Airport lounges can make your wait for your flight a lot more pleasant, with free food, drinks and a quiet ambience. Some hotels also offer a similar sanctuary in the form of club lounges, which you can access with the right type of room or membership. These offer lots of useful services and can even save you money.
Club lounges are a space for guests to meet, dine and work, especially if you don’t want to stay in your room. Many lounges also offer happy hour drinks and canapés – sometimes even a full hot dinner buffet – during the evening. You may also have access to other benefits such as complimentary laundry services and meeting rooms.
Like airport lounges, hotels don’t include club lounge access for every guest. You need to either book a room with club lounge access or have access included with your hotel elite status.
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How to access hotel club lounges
Many hotels within the major chains – such as Accor, Hilton, IHG, Marriott and Hyatt – offer a club lounge. To access the lounge, you can simply pay for a room including access. These include standard rooms marketed as coming with lounge access (often on higher floors), as well as most suites. Some hotels also offer paid lounge access.
Otherwise, the most common method to get access to a hotel lounge is via status:
| Hotel chain | Status needed for lounge access |
|---|---|
| Accor | Platinum and above |
| Hilton | Diamond only |
| IHG | As a Milestone Reward (40/70 nights) |
| Marriott | Platinum Elite and above |
| Hyatt | Globalist only |
By using milestone rewards, IHG effectively has two tiers of status, as lounge access is only for those who actually stay the nights. Similarly, Hyatt offers Club Access awards as milestone rewards, which you can apply to a single stay of up to seven nights to get lounge access.
You can get one year of Hilton Diamond status via Virgin Australia Platinum, which includes lounge access. This means you can access hotel lounges at Hilton properties before ever staying a single night!
If you have a status tier with Hilton or Hyatt that gets you a room upgrade, you might also receive lounge access with an upgrade to a lounge-tier room. This isn’t the case with Marriott, IHG or Accor though.
It’s important to note that not every hotel has a club lounge. One way to know if your hotel has a club lounge is by looking for rates providing club lounge access. For Accor hotels, you can check out this AFF thread on hotels equipped with an executive lounge.
What do you get in a hotel lounge?
All hotel lounges provide a more private space within the hotel itself, beyond your hotel room and common areas. At the very least, you’ll find seating areas and a food and drink selection.
Hotel club lounges are a perfect place to work or have business meetings. You’ll often find lounges equipped with computers, printing facilities and even meeting rooms, which you can book.
Some lounges also have TVs, to catch up on the news or a sports game while relaxing. As most lounges are on the top floor of hotel buildings, they can have quite spectacular views, and make a perfect location for some pre-dinner drinks!
Are all hotel lounges the same?
Like airline lounges, the quality of club lounges varies significantly between individual hotels.
Lounges in Asia and Australia often outshine their counterparts in North America and Europe, offering superior amenities and services. Often in the United States, you’ll only find a small-ish room with a cold buffet and soft drinks.
In many hotel lounges in Asia, you can expect a large space with a relatively comprehensive food offering, sometimes enough for a proper meal!
Some lounges provide exclusive happy hours and evening canapés (including cocktails), while others might have a more extensive hot buffet throughout the day.
The brand of the hotel also plays a crucial role; for instance, lounges at an Intercontinental hotel may offer a more luxurious experience compared to those at Crowne Plaza. If you have status, a hotel with a better lounge offering becomes much more enticing.
Access to a club lounge also provides complimentary breakfast, either in the lounge (where offered) or in the hotel’s main restaurant. A restaurant breakfast usually boasts a wider variety of options. However, they can also be more crowded, lacking the exclusive atmosphere of a lounge.
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