Aspire Lounge Luton Airport Best One Yet!

Luton Airport is by far the worst “London” airport in my opinion. Not only does it have the worse transport connections (especially if your flight happens to depart or arrive very early or late in evening ). I never felt like this is a well run airport, it’s always chaotic. 

Once is a while I do find myself begrudgingly booking a SleazyJet from LTN when there is few other reasonable options. The silver lining? There appears to be a decent lounge here at least !

Access & Location

You will see signs for the lounge post security, it is between Accessorize and Yo! Sushi..

As there is zero full service airlines from Luton, access is available from several pre-paid lounge programmes such as with Priority Pass or DragonPass.

You can also pay to enter with pricing of £37.99 for over 11 year old, £21.49 for under-11 and free for children under 2.

As you can see even if you do not have any free Priority Pass /DragonPass entries left, it is worth buying lounge passes with them in advance which can be as low as £18.50. This is the price I can pay though in reality I had never used up my 4 free DragonPass codes I get due to having Barlcays Premier Bank accounts + Barclays Avios Plus Card.

The lounge is open from 04:30 – 20:30 daily.

It is very possible you will have to wait a while before you can enter, as they can get very busy during certain periods. They have an automatic queue system you can join via a barcode at reception, should this be the case. But it is worth pre-booking for an extra £5 if you want to guarantee your entry.

Aspire Lounge Luton Airport

After taking the stairs up you land onto the small reception area where they usually have a couple of staff to check you through..

You have a bar and food area right as you enter on the central part of the lounge..

Most of the lounge is split of into several small seating zones.

The lounge looks new/recently renovated with a contemporary deco

There are a good range of comfortable sofa chairs spread around with accessible coffee tables and charging points

They also have a little quiet area, which is nothing different physically but theoretically people should not be yapping away !

I found the lounge quite relaxed and comfortable. Even though after an hour it got almost full and rather noisy elsewhere, this area was appreciated.

If you need to work there are a couple of places set up for this..

Food & Drink Options

Catering has never been Aspire Lounges strong suits but there is a basic selection of hot and cold dishes available at the buffet:

At my lunch time visit they had a pasta dish, a sweet potato, chickpea & spinach curry as the two main options..

They also had some veg samosas..

Besides this, they also had some cold choices such an Quinoa, Cous Cous and make your own selection of salads with various pickles and condiments. They also had a soup.

Here is the full food menu which lists all the snacks and treats too.

If you would like to upgrade your meal, you can pay a small supplant to enjoy a fuller meal and a sample menu (which varies month to month) is available here

There are some diner style seating booths if you are travelling with friends and want to eat together..

You will several refreshment stations where you can enjoy hot or cold beverages

At the time of my visit the only cold drinks they had was a lemon water or a fizzy Fanta like drink, which did not appeal. Complementary beers and wines are available at the bar.

Should you wish to order Champagne or a Prosecco, you will also need to pay a surcharge.

Rest Room / Shower

This lounge does not have any shower facilities but the restroom is decent and well kept.

Overall Thoughts

Ok, I still admit, the Aspire Lounge brand is not something I get excited about, it’s not quite luxury. Yet their Heathrow/Gatwick Lounges somehow feel even worse, perhaps because they are literally bottom of the barrel so to speak in the lounge pecking order.

I was surprised by this Luton facility though, I found it perfectly pleasant place to relax before a low cost flight. The vegetable curry was also rather nice. I have noted they call this lounge the “ASPIRE EXECUTIVE LOUNGE“.

Perhaps they are trying to establish a more premium lounge offering going forward?