Priority Pass adds Manchester, Cardiff, Bristol airport food deals – unless you’re with Amex

Priority Pass has unveiled a number of new restaurant deals across Manchester, Cardiff and Bristol airports for its cardholders.

At each, you will receive a £15 credit towards a meal. If your Priority Pass allows a free guest and you arrive with someone else, you will receive a £30 credit between you.

Unfortunately these deals are NOT available to anyone who gets their Priority Pass via American Express. It is available to anyone who gets their pass directly from Priority Pass or via another financial partner such as the HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard or the brand new £15 per month Lloyds Bank World Elite Mastercard.

(We ran a similar article to this last month to cover new restaurant deals across the London airports – click here to read it.)

Here is the list of restaurant benefits that you can now access at Manchester, Bristol and Cardiff airports:

Manchester International

• Starbucks (Terminal 1)
• The Grain Loft (Terminal 1)
• PizzaLuxe (Terminal 1)
• Upper Crust (Terminal 1)

Bristol International

• Starbucks
• Cabin Bar
• Tortilla
• Brigg & Stow

Cardiff

• Caffe Ritazza – EDIT, Cafe Ritazza is now closed
• Beer House

There may be specific reasons for some of these additions:

• at Bristol International, the Escape and 1903 lounges are due to be refurbished soon

• at Cardiff, the official lounge (reviewed here) does not accept Priority Pass, although it does accept DragonPass

But if your Priority Pass is issued by American Express ….

There are a grand total of TWO restaurant experiences globally that Amex-issued Priority Pass customers can use.

One is The Grain Store at London Gatwick’s South Terminal. Given that this is the British Airways terminal, it is at least convenient for most HfP readers. The other is the Moevenpick Cafe in Berlin Brandenburg.

My best guess is that Priority Pass wants to charge American Express a higher fee for restaurant visits, as it pays out more than it pays a lounge operator, and that the two parties could not reach an agreement.

This is something that American Express may want to look at again given the frustration over being unable to access UK lounges with Priority Pass due to overcrowding. The fee differential cannot be more than £1-£2 per visit, given that no other bank or credit card provider has brought in a similar restriction.

It is also possible that, if it isn’t careful, American Express may find that people who value the Priority Pass benefit move to competing financial products which do allow full access.

You can find out more about these new Priority Pass options by searching for an airport via its website.

PS. Without wishing to state the obvious, you should not take part in any of these restaurant deals if you have a ‘pay per use’ or – if you’re not alone – a ‘pay for guests’ Priority Pass. The guest fee is now £24 and you are getting £15 of restaurant credit so you can see the problem here!

---

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (January 2024)

Here are the four options to get FREE airport lounge access via a UK credit card.

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with two free Priority Pass cards, one for you and one for a supplementary cardholder. Each card admits two so a family of four gets in free. You get access to all 1,300 lounges in the Priority Pass network – search it here.

You also get access to Plaza Premium, Delta Air Lines and Eurostar lounges.  Our American Express Platinum review is here. You can apply here.

If you have a small business, consider American Express Business Platinum instead.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for the first year. It comes with a Priority Pass card loaded with four free visits to any Priority Pass lounge – see the list here.

Additional lounge visits are charged at £24.  You get four more free visits for every year you keep the card.  

There is no annual fee for Amex Gold in Year 1 and you get a 20,000 points sign-up bonus.  Full details are in our American Express Preferred Rewards Gold review here.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard gets you get a free Priority Pass card, allowing you access to the Priority Pass network.  Guests are charged at £24 although it may be cheaper to pay £60 for a supplementary credit card for your partner.

The card has a fee of £195 and there are strict financial requirements to become a HSBC Premier customer.  Full details are in my HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard review.

PS. You can find all of HfP’s UK airport lounge reviews – and we’ve been to most of them – indexed here.