Arrival Lounge in Athens?
 

Hi there,

I've just booked the wife on a Business Class cash+miles redemption to Athens. The only trouble is, her flight lands at 4am local time! She can't leave the day before, and she has to be there in the morning around 10am; the only other direct flights don't land until early afternoon (length of flight and time difference I guess). Even connecting with LH or LX she wouldn't make it in on time. So, she's stuck with this flight (at least it's in C). Since she'll be arriving so ridiculously early, I was wondering - does anyone know if there is an arrivals lounge in Athens that she'll be able to use?

Cheers,

-simon

No Arrivals lounge only will have access if she is connecting to another flight from ATH which gives her access.

To clarify, no arrivals lounge, she will only have access to a normal, departing lounge if connecting to another flight.

Just go to the airport information desk and ask them for directions to a bank so you can make a large cash deposit. Soon the Airport CEO will appear and invite you to an Executive Suite, with internet, telephone, revolving leather seats and all the business magazines you could ever want to read. You'll be served cocktails while you wait and will be given a priority escort to the airport exit as soon as you tell them you accidentally left the cash behind in London. :D

The airport workers will certainly not let you in if you support the banks I tell you that for sure ! ;)

Help! The wife is arriving in Athens tomorrow morning at 4am on Aegean with a BMI business class redemption... but *everything* in Athens is on Strike tomorrow! (According to http://www.xpatathens.com/news/22183, updated 3 hours ago). The conference she is attending have arranged a bus from the airport, but...that won't leave until 9am.

Is there a business lounge I can pay for her to use to rest for a few hours? All of the "book lounge online" sites require a booking more than 24 hours in advance...

-simon

Tell her to walk the 50m to the Sofitel. Apart from a seat in the lobby, there's a 24 hours restaurant. It's also worth pointing out to her she just might, might, get lucky as, per the airport website, the taxis don't technically go on strike until 05:00.

Are there any landside lounges at ATH? The airside ones would presumably require her to have an onward connection as well. If there is a landside lounge, which one are you looking at from your research?

One alternative would be a local hotel instead. There is the Sofitel at the airport and the Holiday Inn Attica less than 10 minutes away with a shuttle service.

If it was possible, not least due to the strikes which can escalate, I would see if she can give the place a miss. Athens is not fun when they are on strike.

Not possible unfortunately :-(. She's presenting at some medical conference or another and has to be there. I'm joining her with the kids on Thursday (2am Thursday morning!), but I have a hire car booked so we should be OK from there :-)

Hrm, what do you mean by "escalate"?

-simon

Couple of options

Sofitel - it's across the road from the airport - u can just walk across

http://www.athensairporthotel.com/at...-airport-hotel

or
Holiday Inn Athens Airport -

http://www.athensairporthotel.com/at...athens-airport

Otherwise you're out of luck....

Echo echo echo.....

How about buying a fully refundable ticket on A3? The departure lounge is really nice...

Both were full! I guess lots of people had the same idea.

But, what I did was "phone George" ;-). I googled and found this guy: http://www.athensguide.com/taxi.html and he picked her up at the airport, so all was good.

Thanks for your help and suggestions guys!

Glad it worked out well in the end ^