Plaza Premium are to construct two new lounges at Melbourne International Airport. Under the proposal, one will operate as an American Express Lounge, while the other will operate as a Plaza Premium Lounge. The concept is similar to the lounges that operate at Sydney International Airport.
Lounge Locations
The lounges will be broadly situated in an area formelry used by United Airlines. This area is on the lower departures level, and abutts the current arrivals corridor.
Ftom a location point of view, the entry to the AMEX lounge wil be next to the existing Singapore Airlines lounge. The Plaza Premium Lounge will have its entrance near to what was the Malasyia Airline Lounge.
The two lounges will be operated by Plaza Premium. While they are separate lounges, they will share some facilities. For example, the design of the area sees the two lounges sharing common kitchen facilities.
Access
Plaza Premium Lounge
There is no news yet on whether the Plaza Premium lounge will be part of the Priority Pass network. While Plaza Premium lounges at a number of airports do accept Priority Pass cards, the equivalent lounge is Sydney doesn’t.
As a result, I would expect that the Plaza Premium lounge will be a purely pay per visit lounge.
American Express Lounge
On the other hand, eligible American Express cardholders wll have access to the American Express lounge. I assume that the list of cardholders will be the same as for the equivalent lounge in Sydney. Eligible cardholders in Sydney include:
- American Express Explorer & Business Explorer
- AMEX Qantas Corporate Platinum Card
- AMEX Centurion Card and Corporate Centurion Card
- Qantas American Express Ultimate Card
- American Express Velocity Platinum Card
- AMEX Platinum Card and Corporate Platinum Card
- AMEX Platinum Reserve Card (not available to new customers)
- David Jones American Express Platinum Card
- CBA Diamond Awards American Express
- Westpac Altitude Black American Express
- Westpac Earth Black American Express (not available to new customers)
