Have you ever wondered what it would be like in the VIP lounge at Tenerife’s Reina Sofia Airport? Well, so have I and I recently tried out the Montaña Roja VIP Lounge courtesy of Priority Pass. It was absolutely fantastic and really made my trip home easy but more of that later.

The VIP lounge at Tenerife South Airport can be found by turning left once you clear the in-flight baggage checking area. As you make your way to the stairs that take you down to the main departure lounge, just look to the left and here you will find the VIP lounge.

As I said, I have a Priority Pass card and so I was able to gain access to the lounge and once inside, you can help yourself to a whole range of FREE facilities including alcoholic drinks, snacks, Internet Access, Wide Screen TV, Papers and Magazines, Very comfortable chairs and sofa’s and best of all a tranquil space to relax.

These lounges really ‘come into their own’ when you are faced with a delayed flight such as I had on the way back from Tenerife last month. My flight was delayed over 2 hours, as were many of the Tenerife – UK flights that day (something to do with the French Air Traffic Control strikes). As you can imagine in the main departure lounge with 4 or 5 flights delayed, seats were at a premium in the snack areas and near to the gates. Around 1000 passengers were all milling around the terminal waiting to be called to the gate, food was running out, of poor quality and as usual overpriced.

Now contrast that with the VIP lounge where I sat in a nice comfortable chair, in an air-conditioned room and where I could help myself to an ice cold bottle of beer or even a Gin and Tonic with plenty ice.

Priority Pass is easy to use, for an annual fee you can gain access to over 500 VIP lounges in 275 cities worldwide including both Reina Sofia (Tenerife South) and Los Rodeos (Tenerife North). These lounges are available either FREE of charge (depending on the level of the scheme you enter) or for a charge of £15 per visit if you chose one of the lower entry level cards.

It doesn’t take many G&T’s at the prices airports charge, or snacks (including sandwiches, crisps, nuts, cheese and biscuits etc) to make £15 seem like good value for money.

Add to that the fact that almost every UK airport (we even went into the VIP lounge at Blackpool Airport recently whilst waiting for our flight to Dublin) has a lounge that subscribes to the Priority Pass scheme and this card soon becomes a winner for anyone who travels on even a semi-regular basis.

In February this year, we used the card to gain access into the VIP lounges both in London Heathrow and Bangkok Airport. In particular, our 4 hour wait in Bangkok for our London Heathrow flight was a dream, we sat in very comfortable chairs, helped ourselves to snacks including soup and a roll, Tea and Coffee and had we wished we could have had alcoholic drinks as well, however it was too early in the day even for me to have a G&T!

One other often overlooked benefit of the VIP lounge experience is that on ‘check-in’ at the lounge, the receptionists take details of your flight and watch to see if there are any developments or delays, leaving you to relax safe in the knowledge that someone is looking out for you and will awaken you before your flight boards should you fall asleep in the very comfortable chairs!