Review: Platinum Lounge Budapest

Review: Platinum Lounge Budapest

7

We took a taxi to the airport at 5AM and made it there at around 5:30AM, with plenty of time to spare before our 6:50AM flight.

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Terminal exterior

We quickly found the Lufthansa check-in area, where there was no queue in the business class line.

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Terminal

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Terminal

Our boarding passes were quickly issued all the way to Catania, so we headed towards security. It’s worth noting that while there is a priority security queue, Lufthansa is too cheap to pay the airport to use it, so as a business class passenger you have to use the standard queue. Fortunately it wasn’t too long, so that didn’t turn out to be an issue.

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Duty free shops

Once airside we followed the signage towards the Platinum Lounge, which is the contract lounge that Lufthansa (and most carriers) use in Budapest. This lounge is also a member of Priority Pass, so a credit card with lounge access could get you in, if you wouldn’t otherwise have access.

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Airside terminal

The lounge was located close to our departure gate, and once inside we were promptly admitted upon showing our boarding passes.

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Platinum Lounge entrance

The lounge itself was pretty standard for a European contract lounge, with plenty of seating.

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Lounge seating

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Lounge seating

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Lounge seating

The food spread was rather good for a contract lounge, with fruit, croissants, yogurt, meat and cheese, cereal, packaged chips, granola bars, etc.

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Food spread

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Food spread

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Food spread

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Food spread

There was also a self serve bar and fountain drink area on the other side of the lounge.

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Fountain drinks

After about 20 minutes in the lounge we headed to our departure gate, A6. I was sad to see that we would be leaving from a remote stand, despite plenty of open gates.

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Walking to our gate

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Our Lufthansa plane in the distance

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Our plane in the distance

The gate area was quite an experience. This might as well have been a Greyhound bus between Newark and Atlantic City, because I literally don’t think there was a single person on the plane (other than us) that wasn’t from New Jay-zee. From the accents, to the hair gel, to the unnecessarily large arms, to every second word spoken by them starting with an “f” or “s,” I was fully expecting to see Snooki passed out in some corner of the gate area.

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Our departure gate

At around 6:30AM boarding was called and they packed us into the bus till there was no room left. Being packed into a bus full of New Jerseyers is a sensory experience, from the over-cologne-ing to cover up what may have happened the previous night, to the “how many more f*&^$% people are they going to try to fit in this f*&^$% bus before we board the f*&^$% plane.”

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Our bus

The bus ride took only a couple of minutes, at which point we boarded through the forward door of the A321.

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Our plane to Munich

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Our plane to Munich

Conversations (7)
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  1. Travelista New Member

    @OberBoberGrober,

    Agree, it looks like the Málev lounge.

  2. ChetinNJ Guest

    Second that New Jerseyan!

  3. A New Jerseyan New Member

    Dear Lucky,

    When disparaging the speech patterns of your fellow countrymen, please be sure to get the demonym correct.

  4. lucky OMAAT

    @ OberBoberGrober -- Yep, I do remember those cell phone charging stations with lockers!

  5. Stephan Guest

    Nothing worse than flying half way around the world only to run into that accent! Had a horrible experience in Venice sitting beside a family at at a nice restaurant having to listen to them loudly discussing the details of their periods! The "ugly American" typified!

  6. OberBoberGrober Guest

    There was a *A lounge the last time I was there(*more to the left at the corner), but was denied entry because of overcrowding, and was a given a Maalev lounge pass, which was a beautiful lounge. From the looks, it seems like this lounge is the former Maalev lounge (does it have a cell phone charging station with lockers? if I remember correctly)

  7. Vivek Doshi Guest

    Very different airport and lounge than when I flew Lufthansa out of Budapest two years ago.

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The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Travelista New Member

@OberBoberGrober, Agree, it looks like the Málev lounge.

0
ChetinNJ Guest

Second that New Jerseyan!

0
A New Jerseyan New Member

Dear Lucky, When disparaging the speech patterns of your fellow countrymen, please be sure to get the demonym correct.

0
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