LoungePair - bid for airport lounge access

[Mattg]

A start-up website is now offering airline passengers the opportunity to bid for airport lounge access. The site claims to partner with airport lounges including the Qantas First Lounge in Melbourne.

It seems to work a bit like PlusGrade, where you can bid for an upgrade to business class. The lounge operator can choose whether or not to accept your bid, and if it's an off-peak period for the lounge they will probably accept it. LoungePair says that their prices will be cheaper than paying at the door.

Has anyone heard of/used this?

LoungePair - Buy Airport Lounge Access

Access over 900+ airport lounges worldwide with LoungePair. As the largest and most flexible source for paid lounge access, we help you relax before you fly.

www.loungepair.com

 

[travel_bug]

A start-up website is now offering airline passengers the opportunity to bid for airport lounge access. The site claims to partner with airport lounges including the Qantas First Lounge in Melbourne.

It seems to work a bit like PlusGrade, where you can bid for an upgrade to business class. The lounge operator can choose whether or not to accept your bid, and if it's an off-peak period for the lounge they will probably accept it. LoungePair says that their prices will be cheaper than paying at the door.

Has anyone heard of/used this?

LoungePair - Buy Airport Lounge Access

Access over 900+ airport lounges worldwide with LoungePair. As the largest and most flexible source for paid lounge access, we help you relax before you fly.

www.loungepair.com

Everything about it seems very very fresh and new - no record of it on other websites (including the ones of alleged partners) either which makes me uneasy. On first blush it appears to be a NZ company.

It says on its own website that it's "Coming Soon" and wanting airlines to come to the table, but it also already has posted 3 reviews (imported from Facebook) from alleged customers each from Jan, Feb and March. One review from the QF International First Class lounge (which the owner of the site, Daniel, in his Bio admits to giving his +1 F lounge access to someone), one for the Strata Lounge in Auckland which already is a pay per use lounge, and one for the Q Club in Adelaide...which again, you can transfer guest passes through QFF accounts pretty easily.

Additional to that (and most concerning), there are open areas on the website that list the information of customer requests for lounges in particular cities, as if airlines/airports would proactively check that to accept offers from passengers trying to get into any lounge at an airport.

In short, I don't trust it and based on the above I don't believe that it actually has any affiliate relationships with airlines or airports (in this point in time). But I very well could be wrong. Maybe it's the next PriorityPass.

 

[kindy01p]

Hi folks, Daniel Kinnoch here. You may (or may not!) recognise me as the most recent Managing Editor for the NZ Point Hacks website. Though we’ve since transitioned back to an AU only site.

The lounges and images you see on the website are legitimate, insofar as these are people who have used our website, and they are lounges that our users have accessed, but they’re not lounges we’re partnering with at this stage.

LoungePair started off as a free P2P platform where travellers with status/lounge access could share access with others. In short, real-time matchups. Something that has long been done on travel forums and Facebook groups etc.

We’re now moving away from this model to one of working with airport lounge operators to assist with their management of variable capacity, Eg outside peak hours. Most lounges who have agreed to work with us are independent and not airline affiliated.

We’ve left the “lounges people have got access to” feed until we can formally replace it with “lounges you can bid for” - but admittedly might not be super clear to a layperson. Certainly not trying to be dishonest, but I recognise this could be confusing. Sorry about this.

We’re feverishly building our bid platform for both users and the lounges, ready for third quarter of this year.

If there are any questions, happy to answer them.

 

[henrus]

Has anyone heard of/used this?

I know I'm digging up an old thread but I just gave this a try thanks to a $10 off promo code. The website is a bit clunky and I threw in a couple of low offers both of which were rejected (I've already got access to the Air NZ lounge before my flight but thought I'd see if they'd let me in on a low offer).

It seems the website is automated to "accept" bids at a certain price (probably what it costs them to pay the lounge). I'm under the impression that these guys have done deals directly with lounges which is very different from the original LoungePair heavily discussed on Flyertalk and perhaps part of the reason behind Air NZ changing their domestic koru entry T&C's.

For now with limited travel and really just the Australian plaza premium lounges a possibility it isn't worth it but I'll be keeping an eye on it in the future once the world beings to open up.