Lounge access using AVIOS business class
 

If I use my miles to fly business class to europe and pay the £34 fee.

Does this give me access to any lounges at Heathrow? If so, what is the best lounge and flights?

Yes it does!

You will have access to all the Galleries Club lounges, so why not try both in A and if your flight goes from B, give that a whirl too!

I, personally, prefer the main lounge in the South complex, a few more nooks and crannies to find a quiet seat...

Yes, you will get lounge access on a redemption flight... in T5 this will mean Galleries South or Galleries North.

In terms of where is best to go, you have loads of destinations in Europe, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean... where would you like to go??

You will be able to use any business class lounge in T5, or the BA business class lounge in T3 if your flight departs from that terminal irrespective of how you paid for your ticket. Redemptions bookings and discounted fares on BA attract exactly the same privileges as if you had paid the most expensive fully flexible fare. :)

You will indeed get access to Club lounges.

My recommendations assuming your flight is from Terminal 5:
If your flight is leaving from an A gate, stick to the South lounge.
If your flight is leaving from a B gate, and you have quite a bit of spare time, go to the South lounge and then go to the one at B gate.
If your flight is leaving from a B gate, and you do not have much spare time, go straight to the B gate lounge.

My recommendation assuming your flight is from Terminal 3:
You have a choice of one - there is only one BA Club lounge :D

I have 36,000, so I do not have a huge choice of destinations for two people. If the flight ends up being on BMI, does that restrict the lounge choice?

If BMI continues to operate from T1 after the takeover, I assume you will be able to use the existing BMI lounge. It is not bad although the food selection leaves much to be desired compared to the BA lounge.

BMI has its own lounges in LHR T1, but they are not as nice as BA's. No bubbly wines and a poor food offering.

You can combine one-way Club Europe and one-way ET awards
 

A suggestion is to play a bit with the calculator within your Executive Club login. You can combine the "saver awards" consisting of two one-ways.

Therefore you can book the two passengers outbound in Club Europe and back in ET. @:-)

This saves miles and maybe extends your range of available destinations. There is also a field with combinations of cash & miles which you can play a bit and calculate.

So you can combine both products: Outbound of London in Club Europe and way back (especially if there is no lounge at your destination) the Euro Traveller product.

Hope this helps and would be fine if you would let us know where the AVIOS will take you.:D

But BMI gives an excellent welcome, passionate staff and no grunts from the BA lounge angels :)

For future reference, this thread is a wealth of knowledge;
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...ad-sticky.html :)