1600+ Australian frequent flyers rate the world’s airport lounges

Australia’s frequent flyers have voted on the best international business lounges across nine of the world’s most popular lounge providers. Qantas comes out on top – but not by voters in every State.

Point Hacks (pointhacks.com.au), an independent platform for one of Australia’s biggest community of frequent flyers and rewards point experts, asked 1686 of its subscribers to vote for the airline or lounge provider that offers the best international business lounge experience.

Across all survey respondents, Qantas international business lounge came out on top, attracting 31 per cent of the votes. Singapore Airlines came second, with 20 per cent of the vote and Emirates closely followed, with 19 per cent of the vote.

The results differed when respondents were segregated by State: While Qantas was still voted number one by NSW, SA, Victoria and Queensland respondents, Singapore Airlines, secured the most votes among WA respondents (chosen as number one by 30 per cent), while Emirates secured the top spot among voters in NT and ACT (50 and 36 per cent of voters in those States respectively).

Qantas’ competitor, Virgin Australia, has been ranked fairly low by respondents across all States for its lounges, sharing sixth place with the American Express airport lounges at an equal number of votes (4 per cent each). This result is not surprising, given the airline only has a few co-branded lounges with Etihad Airways in Sydney and Melbourne, but is due to open an all new Virgin Australia branded lounge at Brisbane International airport this month.

Daniel Sciberras, Point Hacks’ spokesperson and frequent flyer expert, says: “These results correlate closely with the frequency of international flights offered by the respective airlines. Today, with many flyers having a range of lounge options at their disposal through travelling in Business Class, partner airline and alliance wide elite status recognition, and lounge benefits offered by some premium credit cards, these results suggest that travellers still favour using the lounge of the airline that they are flying with, and highlights the importance of airline lounges in a customers’ overall travel experience.

Non-airline branded lounges and pay-as-you-go lounges such as American Express and Priority Pass are increasing in popularity, but it appears they are yet to reach the forefront of travellers minds, likely due to the limited number of these lounges, and that access is granted to a niche group of travellers”.