Qatar Airways has just unveiled the opening of three new lounges at its hub at Doha Hamad International Airport (DOH), and the lounges are specifically for elite members. More lounge capacity is most definitely a good thing, though I’m still trying to figure out the full implications of this.
In this post:
Qatar Airways opens Platinum, Gold, and Silver lounges
Qatar Airways has opened three new lounges in Doha, specifically for Privilege Club and oneworld elite members. These lounges add some much needed lounge capacity to the airport ahead of the busy Eid holiday, plus the World Cup later this year.
These new lounges are in addition to the Qatar Airways Al Safwa Lounge (for first class passengers), Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Lounge (for business class passengers), and Qatar Airways Oryx Lounge (for oneworld Emerald and Sapphire members).
Let’s go over what we know about each of these lounges.
Qatar Airways Platinum Lounge South
The new Qatar Airways Platinum Lounge South is located in Concourse A of DOH. The lounge is open to Qatar Airways Privilege Club Platinum members plus oneworld Emerald members. The lounge has seating for 140 people, and is equipped with a quiet area, a prayer room, a bar, a restaurant (with a buffet and a la carte dining), and showers.
Qatar Airways Gold Lounge South
The new Qatar Airways Gold Lounge South is located in Concourse A of DOH. The lounge is open to Qatar Airways Privilege Club Gold members plus oneworld Sapphire members. The lounge has seating for 85 passengers, and offers family seating, a bar, a dining area with a buffet, showers, and more.
Qatar Airways Silver Lounge South
The new Qatar Airways Silver Lounge South is located in Concourse B of DOH. The lounge is open to Qatar Airways Privilege Club Silver members (though not oneworld Ruby members). This lounge opened in March 2022, and can accommodate up to 195 passengers. The lounge offers meeting rooms, a family room, a quiet area, buffet dining, and baggage storage facilities.
My take on Qatar Airways’ new lounges
As mentioned above, it’s fantastic to see Qatar Airways adding more lounge capacity. While many airlines shrunk significantly during the pandemic, Qatar Airways gained quite a bit of market share, and the carrier’s lounges have been rather crowded.
Qatar Airways’ lounge access rules have historically not really been in line with the intent of oneworld’s policy. That’s to say that historically oneworld Emerald members haven’t gotten access to the Al Safwa First Lounge, and oneworld Sapphire members haven’t gotten access to the Al Mourjan Business Lounge.
However, for the past couple of years oneworld elite members have received access to the Al Mourjan Lounge. With the opening of these new lounges specifically for elite members, I can’t help but wonder if we might finally see oneworld elite member lounge access cut for the Al Mourjan Lounge.
I’m curious to check out these new oneworld lounges. If Qatar Airways isn’t going to let elite members into the general first & business class lounges, it’s at least nice that higher elite tiers get access to nicer lounges. For example, it’s cool that the Platinum Lounge will offer a la carte dining.
Bottom line
Qatar Airways has opened three lounges at Doha Hamad Airport, specifically for elite members. The Platinum, Gold, and Silver lounges add lounge capacity for 420 additional people, and will at least offer some differentiated service for oneworld Emerald members.
I’m curious to check out these lounges, and also to see if Qatar Airways finally stops letting elite members into the Al Mourjan Lounge.
What do you make of these new Qatar Airways lounges? If anyone has the chance to check them out soon, please report back!
Since January Qatar Gold and Silver members have been forced into the packed and sometimes unpleasant Silver lounge instead of Al Mourjan. Similarly at Heathrow it’s been the awful Aspire Lounge which routinely has no available seats. They really need to follow the Oneworld rules. Nonetheless this is a good development although I don’t know how much of a difference 85 seats in the gold lounge will actually make in practice. I’ve definitely noticed a...
Since January Qatar Gold and Silver members have been forced into the packed and sometimes unpleasant Silver lounge instead of Al Mourjan. Similarly at Heathrow it’s been the awful Aspire Lounge which routinely has no available seats. They really need to follow the Oneworld rules. Nonetheless this is a good development although I don’t know how much of a difference 85 seats in the gold lounge will actually make in practice. I’ve definitely noticed a deterioration in QR standards, and I’ve missed a lot of connections recently due to very delayed boarding.
Will be interesting to see if a OWE traveling in J class is better off in the Platinum Lounge of the Al Mourjan Lounge.
Was thinking the same. I'm OW Emerald and will be flying QR J in to DOH come October. Will check out the new Platinum lounge and Al Majourn (seven hour layover).
I'm a Gold Card Privilege member and flew economy, transiting in Doha. Had the misfortune of using this new dreadful lounge. It's such a downgrade and not worth using.
I flew a few months ago and a few weeks ago, as a gold Qatar airways member and was denied access to almourjan lounge and advised to go to the silver lounge. A big downgrade.
The silver lounges are worse than the loungekey lounges that are available with many visa or MasterCard card such as almaha lounge among others.
A truly jam-packed experience with very little choices of beverages and food.
Flew in and out of DOH four times in May with layovers as short as 9 hours, and as long as 15.5 hours. But had no clue that any of these new lounges were even open!
I am Platinum with Qatar Airways so I'd start out at Al-Mourjan and after a few hours I would walk over to Al-Safwa.
The only sort of "line" or wait I experienced was when I made the mistake of...
Flew in and out of DOH four times in May with layovers as short as 9 hours, and as long as 15.5 hours. But had no clue that any of these new lounges were even open!
I am Platinum with Qatar Airways so I'd start out at Al-Mourjan and after a few hours I would walk over to Al-Safwa.
The only sort of "line" or wait I experienced was when I made the mistake of waiting until after 5am to attempt to get a shower room. They had a waiting list but it was only a half hour wait. During which I walked over to Al-Mourjan only to find they had a longer wait there. Walked back to Safwa and was accomodated immediately.
Visited the Silver Lounge South - very disappointing.
It's tighter than the pictures would suggest and is more like a long open corridor with seats across the width, and then a food/drink station at the end, with bathrooms etc. off down an adjoining corridor.
On the first visit, the bathrooms were closed (in entirety) for an hour for cleaning and you needed to go back outside to use the facilities. Food & drink...
Visited the Silver Lounge South - very disappointing.
It's tighter than the pictures would suggest and is more like a long open corridor with seats across the width, and then a food/drink station at the end, with bathrooms etc. off down an adjoining corridor.
On the first visit, the bathrooms were closed (in entirety) for an hour for cleaning and you needed to go back outside to use the facilities. Food & drink was well stocked, if a little modest in terms of offerings relative to nearly any other lounge.
On the second visit, the place was absolutely packed - there wasn't so much as 2 seats together anywhere to be found, the staff at the entrance were - for whatever reason - clearly not in good mood with anyone, and it would actually be easily more relaxing back out in the airport concourse. It was the most unrelaxing environment you could imagine.
I'd avoid the Silver Lounge South like the plague in future if I could.
I have stoped going to Qatar airways lounges because of their strict policy of not allowing outside food and drinks, not even a cup of coffee! very ridiculous.
I'll be transiting thru Doha soon. Do you know which lounge I'll be pointed at please (I'm BA Gold)?
Actually they opened silver south lounge in the end of Dec 2021 (I think on 28th or 29th) and as gold I got redirected there (when I tried to get into Al Mourjam again) and it hurt!
I mean Silver south is a mediocre lounge comparing to QA standards. Buffet dining is nothing to write home about and in total it gives impression of a bit of a diner…. Hope new gold and platinum lounges will be better
I am really not against giving a proper lounge to people who pay for Business and First class and a lounge to Elite members travelling in Y.
Since the reopening of the Oryx lounge, Elite members fortunately don't have access to Al Mourjan anymore. This was a temporary arrangement during the pandemic when some lounges were closed.
I'm not against it in principal, but the fact that as an Emerald I get access to actual First Class lounges is a significant part of why I'm loyal to oneworld over Star Alliance or Skyteam, and given the choice between a DOH layover or a NRT/HKG layover, I will never choose DOH for that reason.
There was a waiting list to get into the restaurant at Al Mourjan around 11:30 a few nights ago. People were not happy. My wait was about 20 minutes.
The pictures that QR released and that are in this article are all from the Silver Lounge (that's been open since early this year, I checked it out in early Feb) so we are still waiting to see what Gold and Platinum lounges will look like.
IMO, the Al Mourjan lounge is a pretty sub-par lounge anyway. It doesn't match the hype it gets on travel blogs. I'd place it below the CX, QF, JAL and AA Flagship lounges OWEs get access to, but above the BA lounges.
Wrong comparison mate you need to compare It against the Al Safwa First lounge not Al Mourjan
The Al Mourjan lounge is definitely better than AA flagship lounges. The Al Mourjan lounge is bigger, and has a la carte dining (with two restaurants), napping cubicles, a game room, cigar lounge, and it has staff roaming everywhere ready to bring you whatever you would like.
I always ask them for the lemon mint juice and for the packaged dates that they have in the lounge. The restaurant also has a made-to-order sushi bar.
I thought its been months since these lounges opened though. I checked into the QR Silver Lounge back in January (QR Gold but the Gold lounges weren't open then).
Whats cost of lounge and is there a place for a nap?
Is any of this actually new? I flew through DOH in February and was rejected at the Al Mourjan lounge as Oneworld Sapphire.
Instead I was sent to the Gold lounge (the one pictured in the article), which was incredibly busy both times I visited in February and June this year.
The one pictured is the Silver lounge, they just used the same pics for the Silver lounge which had already been open since a couple months now. The Gold and Platinum one is new but no pics yet
Whoops, yes you're right - I mixed up Gold and Silver!
Visited Al Mourjan Business Lounge 1 week ago with my wife and it was completely packed, lines everywhere, I mean really bad. I've visited this lounge more than 20 time before I had never seen anything like this before.
its sold out summer, everyone is travelling after the height of the pandemic,its peak july, so this makes sense.
Al Mourjan has been crowded long before this summer, there was a line-up for entry even last year.
That's great news! Will be flying through Doha next month. will check the Gold lounge.
I visited DOH in March and they were allowing Oneworld Emeralds into the Al Mourjan lounge.
Sorry, I don't know why my comment was posted as a reply to yours. There seems to be some issues when posting comments using a mobile device.