First Lounge vs refurbished B gates lounge
 

As a Gold member I enjoy using First Wing and going straight into the First lounge. Recently, though, the F&B offering has been down-graded, in my view. The food always used to be far superior to upstairs in Galleries South. It seems these days to be much the same. There is no opportunity to order anything 'special', apart from veggie sausages at breakfast time. There has been some investment in new furniture, but the worn out chairs have been replaced by largely uncomfortable chairs. Definitely not 'Gold' standard.

Today my flight went from B gate, so I popped in there (at about 07.30). Not busy, clearly refurbished with comfortable seating, but it was the food offering that caught the eye. As well as the same self-service items there was a new 'call order' station, which looked good and from which the food was excellent. So, why the downgrade of the Gold lounge, when the
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B gate lounge shows what can be done?

This comes up a lot. Here’s an existing thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...ispreloading=1

Sadly the gold card has become pretty much worthless in terms of ground product. TFW security is probably the only major incremental advance over being silver now. Certainly GF and GC lounges are impossible to differentiate and both are like zoos, ludicrously overcrowded and serving crap wine and sloppy food that would make a Little Chef blush.

Group 1 boarding - to the extent that it is enforced at all - can often involve half the passengers and the gold phone line is rarely answered in a reasonable timeframe. There is little onboard recognition compared to even ten years ago.

That thread was mostly about the comparison with the LGW lounge. Does Galleries even exist anymore?

I don’t think I’ve seen a First T5 vs T5B comparison yet and given the recent work in the B it seems fair to see the differences.

It seems uniformity and consistency of branding across BAs main lounges has been eroded to different styles considering JFK, LGW, T5B, let’s see what EDI holds and wasn’t there a new design in Rome?

But anyway glad to hear the B lounge is much improved and it was always a nice getaway from the chaos of T5A

If you read the thread and not just the title, posts 9, 10, 11 and 16 literally discuss the comparison you are noting. I was just letting the OP review those for context. New thread is fine.

Having been in GF 6 times within 6 weeks, what annoyed me most was that the food selection was 95% the same (and rather restricted), the exception being of course the two items that I quite liked having disappeared.

GF has (had?) the Don Julio 1942.

I think this sums up the Gold experience out of LHR perfectly. Other airports around the world still do have that extra benefit when being BA Gold / OWE (Changi Qantas First Lounge, HKG The Wing, ...)

I’ve just been through GF and T5B Galleries, everything is pretty much the same apart from self pour Prosecco vs. Champagne, as others have said it’s only once you’re on other airlines that you really feel BA Gold vs Silver.

I suspect ordering additional dishes is something they're trying to keep quiet to cope with staffing numbers. Not particularly fancying any of the breakfast buffet, I always track down a member of Baxter Storey and ask for kippers. I'm nowhere near as frequent a visitor to GF as many here but I've never been refused, although sometimes I get asked if I want scrambled eggs with them, and sometimes not. I've not yet tried to see what else is available.

Flown out of Heathrow 4 times in 4 weeks recently, each time headed straight for B lounge. Whilst busy, always found a seat to myself. The best was a week ago where I was on the 1730 Manchester. The lounge agent queried by boarding pass, I just said I prefer it here and I'll be at the A gates in good time. It was empty!

Each time when walking through the GF lounge from TFW it seemed a mad scrum.

Roll on February and my first experience of the CCR!

"slightly better bar" is indeed the main differentiator IMO, but I'll confess I've slipped to silver due to reduced work travel and it feels survivable. I expect I'll be back to gold after next year, but if not so be it...

It is possible that the completed GF lounge refurbishment will result in an on par or dare I say better experience than the refurbished T5B.

We need to wait and see.

Having said that, one thing that is notable is that when they recently completed the T3 refurbishments and introduced the mini CCR in the First Lounge there, I noticed that the CCR food menu was the same as what was in the main First Lounge, just plated and brought to your table (apart from the starters).

Hopefully they won’t make that mistake again with differentiation of the food offerings in T5 once all the refurbishments are complete.

You can do that? Mind blown :eek:

Having the same stodgy breakfast for weeks on end does get ever so slightly tiring, I'll admit. First world problems of course!

Realistically GF is just for Golds, if you’re in F (unless you haven’t been made aware) then the CCR would be the lounge of choice, making it effectively a ‘members only’ glorified waiting room. T5B encompasses CW/CE (along with the rest of the Galleries offering) so would make sense to upgrade that offering for those passengers.

Of course the fact that Silver/Gold/GGL/CW/CE/ their families/ general Melchett’s wife/ her bridge partners/ their partners/ their husband’s bridge partners/ their tennis partners means that all the Galleries lounges are, in reality of similar nature.

Obviously this is more towards the ‘only travelling once a year if that’ type in J/F who don’t care/ know what airline status is.