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American Express has today announced that its long-awaited Centurion Lounge has finally opened at London Heathrow Airport. The lounge is located inside Terminal 3 and American Express has given us a brief look at what the lounge has to offer.
The Heathrow Amex Centurion Lounge is finally open
The American Express Centurion lounge was originally expected to open its doors back in 2019 but a series of building delays pushed back the opening date until the pandemic came along and closed the world down.
I’m not going to regurgitate the Amex press release in this post (you can read it here) as I shall be passing through Terminal 3 in the next couple of weeks and will be taking that opportunity to visit the Centurion Lounge and to write a full review. Instead, I’ll give you a few bits of key information and I’ll share the pictures that the Amex PR team has sent through so that you get some idea of what the new London Centurion Lounge looks like and what it offers (spoiler: the decor is typical of most other Centurion lounges that you may have visited).
In this article
- Size, location, & opening times
- Brief details
- Images of the lounge
- Who can access Amex Centurion Lounges?
Click the links to be taken to the relevant section
Size, location & opening times
The lounge is over 7,000 square feet in size (approx. 650 square meters) and is located past security on the first floor of Heathrow Terminal 3.
The map that Amex provides isn’t particularly helpful for anyone who doesn’t know Terminal 3 very well so it’s important to point out that the new London Centurion Lounge isn’t located in the same area as most of the terminal’s other lounges. Per Head for Points, the Centurion Lounge is reached by heading to the right of the airside shopping maze area, following the signs to ‘Lounge A’, and then passing through a door with an Amex banner overhead (next to Ted Baker) which leads to the lounge’s stairs and elevator.
The lounge is open to guests between 06:00 and 18:00 and as those hours appear to cover most flights that depart Heathrow Terminal 3, there’s a good chance that these will continue to be the lounge’s opening times even once travel levels are back to pre-pandemic levels.
Brief details
The Amex Centurion Lounge London Heathrow offers the following amenities:
- Dedicated workspaces
- High-speed Wi-Fi
- Large flatscreen TVs
- Phone rooms
- Private showers
- A private wellness room
The lounge’s restaurant serves “locally-inspired” cuisine from Michelin-Star Chef Assaf Granit and the current sample menu looks like this:
The lounge’s bar serves a mixture of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages with the wine list curated by Anthony Giglio and the cocktails selected by Jim Meehan.
The sample wine list looks like this…
…and here are a few (not all) of the cocktails that the lounge offers:
The menus will rotate seasonally but, we’re told, will always draw heavily from London’s multi-cultural history.
Images of the Lounge
The Welcome Desk
The Seating Areas
The Bar & Dining Areas
The Food & Drinks
Design Elements
Who can access Amex Centurion Lounges?
Access to Amex Centurion Lounges is restricted to the holders of the following cards:
- card_name (review)
- card_name (review)
- The Centurion Card® from American Express
- card_name (review)
- card_name
Holders of the Skymiles Reserve cards can only access the Centurion Lounges when flying with Delta.
As of 1 February 2023, holders of Amex’s Platinum Card and SkyMiles Reserve Cards are now charged $50 for each guest they bring into a Centurion Lounge (up to two guests) although Platinum Card holders can get this rule waived if they spend at least $75,000 per year on their card
There is no change to the Centurion Card’s guess access privileges.
For flyers originating at an airport with a Centurion Lounge, access is granted a maximum of 3 hours before their scheduled departure time. For flyers connecting at an airport with a Centurion Lounge, that limitation is waived.
Bottom line
American Express has announced that today, 12 October 2021, saw it open the doors to its Centurion Lounge at London Heathrow. The facility in Terminal 3 is only the second purpose-built Centurion lounge outside of the United States and welcomes holders of Platinum and Centurion cards from around the world as well as holders of the two Delta Reserve cards issued in the United States (terms and restrictions apply).
All images courtesy of American Express
