie (Priority Pass), it’s pleasant enough to have a comfortable place to hang out while waiting for my flight. Staff at the door were a bit unwelcoming. More of an airport security vibe than a customer service one.

First time here - positive experience

This was my first experience of the lounge. Initially, there was a queue outside the door and it wasn't overly clear why it was there or what to do. I had pre-booked (I strongly encourage you to do that - you'll likely save yourself time and money). People were in a queue of in excess of 30mins to get in. However, I pre-booked and was able to go straight in. The selection of food was basic (cooked breakfast) but the coffee and selection of other drinks was what I would expect. I would agree, some of the seats are worn but I wouldn't say it was a huge issue for me personally. It wasn't overly busy despite the queue outside and I had no issue with seating anywhere. I did find the staff pleasant and the lounge clean. All in all, a good first experience of this lounge and I would visit again. Certainly worth the money I spent.

Don’t Bother

Far too hot very little choice of food very disappointing wouldn’t bother paying again. Was originally shown to an uncomfortable booth with no charging point moved when a comfy seat became available.

Little space to sit and food options were limited

Very little space in this lounge, especially for a family of 3 or 4 Food options were limited but just ok

Very Disappointing - Hardly Premium.

Really disappointed with this longe. Rammed to the rafters with no place to sit initially. Furniture worn, tatty and in places dirty. Plugs didn’t work in area I sat. Surprised to see a sign saying that pork products needed to be asked for specially. Ordered bacon that took 20 mins to arrive. Ramadan and Eid over so really not sure why they feel the need to do that? Only positive was earl grey tea, that saved it from a one star. Will not use it again.

Nice staff

No issues, busy but staff are very helpful. Clean and good food available to eat throughout the day. Limited for space as a number of people now have access to the lounge.

Dark dingy muggy airless atmosphere

Dark muggy hot with poor food and environment. I’m sorry I can’t say a lot good about this place. The day we were there it felt airless and was dark and uncomfortable. Not at all like the airline lounges I’ve used before. There was no view outside at all. There seemed to be no air circulation or aircon. We left after 20 mins and felt a huge relief on leaving. We happily sat in the main airport waiting areas instead which were light bright cool air conditioned and alive. We waited for someone to appear to service at the bars The G and T we had from the bar was two thirds gin and while good for a house party we couldn’t drink it. I had to ask for lemon in it, the barman didn’t give us any and only a little ice. Not refreshing.

Walked out in disgust

Nowhere to sit, uncontrolled screaming kids running around, ran out of beer, ran out of several food options. Insisted on a refund and walked out. The words premium and lounge are so not appropriate

Mediocure if

No air con was unbearable and I wanted to die Mac and cheese was from a can no doubt absolutely no amount of salt and pepper will change that taste Even waiter had a top button open he was that hot It’s like butlins for people that have Klarna accounts But the viccy sponge was actually descent I needed that after everything

Do not pay for this experience

Worn chairs and dirty floors. They fill this place to the max and have a high turn over so hard for the staff to keep on top of cleaning. There is no guarantee that you will get seats. Definitely not worth paying for.

Busy but convenient

It was quite busy so only just space to find a seat. Food was reasonably good with selection of meals from buffet. Soft drinks and juices available. Some tired looking booths for some privacy but first one the plug socket didn't work so I had to move to charge my phone and got the last one available. Good wine and beers included at the bar so I enjoyed a glass of wine before my flight. Toilets were clean and good but limited only two in ladies so there was a queue. As it was very busy it wasn't particularly relaxing but staff were fast serving and cleaning tables. Food and drinks readily available. Great for speed and convenience just a shame it was so busy.

Great experience with selvesta

Selvasta was so friendly and helpful ! Really recommend this lounge if your heading to London Heathrow airport✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️

Easy to naviagte round even with the size of the airport

Most VA flights are now from LHR so have used the airport several times a year. Unfortunately there is no fast track security this would be very helpful as no matter how many signs are up people still ignore the liquid in clear bags.

Plaza launch at Heathrow Airport terminal 2

Very nice place, quit specious and well decorated. The food, thou it was extremely poor. They offer a buffet food which got: salad, soup l of the day, 2 different curry with rice and pasta. Drinks: diet Pepsi, Fanta/tango, and seven up. The bar offers a very tiny variety of alcohol mainly wine, and if you want spirits, you have to pay an additional price. They advertise it as a luxurious lounge but...for 70 pounds for 2 people, it is not worth it, and definitely, I don't recommend it

A good option if you just need some quiet time and space plus drinks and food and a good view.

I'd say the Plaza Lounge is a good option if you just want to get away from the crazy constant human activity that is Heathrow Terminal 5. I have very long layovers at this terminal when I travel from the USA to South Africa once a year, on average the layovers are 9 hours. Normally I just find a quiet spot (which is hard) in the terminal and sleep / watch movies on my laptop, but when I found out that there were 2 lounges that you could pay to get into, I thought I'd try the Plaza Premium because it looked a little more spacious than the Aspire Lounge and I managed to get a deal online for $53 for 3 hours at any time of the day/evening. The lounge is very light, it is narrow and long but does have a lot of space and looks onto a great view of the runway if you just want to veg out and take in that scenery. If you go towards the end part of the lounge, there are swing back chairs that are comfortable (although stained) with power points on the floor that work if you want to recharge your devices, and look onto the runway. There are restrooms within the lounge which I'm not sure is the case with the Aspire Lounge. The free drinks were passable, I was happy with the selection, the food was okay. I booked in between 2pm-5pm. There was some rice pilaff, mushroom soup, lentil curry and a mushroom and chicken stew. There was an extremely basic salad selection, plus free tea selection and coffee and juices and dinner rolls and chocolate brownies. All in all, I'd visit here again but only for a long layover, just to get some respite from the relentless airport activity and free drinks over 3 hours and some food to keep me going I felt was worth the $53 I paid. I definitely felt more relaxed after spending time here (i'm writing this review while I'm sitting here with a rather okay glass of red wine ;) Be warned the lounge is quite shabby, rundown and dirty, with stains on the upholstered chairs and badly worn leather chairs. On my visit, the staff were not super friendly or attentive (except the lovely young lady that saw me to a table) but they do keep busy clearing etc. A sign out at the reception said they were going to be refurbishing, so hopefully this lounge will get an upgrade soon - it desperately needs one and it does have a lot of potential to be a really great lounge. All in all, 3 stars, if you're desperate to just get away completely from the terminal crowd, with a great view, relative space, lots of light and free food / drinks that are acceptable.

Really very poor

Extremely disappointing, Very poor seating , poor food options . Staff looked bored and tired . Such a waste of money

Premium? I don't think so.

The word 'premium' is doing a lot of heavy lifting for this place. It's a bang average experience with below average food and drink. I'll give it a 2 for the staff who were lovely.

Not much premium about it!

Had to join the virtual queue as they said the lounge was very busy, this was at 7am, this was entry on Lounge Pass. Took around 25 minutes to reach front of the queue, and when I entered the lounge there were plenty of empty seats, maybe they are not trying to overfill it. There is a good selection of free drinks, although a glass of fizz will cost, only a fiver though which is reasonable as my entry was free on Lounge Pass, and the barman did fill it to the brim. Food selection is shocking, very basic and not good enough for a so called premium lounge. Plenty of soft drinks available to help yourself from the fridges. If you can, and you have the status, use one of the other Star Alliance lounges that are available in T2.

Nice staff!

Silvester, Classy and Sabrina were all amazing in the Plaza Premium in T2 Hrow. They are all super friendly, professional and accommodating. It was extremely busy when we arrived and I mentioned it was my birthday they moved heaven and earth to get us in their lounge. No complaints there! Nice comfy lounge too,

School dinners at T2

Avoid. I used to go every week. But it is clearly under new management for the last 6 months and the lounge is overcrowded - it’s difficult to find a seat and the food is in free fall. As I weekly commute I do go in occasionally and play Hunt the Protein… five hot dishes .. one with protein, or at least looks like protein. It really is school dinners at T2…. They are spending the least they possibly can.

Good lounge

Good service . Worker very Humble. Her name Vera. food was great in the breakfast . I enjoyed my stay with them. I will surely come back

Very Poor

Food is poor , and very limited , full bar but you have to pay for most things. The decor is a disgrace to Great Britain , it’s not only worn out but the place is absolutely filthy .

Great for visa card holders

Fast checkin to the plaza.premium lounge. I entered here with priority pass. Excellent options courteous staff, relax here and use.the wifi facility. If u are on a business trip and to.reply emails sit here.and.use the.business center for.fast internet and comfortable business over a coffee.

Thanks Manu and team for your service

Good clean space good drinks and food choices for breakfast and lunch. Beer, wine, coffee etc. plenty of space clean bathroom

Poor show

Dissapointment tbh, entered lounge to find it rammed, would have been nice to have that explained before entering, poor food choices, waiting for plates and bowls and food refil, felt like a hospital canteen, for the price the drinks were also limited, people were sitting with food on laps and I realise that staff need to multi task but surprised to see the janitor in the toilet cleaning and then removing gloves and serving behind the bar without hand washing. Temperature really needs to be looked at as it was very warm which was mentioned by a few people nearby. Poor show.com.

Reasonable facilities at a Price

Facilties were better than expected from other reviews but it certainly does get crowded. We would not have got in if not for our prepaid booking. Pleasant enough but not sure it's real value for money as standard facilities in Terminal 2 are decent anyway as it turn out.

Appalling

Appalling. We had to queue even though we’d pre-booked. The place was dirty, the food was poor/inedible and the place full of people trying to guzzling down as much free booze as they could. Oh, and the air conditioning didn’t work. It was quieter, cooler and cleaner in the communal lounge area. Never again.

Pay at the lounge - Avoid this company

I had an unexpected 3 hour layover at Heathrow and decided to go to the lounge. I went online and made my booking and realized quickly it was for the wrong date. I immediately tried to change the reservation to the correct date. I could not get help on the website and could not get a person. I spent 1.5 hours trying to change my information when I finally to a place on the website it denied a change because I had timed out. had to pay a second entrance fee at the lounge - with only 1.5 hours to enjoy the facilities and ended up paying over $100 for a $50 stay at the lounge. Your company owes me a refund -at the very LEAST.

Excellent

Very helpful reception staff. Needed an adapter. They searched hard to find me one.Feel welcome here! Check in was nice and friendly say as well. Food was good, facilities very clean.

Food was good. Service...

Food was good. Service was nice. Shower was also good. Good place to relax between flights. Area was clean and quiet. Sofas can use some refurbishing.

Bad experience

The lounge was overcrowded, dirty and noisy. The food selection on the buffet was very poor, the drinks of the lowest quality . We squeezed in, stayed for one drink and left despite having paid for a 6 hour stay. It was just too unpleasant.

Don’t bother. Spend the £46 in one of the nicer restaurants

Very average. Probably the worst lounge food - like a cheap hotel buffet. No imagination. Only one choice of complimentary wines or beer. Very uninspiring.

Excellent!

Friendly staff and good food. The service was excellent. Always smiling especially Desterina and Neeta.

Very tired, far too busy and not at all relaxing. Very overpriced for what you get

Poor experience won’t go back again. Too busy too little space certain of cubicles completely worn out. It was a disgrace

Feels like a scam, complete waste of money

Absolute shambles, you would be better off in weathspoons!!! Save your money Used the lounge at 7pm, completely overcrowded, nowhere to sit, no food, when I asked if it would be replenished the staff member said, word for word “No” and walked off into a back room. Beer included in the price was a warm bottle of carlsberg, any other drinks are on the premium list and cost extra. Paid £80 for two people for a lounge pass, no seat, no food… essentially paid £40 for a bottle of beer each. Asked for a refund and was told to email, I have been offered a complementary visit next time I travel. I’d never use this service again.