For members who question the value of the THS Premium upgrade which includes 2 free lounge passes at major airports throughout the world, consider the following:
My wife has always been an avid traveler and she introduced me to airport lounges. I now look for opportunities to use them especially on long trips and here’s why.
Lounges are a nice quiet place to relax on long layovers or if you get to the airport early. They vary in quality, but most have unlimited food, drink, and alcohol. Some even have showers. They typically have comfortable seating areas with tables sort of like a restaurant or, well, a lounge! They’re usually not busy, and generally you can put your bags down and leave your phone or laptop charging without worrying about them while you use the restroom or fill your plate or glass as many times as you want to.
There’s usually a screen showing the status of departing flights, and the location is usually in a convenient area close to the departure gates. Some will announce your flight for you if you ask them.
If you eat something in the terminal you’re going to spend at least $20-30 bucks, so take that much off the price of your Premium membership upgrade (although you get much more in a lounge).
THS airport lounges that I checked have a value of about $40 euros each (you get 2) which is towards the lower end of the price range so it remains to be seen how good they are but I’m sure they beat hanging out in the terminal and eating fast food. Perhaps members with THS lounge pass experiences can share their experiences.
Click here for the list of airport lounges available via the THS Premium Membership. Note that they may be subject to availability. Our first choice was Brisbane Australia for our return trip in January and THS customer service informed us that lounge was not currently available. We will be using one at Athens airport next week.
Send an email to THS customer service at least 72 hours prior to departure to get your passes.
Well that’s really interesting! I’m UK based and have no plans to sit abroad but I had never even considered using an airport lounge when travelling - until now! I followed the link and looked at the prices for my local airport and was pleasantly surprised. I think I might just indulge myself on my next trip…
The lounges I’ve used with my THS passes have been super crowded and noisy, not at all the relaxing experience you describe. The food has not been good either, although, I’m a vegetarian so the food options for me were very limited. The passes also can’t be used at Chicago O’Hare which is my main airport. The times I used the passes were for layovers, but I typically don’t have long enough layovers to bother with a lounge. Personally, I have not found the lounge pass benefit to be very useful. I have been in fantastic lounges in my travels, but the THS passes are not for all lounges, there is a list of included lounges.
Airport lounge use would be something I’d only be interested in if I had a long layover or if there was some kind of delay. I do my best to avoid long layovers, and you can’t plan for delays, so there’s been 3 years of premium and I’ve never used a lounge pass. I’ve never had to use the cancellation insurance but that’s the main reason I have premium.
I wish they’d offer other benefits to premium that I could use. Maybe some connection to a flight insurance so a discount on that. Merch is nice and also a way for THS to advertise. Many possibilities that they shoud consider if they want to promote more upgrades.
I can comment on the Brisbane Lounge because we had a look at it when we flew out of Brisbane a couple of months ago. It’s small and located between 2 departure gates. They put a couple of temporary barriers to shield it from the 2 gates and the thoroughfare. We asked to have a look inside as my credit card offered 2 lounge passes. It didn’t look very inviting at all so I wouldn’t pay for this lounge. Concerning the lounge at Suvarnabhumi Airport, we had a look several years ago and the room didn’t look very inviting. It looked like they had bought used furniture which wasn’t in a great condition and the food was very sparse and looked like it had been sitting there for a long time so we didn’t think it was worth paying to go in.
@Mark i am from Brisbane and agree, it’s not a great lounge. The domestic lounges for Virgin etc also aren’t that good and half the time both these lounges are so packed you can’t get in.
I was in Munich in October and went to the Lufthansa lounge since my layover was a few hours and we couldn’t find a seat! It was packed! So we left and we had Business Class airline tickets which gets you in the lounges without an extra cost.
Another downside of airport lounge passes is that some airlines you can’t check-in (international) until like two hours before the flight. By the time you check in, immigration, security etc then find the lounge, you don’t necessarily get that long in their before needing to get to the boarding lounge/gate. You can end up having like a half hour in a lounge in these cases. Being an ex premium member, this happened often, hence I no longer thought the premium membership was worth the extra money.
Yeah, I’ve never used any and am a budget traveller so too cheap to pay for them. My new plan will be stopovers. I am retired so I can stretch my travel time. Returning to Australia recently from Edinburgh we had a two night stop over in Ho Chi Minh City which was great. Next time I’ll likely add one to the middle east section too. Some of these airport rooms and pods charge outrageous prices. Flight planning is key.
@Cathie I flew out of HCM last month, what a nightmare that airport is! No chance of getting into a lounge there with that amount of people. Never seen anything like it, fast track for me next visit
Nah, we did it November, lines to check luggage in were long, but after that it was quick. Vietjet and HCMC will likely be my starting and end point for Europe until more airlines get their act together from Brisbane.
I have heaps of frequent flyer benefits so the cost to fly to Sydney from Brissie was nearly zero. I also only ever book one way so I fly home direct to Brissie or Gold Coast where I live now
Don’t bother with passes at Sea-Tac! Alaska Air doesn’t allow these passes so you get the general airport lounge. We used our free passes there and it was so far from our gate, maybe in a different terminal? It was filthy, crowded, and the food was gumbo, which I think in their case is short for “the week’s leftovers in brown sauce.” We opted for the much less gross food court.
Why am I not surprised. Too bad, that mostly defeats the purpose of using a lounge to get away from the crowds in the terminal. I suppose the one we will be using in Athens ne towering will be the same. I’ll post the experience. Thanks for sharing.
No chance of getting into a lounge there with that amount of people. Never seen anything like it, fast track for me next visit
