TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission which helps contribute to the running of the site – I’m very grateful to anyone who uses these links but their use is entirely optional. The compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site and does not impact reviews that are published.
Qantas is expected to open its new international lounge at Perth Terminal 3 on 24 March just in time for the start of the new non-stop Perth – London route which will be operated by the airline’s Dreamliners. While the plans for the lounge look very nice indeed it looks as if there will be a lot of disappointed Qantas flyers come opening day.
AUBT has reported that Qantas plans on calling the new lounge an “international transit lounge” and, in keeping with the name, will only grant access to those traveling to/from London on the new service.
Passengers on all other international flights (including those newly relocating to the international wing of Terminal 3) will be asked to use the Qantas Club and Qantas Business Lounges in Terminal 4.
This isn’t exactly ideal as the Qantas lounges in T4 are on the wrong side of airport security, customs and immigration as far as international passengers are concerned so, passengers flying out of T3 and who are not booked on the London route, will probably have to leave the lounges a lot earlier than they’d wish to.
Perth T3 & T4 map courtesy of Perth Airport
Who Is/Is Not Allowed Access?
Clearly if you wouldn’t ordinarily have lounge access you’re not going to be able to access the new International transit Lounge in Perth but, even if you ordinarily have access to Qantas lounges (e.g. are a Business Class flyer, have oneworld status etc…), you’ll have to satisfy these extra criteria:
- Have a reservation on QF9 either as a passenger originating in Melbourne or one originating in Perth
- Have a reservation on QF10 as a passenger originating in London. Passengers only booked on the Perth – Melbourne portion of QF10 do not get access to the new lounge.
Bottom Line
As things stand this is going to be one of the most exclusive Qantas lounges in the system and there are going to be times of the day where the lounge has absolutely no visitors at all…so presumably it will close.
Essentially Qantas is opening a lounge for two flights per day and, although I suspect the airline knows what it’s doing, I also suspect there are going to be some very disgruntled Qantas Business Class flyers departing from T3 but forced to use the lounges on the other side of immigration – it would annoy me if I was one of them.
Lounge images courtesy of Qantas
[…] is already part way through revamping most of its major US lounges, Qantas has already announced a new lounge in Perth, announced renovations to its Business Class lounge in Sydney and confirmed that its lounges in New […]