British Airways operates several lounges at Terminal 5 in London Heathrow. There is one at the north of the A gates which is a standard Galleries Lounge catering to Silver Card Holders, Club Europe and Club World passengers. Gold Card holders and First Class passengers can use this lounge if it is easier for their gates. There is also a similar lounge at the T5 ‘B’ gates catering to the same passenger. This latter lounge has a small spa.

The largest lounge area  homes the Concorde Room (First Class passengers and Concorde Room Card holders), the First Class Lounge (Gold Card holders) and the Terraces (Club and Silver Card holders).

The equivalent OneWorld partner airlines cards are accepted – Gold Card is OneWorld Emerald and Silver is OneWorld Sapphire and partner card holders can secure access. Only those actually flying in First Class can access the Concorde Room.

(For completeness there is an arrivals lounge).

To obtain access to the lounge pavilion mentioned above, you need to walk past the new Fortnum and Mason’s bar and up an escalator. On the first floor are the First Class lounge (turn left), and the Concorde Room and Elemis Spa (turn right). The Galleries Lounge is one more floor up, turn right and right again.

You will be greeted by the staff checking boarding passes who will need to see your card on many occasions. They have become more flexible recently as the software seems to work checking the status of at least their own passengers.

I was in the lounge on a cold but sunny morning in December and the views of the outside we lit up by bright sunshine.

The lounge was quiet and so I had a chance to grab some images of seating areas:

There was plenty of champagne out, although it was a little early for me.

There have been a lot of complaints about the quality of the food since BA changed its catering company some time ago. Breakfast is pretty much a standard ‘Full English’ on the hot side, and a good selection of cold but healthy options.

The food was pretty tasty, but having eaten earlier I skipped most of the offerings.

The Wi-Fi was down on the morning I was there although it was fixed after about 3 hours. The Wi-Fi used to be super fast but in recent months has become pretty poor. Not sure if BA is saving money or whether it is a factor of the number of devices that are connected. You need a password for the Wi-Fi which is displayed on the flight information screens and typically changes monthly.

My flight left from the B gates so I hopped on the train to get there. It can take 15 minutes or so to get from lounge to the B gates, or 20 minutes to the C gates. The determining factors are – walking speed and waiting time for the lifts/train. Don’t cut it too short.

This lounge is pretty solid, not spectacular.