Currently, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) is one of the best in the world when it comes to Priority Pass lounges. The airport has one of the largest selections of Priority Pass lounges you’ll find at any airport, and they’re all relatively high quality. Well, unfortunately this will be changing shortly, for a pretty questionable reason,…
Continue reading: Bangkok Airport Priority Pass Shakeup: Not Good!
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
This will not adversely affect persons with airline status. This mainly affects all the freeloaders and poorly behaved Americans.
Thailand leadership has a habit of making rash decisions without much thought, then reversing the decision once it inevitably doesn't work out as planned. I suspect this decision will be reversed in a few weeks once the carriers inform AoT that they will be reducing hours, service levels, and head count at their lounges in response to the changes.
As Ben mentioned, it may affect some airline J passengers and status passengers if the economics no longer work out without Priority Pass revenue. Then these airline lounges will close and will instead direct passengers to the inferior Coral or Miracle lounges.
Honestly, the central Miracle Lounge locations are great. The food and drink could improve a bit, but they're spacious and quiet and not crowded most of the day. By contrast, many airline lounges (especially Air France) tend to feel super cramped.
Ben noted that some airline-operated lounges might close because the economics don't make sense without Priority Pass revenue. So, it would adversely affect person's with airline status.
I wonder if Thailand are looking to go to the India model where there is seemingly one contract lounge brand and then the state carrier's lounge. Encalm is the name of the lounge brand at least in DEL International)...This approach too would be quite consumer unfriendly...as competition does seem to generally influence quality.
Wouldn’t have been so bad for me if ITA hadn’t left Sky Team as they gave me Skyteam Elite Plus. Now I only have Skyteam Elite when I go back and forth between Bangkok and Vietnam. Bad timing all around.
Will you feel the same when Coral is the only game in town, has a long queue for entry? I agree with your current assessment of the elounges as they exist today, but this change (if it lasts) will materially diminish the experience at the lounges that stay open.
It will impact them when some of those lounges close, reduce services, or cutback hours.
They weren't accepting PP at this airport out of the goodness of their heart. They did it because it improved their economics.
Can't see Miracle exiting the BKK lounge sphere any time soon. They have a much larger footprint & longer history than Coral (which is only down in C Concourse for international flights).
What makes you say that Coral will be the only remaining non-airline lounge at Swampy?
"This will not adversely affect persons with airline status"
True
"This mainly affects all the freeloaders and poorly behaved Americans"
This is just nonsense and unworthy of the discussion.
Which of the listed lounges was considered the better ones? Which ones will we actually miss?
"leadership has a habit of making rash decisions without much thought, then reversing the decision once it inevitably doesn't work out as planned.." hmmmm, sounds very familiar...
This is so typical of Thailand. The government creates a policy with some purported goal in mind yet the policy always has the opposite real world effect. They won’t reverse it in a couple of weeks either because Thais are famously stubborn. A couple of months maybe.
Oman air was really good, and I liked Air France as well. Bangkok airways exclusion makes no sense, as you only get access via Priority Pass if you're flying with them anyway.
That's a very naive view.
The policy has the exact effects they want.
But like many other things, the product mistook itself as the customer.
It's not because of stubbornness. It's all conflict of interests.
PG was actually the FIRST victim of this policy years ago.
They have in fact accepted every member initially. Somewhere along the way they were forced to accept only their own customers, which makes no sense since every customer had access already without PP.
I have a feeling PG might close its international lounge once their lease runs out.
Coral won't be the only operator. That BDen sometimes moan about things he couldn't grasp the concept and becomes delusional.
Anyway, Miracles do get crowded. But most of the time their central one is not.
Not easy to make educated guess when there is no one responsible for education.
I hope not… that would be awful. The lounge at the new Terminal 2 in Bangalore is often crowded and chaotic… the service is poor.
I've used both Oman and AF. Oman for the food and AF for the space that's usually not too busy. Might have to reconsider long transits at BKK or going to the airport early.
Not sure about TK as *A passengers will have access to the TG lounges, but there are a fair few Skyteam flights out of BKK and the CI lounge is tiny, so I would be surprised if there's any risk to the viability of the AF lounge.
Wow!
That's a huge story for many.
The AF lounge was my #1 monthly To go lounge l.
I find it few levels better then any other( food & seating & cleanness & calmness & size)
That is a huge blow.
Thai .gov keeps coming up with missable decisions . I have no clue where this came up from. But it's disastrous and smell of corruption .
America is like #10 on the number of tourists to Thailand. I'm sure there are more problems with the Russians, Chinese, and Indians.
@Mark Christopher
Amusingly, the rank of trouble maker tourists is in that order from least to most.
That was always the issue with BLR even when it was only T1. Back then the 'new' airport looked new, but chaos ensure it's anything but new.
They seem to design them for the past not the future.
But to their credit, they are among the better airports in India.
TK probably opened with PP in mind like the rest in their system. Due to its size and other better *A alternative, it might get smaller.
AF suffers a similar issue, it's size. Ironically many ST actually send its passengers to Miracle. That should speak for the cost to airlines. So I'm not going to think they don't have risks.
WY is joining OW but not sure will it bring enough traffic.
I only see PG international the one that would be at risk, having mostly leisure routes. They'll probably stay until their lease expires.
That being said besides PG, I think BKK seems to have enough traffic to maintain all those lounges, just might not be profit center for TK or WY anymore.
Huge story indeed. But some content may have been swept under the rug.
At least Aaron get what he deserves 😉
Maybe credit cards next?
Everybody knows that AOT is the main reason and their (possible) shares in poorly performing coral but in particular miracle lounges. This was even informally confirmed to me during my recent visits in some of the affected lounges. The coral is particular often less populated and yes I must say the service is pretty average compared to those now affected. For me this is less of an annoyance as I have lounge access with Star Alliance and flying blue. Still I dont like this "behave" of AOT. They should rather improve the pretty average airport operation. Suwarbhumi ranking is embarrassingly for a great service culture like the Thailand.
It has to do with licensing and concessions at AoT. There’s one major conglomerate who is putting a lot of pressure on AoT to change the current lease and concession rules/policies — or whatever you want to call that mess.
The miracle lounge is terrible. As basic as it comes. Oman air had the best lounge for priority pass. Thailand has all these monopolies and nationalistic policies. Well fck them. Last time I was there Oman Lounge was full. So I walked straight to the gate because Miracle is a dump. I will give them a 1star review on google over this. The thai owned lounges are shit so insread of improving they play politics to take out the competition. Typical thai banana republic mentality
Also Visa Companion (Dragonpass) lists 16 BKK lounges, but they are all of Coral or Miracle variety
Didn't Loyalty Lobby cover this a few weeks ago? I remember that it seemed suspicious that well connected Thai businesses got to stay as part of PP.
The Oman lounge staff told me earlier this week that it was 100% airports of Thailand’s decision. apparently they (aot) want to drive traffic to the (second rate) miracle lounges owned by a local company. So much for a quiet and peaceful lounge in Suvarnabhumi……
I read that initially as "shakedown".
Then from the comments it seems I wasn't so far wrong!
This is all so overblown. I've been to every lounge on the list.
All those other lounges are inferior to the Coral/Miracle lounges anyway.
The Oman lounge is tiny tiny tiny, the Blue Ribbon Bangkok (which you can't enter without flying BKK Airways anyway) and the Bangkok Airways lounges are as barebones as they get while the domestic Thai lounge doesn't even have any alcohol on top of being small and overcrowded.
While less choice is never better, perhaps more people frequenting the Coral lounges will make them even better. The Domestic Coral is already quite crowded so this will not help there. The International ones are very spacious!
Lucky never flies coach anyway so not sure why he cares so much 🙂
The Miracle lounge is much better than the Oman lounge anyway.
As for AOT strongarming, well, TIT right?
Well your guess is right. The Coral and Miracle Lounges are affiliated with AOT. Also AOT has some problems with profitability recently. So you know….
Unfortunately, that conglomerate donates generously to a certain (divine) family. A member of that family sits on AoT’s board/committee, enabling policy changes that mandate the use of lounges partially owned by said conglomerate.
As a paying customer on these airlines, this is excellent news. Fewer Americans talking about “hop on hop off” buses or “ping pong” shows
I was confirmed by Oman air that the end of this month they are stopping. I've been using their lounge for 7+ years. I Only actually pay for PP because I can use this lounge. Going to change to dragon pass lounges I can get on revolut, which Oman did not accept previously.
Great news, those lounges should never have been available for priority pass anyway.
Trump/Vance corruption is non existent, right? They are complete, innocent, standup, virtuous angels?
It happened also back towards the end of 2019 to all lounges with access though Priority Pass at LAX (Los Angeles International Airport), we used to access Alaska Airlines Lounge, Korean Airlines Lounge and Virgin Airlines Lounge (at the time, the worst of the three), and all if a sudden, the three mentioned lounges stopped accepting Priority Pass, this way, Priority Pass cardholders were left without this privilege. Myself and others, kept talks with Priority Pass for an explanation but it never came a convincing one. They always said they were negotiating new contracts, but it has taken them so long to conclude those negotiations.
I use air france lounge as I have found this the best of them all..I am so disappointed with this decision from a dubious point...why..and how come we are not told why...it does smack of dirty deeds somewhere...
"They are complete, innocent, standup, virtous angels" Ya, glad u finally got it. Lol
Miracle and Coral have rented a lot of space in many airports in Thailand.
Which might be the reason that Airports of Thailand (AOT) tends to favor them.
Be reminded that AOT shares while publicly traded are still held in 70% stake by the government of Thailand so other "factors" might have influenced this decision as well.
As I am based in Bangkok, I am incredibly upset by this development as well.
Air France lounge was the best priority pass lounge in Bangkok while Miracle and Coral are one of the weakest... Since the capacity is quite limited as well I expected to see crowding in those lounges next month (sadly)
Haha well played!
Yeah more choices are obviously better.
Ryan might have missed that while when flying Business or First you get access to the lounge any way, I would argue that it would only get you access to the "Alliance Lounge" which can be mediocre. Furthermore, BKK layout might favor you to go to certain lounges before your flight so that you have a short walk to the gate and those Miracle lounges on the branched out concourses suck so bad.
I would take Oman and Air France lounge over those if I fly out from Concourse E/F/G.
Anti-America stereotyping aside, you ignore the issue of whether all of these lounges will be financially sustainable without Priority Pass revenue. Ben makes a good case that many will not be. A lounge with Priority Pass guests is better than no lounge at all.