There’s Once Again A Full À La Carte Menu With Champagne And Cocktails Plus Pre-Flight Pampering At The Day Spa.
First class travellers, Platinum-grade frequent flyers and Chairman’s Lounge members, rejoice: the chic Qantas First Lounges at Sydney and Melbourne are bouncing back to their pre-pandemic greatness.
Yes, these flagship lounges have been open since November 2021, but in the watered-down guide of hybrid First/Business ‘premium lounges’ which also welcomed business class passengers, Gold frequent flyer and Qantas Club members while the Qantas International Business lounges were closed.
But those business class lounges are reopening as of 27, which means the first class lounges are set free to soar once more as an exclusive domain of high flyers.
That extensive seasonal menu? Check. Champagne and cocktails? Check. Day spa? Check.
Qantas Chief Customer Officer Stephanie Tully is clearly thrilled at the prospect of the First Lounges coming back to full force, especially for the airline’s legion of loyal Platinum frequent flyers.
“The First Lounge is one of the most important parts of the Platinum value proposition,” she tells Executive Traveller.
March 27 also sees a reboot of Qantas’ inflight first class experience on the A380 suites from Sydney to Los Angeles (and from 19th June, Sydney to London) on a fleet of upgraded superjumbos.
This just leaves the Qantas first class lounges at Los Angeles and Singapore as the final pieces of the premium travel puzzle.
Tully tells Executive Traveller the Qantas First Lounge at LAX will roll out the welcome mat “as soon as possible” in the weeks after March 27, while the Singapore First Lounge will open on June 19, the same day the A380 resumes flying from Sydney to London vis Singapore.
Qantas First Lounge menus
From Sunday March 27, visitors to the Sydney and Melbourne International First Lounges will be treated to a fresh Autumn menu (curated by award-winning chef Neil Perry) at the à la carte restaurant.
And as in those pre-pandemic days, the menu sees the return of many favourites – including the popular sweet corn fritters for breakfast – alongside some new dishes and a few seasonal twists on perennials, such as breakfast buttermilk pancakes with espresso mascarpone and maple syrup, and that very Instagrammable ‘deconstructed pavlova’ in a glass, now dressed with figs and raspberries.
The breakfast menu runs through to 11am, after which a more extensive ‘all-day’ menu kicks in until the last flight of the evening: we’ll post both menus later this week to help plan ahead for your trip and whet your appetite.
Qantas First Lounge spa
Another welcome return is the day spa: an oasis of calm offering complimentary neck, shoulder, scalp and foot massages, a hot stone back treatment and ‘mini facials’ using LaGaia products.
All passengers booked into Qantas first class receive a phone call from the lounge’s Qantas First Concierge the day before their flight, to arrange a spa session at the time of their choice.
Once first-class flyers are taken care of, any remaining spa sessions on the day are available to all first-class loungers on a ‘first come, first served’ basis – just ask at the front desk when you arrive at the lounge.
All Qantas First Lounge spa sessions are complimentary, even if you’re travelling on a partner airline rather than Qantas.
Qantas First Lounge access
As before, access to the Qantas First Lounge is restricted to
- first class travellers on Qantas or its partner airlines (such as Emirates and Oneworld members)
- Qantas Platinum and Platinum One frequent flyers (who can also bring a guest into the Qantas First Lounge)
- Emirates Skywards Platinum frequent flyers
- Oneworld Emerald frequent flyers (such as British Airways Executive Club Gold, Cathay Diamond and Qatar Airways Privilege Club Platinum)
- members of the exclusive Qantas Chairman’s Lounge program (and some partner airline equivalents such as Emirates iO, American Airlines ConciergeKey, British Airways Executive Club Premier and Cathay Pacific Diamond Invitation, depending on any special reciprocal arrangements with those airlines)
On top of this, those precious Qantas First Lounge Invitations issued to Platinum One frequent flyers and holders of the Qantas Premier Titanium Mastercard will again be accepted.
Qantas First Lounge opening hours
However, one possible wrinkle in visiting the Qantas First Lounge if you’re flying with another airline will be the lounge’s opening hours, which are shaped around Qantas’ own schedule.
This won’t have a major impact on when the business lounges open – it’ll still be three hours before the first Qantas flight of each morning – but if the last Qantas flight of the day departs long before your Emirates or Oneworld flight, you could find yourself prematurely locked out.
For example, at the time of writing the last Qantas international flight from Sydney is typically around 7.30pm (it varies from day to day), a good two hours ahead of the 9.45pm departure of Emirates’ evening flight to Dubai and Qatar Airways’ daily service to Doha.
