Today’s reader review is about Heathrow Terminal 2 Star Alliance lounge from Fernando Garcia, a London “Blue Badge” Tour Guide. He visited all the Star Alliance lounges at Terminal 2 on 26 May 2022.
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Heathrow Terminal 2 Star Alliance lounges
T2 has 2 zones. Zone A (short haul); and Zone B (long haul). They’re at least 10 minutes apart if you walk very fast. After security you enter Zone A. Then Zone B is further away. It takes longer to walk back from B to A (which you would have to do if you lounge hop and then need to return to A for your short haul flight), as the very long electric walkways are unidirectional from A to B.
Zone A: Lufthansa Lounge only. 3/10. Plenty of seats. Light and airy but barely any views to the runway. Very poor food and drink options (the worst of all lounges). There is no service as such. This isn’t a lounge. It’s purgatory.
Zone B: Singapore (5/10) and Air Canada (6/10) are close together. United (8/10), a little further away.
Singapore Airlines lounge is dated, with very few food options. Cute cocktail bar. Most of the lounge is dingy. Some of the lounge has views to the runway. I’d opt for this one if United is heaving and in the unlikely event I had no desire for champagne!
Air Canada has the best view of all the lounges.
If you want a cute, quiet and non-champagne-serving lounge (!) with good views to the runway, this may be your lounge. Plenty of seats by the huge windows. Food is very limited. Cute drinks bar but it’s stuck in an ugly dark corner so not a place to linger.
United: by far the best Star Alliance lounge in T2. Food options aren’t great but offers the greatest variety. A long, pretty and rather fabulous bar with excellent, attentive staff. This is the only lounge that serves champagne!! Hallelujah!
Choice of seating from armchairs to high bar stools. Decent enough views out of the very long windows.
If you’re flying short haul, you’ll need LOTS of time to get to the Zone B long-haul lounges and back again (but if you have the time to do or this, stick to United). The alternative, which is to stay in the short-haul Zone A, is Lufthansa which is pretty bloody awful.
Michele: It’s worth knowing that if you have a Platinum American Express Card you can also access the Lufthansa lounge even if flying in economy providing you are flying with a Lufthansa Group (including Austrian and Swiss) airline. If you are flying in business class you can access the Lufthansa Senator lounge. You can find Star Alliance lounges for airports here.
There is also a Plaza Premium lounge in T2 that technically you can enter with the Platinum Amex, although in T5 they were turning away cardholders due to capacity.
I will be visiting T2 in a couple of weeks so I will try both Lufthansa and Plaza Premium if I have time.
Like our Which Heathrow Terminal 2 Star Alliance lounge should you visit reader review? You can read more airline lounges here.
14 comments
Thanks, all good to know especially the walking distances/time involved.
But what Champagne? Not all champagnes are equal and some are very bad.
Good question @flylikelinz to which the only answer I have is that it was absolutely delicious ;-). Didn’t note the name I’m afraid (it was a bit of race trying to get to all the lounges).
As there’s only one champagne on offer in between all the lounges the choice is not there if fizz is preferred, unless Prosecco is offered instead in some of the lounges (witch wouldn’t do for me). What a shame that the Maple (Canada) lounge stopped serving the very delicious champagne they had pre-Covid! And in very elegant tall glasses. Hopefully they’ll feel generous once again soon.
Excellent review. Thank you, Fernando.
Can anyone go into these lounges? Are any child friendly? & what about Air India do they have a lounge
All lounges allow children usually. The lounges are open to anyone with the correct Star Alliance status or anyone flying Star Alliance in business or first class. Air India don’t have their own lounge but being Star Alliance you can use any of these if in business class.
I think time of day will have a lot to do with which lounge you want to go to. Last week I was in T2 around 2-3pm. The United lounge was an absolute zoo. People looking for tables, dirty tables, food was ok but nothing special (although nice cookies). The Maple leaf lounge was good and bright and I agree it has the nicest decor although food options are very limited. All window seats were taken though. Singapore was a haven of tranquillity. I thought it actually had the best food with a choice of buffet and some a la carte menu food as well. It is not the most modern but it had plenty of natural light. Service was good and attentive from the lounge staff; admittedly there were probably only a dozen people in there at the most.
Thank you for the review. I remember many years ago dashing to and from the United lounge for breakfast as it was so much better than the Lufthansa one.
One question – is there a senator lounge at Terminal 2 and if so was it this you visited or the Business lounge?
There is a SEN lounge in T2A, you pass through the business lounge to get to it. If you have a choice, I would choose anything but this though, it’s pretty awful these days, massive downgrade on when it opened. It used to be catered by Do&Co, now it’s Sodexho of UK prison service fame which tells you all you need to know!
Would be great to see this for sky team at Heathrow t3
Great review which I agree with in total.
The Lufthansa lounge, particularly the Senator section is now beyond bad. I’ve been in several times recently in the early morning and the breakfast offering is so poor it’s to be avoided. There is nothing cold, the hot is unappetising to say the least and the bread offering which always was good now looks like it is the cheapest and nastiest the UK has to offer. Goodness knows what Germans think of it!
I’ve started using the Plaza Premium Lounge when at the A gates – I disagree they are for short haul – it’s the norm but the A19-26 stands can accomodate wide bodies, there were two Air Canada 787s there a couple of weeks ago. It’s not the norm but can happen particularly early in the day when short haul aircraft may be on the B gates from overnight stops. SAS, Swiss and Austrian first rounds are often B gates and of course long haul is arriving before they leave. I think access to the Plaza Premium will ease now that the outliers who have been in T2 have gone back to their normal places as at one stage all were using the PP Lounge for their premium customers so numbers were very high there.
The SQ lounge, I think is tired and it’s not a place I choose to go even when flying with them. My preferences are the UA and AC lounges in that order, usually I make time for both but if I don’t have time I just choose the quieter one.
Lufthansa is poor in Heathrow but probably worse in Frankfurt and Munich which I don’t completely understand. Flights are chez so you get what you pay for.
Cheap
The UA lounge can get very busy but it’s a no-brainer if you go later in the day when all the TATL rotations have cleared
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