Plaza Premium lounges

Contents

Plaza Premium Lounges - Arrture Smart Traveller

Arrture is a “loyalty platform”.

You’re most likely to know it if you’ve ever been to one of the Plaza Premium lounges, like the excellent Plaza Premium Lounge at Heathrow T5, which you can get into if you have the American Express Platinum card.

You’ve probably been in Plaza Premium lounges if you have Priority Pass. The Heathrow T5 lounge isn’t in Priority Pass, but loads of other Plaza Premium lounges are, so is there any reason to care about Arrture?

Well, yes, there is. Joining is free. You earn Arrture Points at lounge visits even if you use Priority Pass for entry.

Until March 31st you can get 200 points for free. Details and links below.

Arrture points can be exchanged for lounge passes. Even if you have Priority Pass, these Arrture loumge passes can get you in at places that aren’t in Priority Pass, or you could get an extra guest in with you. Lounge vouchers are transferrable, so this is allowed.

Arrture have been developing a lot of new features lately. It seems that they have plans to grow and expand the range of offers and partner discounts. They have a heavy Asia focus at the moment but their offerings are getting wider.

For example, the Plaza Premium Lounges group also owns the Aerotel transit hotels. It would be odd if this didn’t become a points earning partner too.

Plaza Premium have been expanding quite rapidly and appointed a new management team in October to run their “global expansion”. Arrture and Smart Traveller are worth keeping an eye on.

Plaza Premium, Arrture, and Smart Traveller

It’s a little confusing right now, but Arrture is the loyalty program that links in the other earning and spending partners, whereas Smart Traveller is the Plaza Premium lounges rewards program.

The Smart Traveller app is what you will use to earn and redeem Arrture points for lounge visits.

Exactly where and how and why there is a distinction between Arrture and Smart Traveller isn’t completely clear.

Arrture benefits

Plaza Premium lounges – 15% off walk-in rates
Allways Airport Meet & Greet services – 15% off
Root98 Dining at HKIA – 20% off
Wellness spa services – 15% off

Earning Arrture points

100 points per visit via membership cards (eg Priority Pass), bank cards (eg Amex), or with a first or business class ticket.

150 points per visit for paid entry.

At Hong Kong Plaza Premium First, and Kuala Lumpur Plaza Premium, the rates are 150/300.

1 point per USD on food at locations in Winnipeg, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur airports.

Travel

If you book via the links on Arrture and quote your membership number:

Booking.com 1 point per USD
RentalCars.com 5 points per 2USD
BlackCityCars.com 2 points per USD
Rideways.com 5 points per 2USD

Arrture points expiry

Arrture points earned from lounge visits expire 12 months after the last activity. Redeeming points counts as activity.

Points earned through non-lounge partners last for 3 years.

Earning points through a partner should extend the validity of your points earned at lounges.

Once you redeem a lounge pass it is valid for a full year, so if your points are going to expire and you have enough, redeem anyway and you have another year to use the lounge pass.

Redeeming Arrture points

Really the only thing of interest here are the lounge passes. Assuming you earn 100 points per visit by using Priority pass etc, you would need to do 25 visits to get one free.

If you always pay for access, then 17 visits will get you one free.

10 lounge visits (7 if you pay) would get you a pass for one of the arrivals lounges at Heathrow.

(There’s a way you can get a head start on those points a bit lower down.)

It’s clearly aimed at frequent business travellers, but even if you only fly occasionally it’s worth signing up and taking the points, and watching out for any future promotions or discounts.

You haven’t lost anything by registering, and in the points and miles world it’s entirely common for things to pop up that change the game. Plaza Premium had a few double points promos last year.

Lounge passes

2500 points – A 3 hour Plaza Premium lounge pass, valid for 1 year

4000 points – A pass for the Plaza Premium First lounge at Hong Kong
1500 points – A 90 minute version of the above called the “Upgrade lounge voucher”

6000 points – 6 hours in a “private resting suite” at HKIA, LHR, KUL, or SIN
4000 points – 3 hours of the above

1000 points – Entry into one of the arrivals lounges at LHR or KUL for 1 hour

All the valid locations for each pass are shown in the app.

Dining

490 points – “Wellness bag” containing snacks and a drink, available at KUL, YYZ, or YVR
490 points – Various drinks or snacks at Root98 in HKIA

Wellness

At some locations:

1000 points – 30 minute shower
1400 points – 30 minute massage

Shopping

There are various shopping options but they are only for delivery to locations in a small list of Asian countries.

How to sign up to the Arrture Smart Traveller app

Visit the Arrture home page and register for free.

The app for Arrture is actually the “Smart Traveller” app, but the app itself is labelled “Airport Rewards”. Yep.

If you ever had an Arrture account and haven’t used it for sometime, when you try to login to the app it will give you a weird error message. The solution is to visit https://arrture.com/login and follow the password reset flow.

According to some reports, registering on the iOS app doesn’t work, so register at the website first, then login to the app.

How to get 200 free Arrture points and how to get double Arrture points

Download the Smart Traveller app before March 31st, sign in, and you’ll get 200 free bonus points.

If you enter your birth date in your profile you will get double points during your birthday month.

Of course, if you happen to have a lounge visit coming up and haven’t entered your birthdate before, isn’t it a lovely coincidence that it happens to be your birthday the same day you’re going to the lounge?!

There is also a bonus additional 100 points on your next lounge visit before 31st March.

Heathrow Rewards

Show your Heathrow Rewards card at the Plaza Premium Lounges at Heathrow and collect Heathrow Rewards points alongside your Arrture points.

Links

Arrture
Plaza Premium Lounges

Smart Traveller app – Google Play Store
Smart Traveller app – Apple App Store