Today I Used The Secret British Airways Gold Frequent Flyer Benefit And It Worked!

Thanks to the power of the Internet, someone, somewhere will get some little known nugget of information out to the masses. I read a couple of aviation forums and often it turns up some illuminating information.

I am a Gold level frequent flyer with British Airways and there is an interesting lounge access benefit which I read about online. It changed the way I booked a particular flight and turns out it is legitimate.

A Word On Lounge Access

Lounge access is available when flying on British Airways flights and when flying other oneworld alliance airlines. This means lounge access is not available when flying on other partner flights.

For example, if you book with British Airways to Juneau, one flight will be on BA and the connection will be with Alaska Airlines. Even though British Airways sold the ticket, your British Airways frequent flyer card will not get you into Alaska Airlines lounge.

Secret Gold Benefit

There is one situation where you will gain lounge access when flying on a partner airline. When you book an Aer Lingus flight through the British Airways web site, you will be permitted to use the British Airways lounge in whatever city it happens to be in. It is restricted to the Gold member only, no guest.

Earlier this year I booked a flight from Amsterdam to Dublin with Aer Lingus through the British Airways web site. Today, I presented my Aer Lingus boarding pass at the lounge along with my Gold card. The lovely lounge dragon did much more typing than usual on her computer and then access was granted.

Overall Thoughts

British Airways and Aer Lingus are both owned by the same company, IAG. Virtually all Aer Lingus flights are available to book through the BA web site. One thing to note is that the lowest Aer Lingus fares are not available through BA, so you could pay more money doing it this way.

It depends what you find valuable. Today I really wanted food so I happily ate and drank water while relaxing. It was worth the extra money to me. Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

Like planes? See my “Does anyone remember” series.
Flight reviews your thing? Mine are all indexed here.
Follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Featured image via British Airways.