Originally Posted by
sparkswillfly
Hi,
We're travelling to Athens on 1st September, I'm a BAEC GOLD member and I've booked us front row seats. Does anyone know if ALL of (me plus my wife and teenage daughter) will be able to use the First lounge? I know that normally it's just the member plus one guest but I've read somewhere that Business Class are now allowed into the First lounge? Did I read that correctly and would you expect all three of us to have any confusion by staff at the First desk and special security and entrance?
The usual rule is Gold plus one guest. Two guests is the benefit of a higher card than Gold. The check-in staff may exercise discretion on this, but the rule is "plus one". One of your party would have Galleries Club access, as you imply.
The First lounge is open longer hours than Galleries Club so depending on timing and circumstances, it may be possible that Galleries Club passenger to end up in the First lounge anyway. However my understanding is that BA is seeing a relatively high proportion of Silver, Gold and Club passengers passing through LHR and so GC is being kept open for longer than originally planned. By September I think GC will be open fulltime, but that's just my guess.
However the gap between GC and First lounge is now very small indeed, there are some differences but in the context of a family trip I doubt many travellers would notice, unless they were very picky. GC has had an almighty uplift in service, So if you and your family did end up there, you wouldn't suffer too much.