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Priority Pass, the most recognized third party airport lounge access program will regain access to many Plaza Premium lounges worldwide. Just shy of two years ago there was a big shake up in the lounge access industry when Plaza Premium and Priority Pass parted ways with 57 Plaza Premium lounges exiting the lounge access program.
June 6 Update: The news is now up on Priority Pass’ site. There will be a total 63 Plaza Premium lounges added to Priority Pass. 39 are already available and another 24 will join on June 20. Click here to see the full list.
Priority Pass is back!
The news to be released soon from Collinson Group (the operator of Priority Pass) will be that they are adding many of the Plaza Premium lounges they lost in 2021. In fact, if you go to the Priority Pass website you’ll find UK, Canadian and other Plaza Premium lounges are already back in their listings!
The word behind the scenes is that with Plaza Premium investing heavily in new lounges and an interest to go public in the near future, they need to increase their revenue beyond what they are currently achieving. Thus, the decision to bring Priority Pass back into the mix. Priority Pass is still the largest lounge access program in the world and while Canada and several other countries saw a shift to DragonPass, others like one of the largest travel markets in the world, the United States, still have Priority Pass as the primary lounge access program provided on credit cards. That’s a big market of travellers that Plaza Premium will be looking to bring back to the 50+ spaces that stopped accepting Priority Pass nearly two years ago.
The good news is this this does not affect the partnership with DragonPass and they will continue to also offer access to all Plaza Premium lounges.
Wrapping it up
After nearly a two year hiatus Priority Pass members will once again be able to access additional Plaza Premium lounges worldwide including Canada, the UK and elsewhere. The move seems driven by Plaza Premium looking for ways to fund their future growth and is welcome news for Priority Pass members. Here in FFB’s home country of Canada the effect of this news will be minimal due to DragonPass being the primary lounge access program here. It will most likely have a greater effect in countries such as the U.K. where there will be a greater influx of Priority Pass members.
I have been asked where I sourced this, well, I first posted it on my Canadian site Rewards Canada but as to the actual source – I can only say it is from one of my contacts within the airport lounge industry. FYI I was not going to post this until tomorrow as that is when the news may come out from Collinson but seeing that Priority Pass has already added many of the lounges to their site I went ahead since their additions made the news public domain.
Yay! Connecting through YYZ next month and this will be super useful. I just checked last week and was disappointed to have no lounge, but it is listed now!
It definitely will be worthwhile for those who do connect via Canadian gateways, namely YYZ and YVR since Air Canada does routinely have competitive fares between the US and Europe or Asia.