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 There has been some investment in new furniture, but the worn out chairs have been replaced by largely uncomfortable chairs.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.

To me the benefit of GF is twofold, firstly the ease of accessing it through TFW (especially if I'm tight for time) and secondly the fact it's quieter than GC. Undoubtedly still busy, but I've almost always experienced GC as heaving so I suppose that's an improvement.

I just wish there were a way to get gate info earlier so as to make an informed decision on whether to migrate to the B gate lounges. I understand (though don't agree with) LHR's decision to withhold gate info to the generals public to entice people to continue spending money, since most airport store rents have a revenue/profit sharing element.

But it makes much less sense to withhold that information to those in a lounge. They're far less likely to be spending money in the terminal and it just degrades the airport experience compared to the vast majority of sane airports around the world that don't 'mushroom' you.

If you're an iOS user, Flighty gets the gate info as soon as it's assigned by BA, even if not shown on the monitors. You will need a Pro subscription though.

Unfortunately I have an Android device. Wonder where Flighty gets the data from?

Try the BA Wayfinder. https://wayfinding.maps.ba.com/departing

Usually has an intended departure gate very early

Is there a full sized version of the 2nd pic so I can read it? :)

I’ve been to B lounge day before yesterday on a transfer. As soon as I landed at 15:04, Google showed me my BA31 gate was C52, even tho the boards were showing Gate will not be shown until 16:25.

The missus said she found her gate thru Google too (we travelled on separate routings, she was on a JGC final run via Japan).

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The problem is there isn't too much space where they can do some innovative concepts ... they need all the space for seats, as it is often impossible to find a spare seat.

I think they need more "solo" seats.

The T5B lounge is within 10 minutes of every gate in T5, which cannot be said of the other six airside lounges in T5. Given the 20 minute rule on gate closures you can simply go to T5B every time, so long as you know how the passageways work. When in B, the B monitors do give more advance information on likely B and C gates than displayed in A.

That second screen is a calorie listing, the items are not necessarily available at any given time.

Lot's more information here, where I will add the 2 calorie sheets.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...-rose-bar.html

I use the first class Lounge at T5 for years now and find the experience overall shocking (though my impresion is that the food has slightly improved and also the new furniture helps a bit (though not really comfortable).
But
- a first class lounge where not all seats have an electricity plugin is not up to standard.
- there is essentially no area to conduct confidential zoom meetings
- the internet speed is far too low.
- the toilets need an upgrade as well.
overall it is just not what people who spend between 5000 and 25.0000+ per year on BA tickets could expect.
(and not everyone loves champaigne.)


I recognize that there is certainly a space problem. Therefore, it would be best to completely recreate the entire First Class Lounge at T5.

Without wanting to go too OT, I was in Galleries First last Thursday afternoon and slightly baffled as to why it was so quiet when all recent visits have been absolutely crazily busy - and then realised that it was Thanksgiving Day, hence the normal US contingent were all off doing more wholesome things than crowding the lounges!

Yes, but if there are no valuable differentiators, why bother with a Gold card? After the change in avios earning (which was one), I feel like since I anyway only use BA for long haul trips (in paid J/ paid or upgraded F) there's no reason for some of those discretionary trips from the past to tip over to Gold. I won't end up at 601 TPs, but maybe if I'm at 1000, I'll happily stay there. TFW is nice but OSL is from T3, F lounges around the world aren't what they used to be anymore. Less work travel, and less reason to spend disposable income on flights. Also, BA fares from here are completely out of whack, and on the likes of QR, OWE has zero value (if flying business anyway).

Sadly (unless this has changed), it doesn't give ANY info on A gate flights at all, and you have to rely on phone apps to find out. Kind of annoying the first time you find this (and you don't know which set of gates it's likely to go from), but dealable with because it's a lot better lounge. Never stopped me using it by default.

Yes, that's also correct, but due to the 20 minute rule, plus 10 minutes to walk back. you can simply go to A at 30-35 minutes to departure by a process of elimination. As you say, the App (as will the HAL website and app) will usually help.

is it possible GF will actually get refurbished at all? It’s now been many years that this has been talked about and I’ve still not heard of a reasonable timeline .
also, without wishing to state the obvious, GF actually needs more space. With the best will in the world it’s still going to be hoplessly overcrowded the day after the refurb is completed.

The words used in the IAG capital markets video by CFO of BA was “full scale refurbishment of the Heathrow lounge estate” which would seem to point out that the new seating in the GF is just the start.

To be fair the sign above the hot plates offering veggie sausages on request also offers kippers. But, for example, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon has gone! Yet in the B gate lounge a freshly toasted smoked salmon bagel is on offer.