CLOSED: The Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 4 remains closed at this time.
This is my review of a recent visit to the Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge at London Heathrow Terminal 4. Several Middle Eastern airlines operate out of Terminal 4 including Etihad Airways, Saudia, Kuwait Airways, Oman Air and Qatar Airways.
The Expat Flyer view
| Highs | Lows |
| ☑️Excellent shower rooms ☑️Plenty of power sockets & workspace ☑️Delicious bircher muesli | 👎🏻Slow WiFi 👎🏻No hot food on the day 👎🏻Undrinkable coffee |
This lounge turned out to be a bit of lifesaver on a last-minute trip to London from Abu Dhabi.
The flight was only booked the day before departure. There had been a bit of a mad rush to get everything ready to leave. I had not given a second thought to the logistics on arrival.
It only dawned on me mid-way through the overnight flight (somewhere over Turkey) that I would be landing first thing in the morning and needed to be at an important meeting mid-morning in Central London.
A shower and a chance to freshen up would be really useful, but there was next to zero chance of an early check-in at the hotel I had booked for my stay in London.
Thankfully, Etihad’s inflight WiFi was working smoothly that night. I opened up the LoungeKey app and found the Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge in Terminal 4 at Heathrow. Brilliant. Crisis averted.
On arrival, I headed straight for the Arrivals Lounge and was warmly greeted by the two receptionists on duty. They took a swipe of my ADCB visa card and I headed straight to the showers.
Showers
I have never seen a third party lounge with quite so many showers. There were two corridors with 25 showers rooms in total including one accessible room.
There were only about six or seven people using the lounge in the entire two hours I was there. I seriously doubt you would ever need to wait for a shower here.
The showers were spotlessly clean. The design is functional but contemporary. The rooms are well laid out with sufficient space for luggage. This is important as the lounge does not have a luggage storeroom.
I also really appreciated the practical bench for changing. The only minor thing missing was a couple of extra hooks for hanging jackets and clothes.
Some basic amenities are provided in the room such as toothbrush, comb and cotton pads. The one thing that detracted from the overall impression of the shower room was the refillable shampoo and body wash dispensers fixed to the wall. These are unbranded with homemade labels. It did not look very premium or elegant.
Food and drink
Unfortunately, on the day I visited the lounge I was informed there had been a problem with the kitchen. As a result, there was no hot breakfast buffet available.
I assumed this was a temporary issue. However, one lounge programme suggests that the kitchen is permanently closed while the Plaza Premium website continues to list a hot buffet as being available. I would work on the assumption that there is no hot buffet available and be pleasantly surprised if there is.
What was on offer was a range of continental and chilled items including cereals, pastries, yoghurt, cold cuts and fruit.
The highlight was the bircher muesli. It was delicious, possibly the best I have ever eaten. It was so good I had to have a second helping.
Coffee is hard to do well and sadly this lounge did not do it well. My Americano was undrinkable.
Seating and workspace
For a relatively small lounge, there is a surprisingly wide variety of seating options available. Visitors can choose from armchairs, low stools, bar stools, sofas, booths and desk chairs.
I needed to get some work done before heading into London. There were plenty of individual tables to choose from, plus a long communal desk in the centre of the lounge with individual power points. There were also plenty of power sockets throughout the rest of the lounge. The lounge also has a private meeting room available for hire that looked like it could fit up to 14 people comfortably.
The one negative was the WiFi speed which was slow to the point of being unusable. I mentioned it to the friendly staff at reception. Strangely, they did not seem to know where the router was or how to troubleshoot the problem.
Thankfully, Heathrow Airport has genuinely fast free WiFi available so I simply switched over to that network and worked away productively for a couple of hours.
Who can access the Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge?
I accessed the lounge using LoungeKey. This is a perk available with the ADCB Etihad Guest Above Visa Infinite card. There are two ways to enter the lounge.
Pay for entry
You and book your visit online at Plaza Premium or pay at the door. There are three payment options available to choose from:
- Two hours of lounge use charged at USD $53 / AED 195
- Five hours of lounge use charged USD $87 / AED 320
- Shower use only at USD $18 / AED 66
The price for shower use only seems to be very good value if all you need to do is freshen up before heading into town.
Lounge network memberships
This Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 4 participates in at least five airport lounge programmes including:
- Priority Pass
- Dragon Pass
- Lounge Club
- LoungeKey
- Lounge Buddy
Guests accessing the lounge using a lounge programme are allowed a 3-hour maximum stay.
How to find the lounge?
The Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge is located on the Mezzanine level of Terminal 4.
Take a sharp left after exiting into the arrivals hall. Look our for the airport sign for ‘Lounge & showers’. This will point towards an escalator. Take the escalator up to the next level where the entrance to the lounge will be directly opposite.
Opening Hours
The lounge is open daily from 5:00 to 22:00.
In a nutshell
I would happily return just for the bircher muesli. It really was that good.
On this particular occasion, I needed a shower and a place to get a bit of work done. The Plaza Premium Arrivals Lounge delivered on both of those. However next time I will pick up my own coffee on the way.
Sign up for my weekly newsletter
Subscribe to The Expat Flyer newsletter for a free weekly roundup of the best tips, hacks, deals as well as points and miles news.
The Expat Flyer aims to cover everything you need to know about Emirates Skywards and Etihad Guest as well as the most useful points earning credit cards in the Middle East.