Restaurant dining with Priority Pass: Corretto Cafe & Bar, BNE

You can get free meals at some airport restaurants using Priority Pass. Is this a good use of your PP lounge visit(s)?

I’d read some time ago that Priority Pass now allows you to redeem a ‘lounge visit’ towards dining credit at some hotel restaurants – I’ve been curious about it for some time, but never flew through any of the airports with restaurants offering such redemptions. (Priority Pass doesn’t seem to explicitly filter their lounge list by type, but the list on Points Yak seems pretty comprehensive.)

Well, I recently flew out of Brisbane International Airport and finally got the chance to try it out there. How it (probably) works is that Priority Pass pays the restaurant a fixed (discounted) sum of money for each ‘lounge visit’ – for the Corretto Cafe & Bar in Brisbane, this translated into AUD$36 for each ‘visit’.

Armed with unlimited PP visits (for main cardholder and guest) from my Citi Prestige Card, I decided to see what my AUD$72 of restaurant credit could get me.

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Corretto Cafe & Bar

Corretto’s actually part of the BNE International terminal’s public (landside) food court, so you’ll need to check it out before clearing immigration. Interestingly enough, I wasn’t asked to show my boarding passes at all.

The prices on the menu are a little higher than what I’d pay for on my own, but with $72 credit to play with (and a limited appetite) it didn’t seem too limiting. In fact, I think a couple could comfortably get by just using $36 credit.

Selection of desserts and sandwiches

We ordered a pizza, calamari, a lemon curd tart and two juices – the menu didn’t list the price of the juices (and we didn’t get an itemised receipt), but assuming they’d cost $6 each that represents a total retail value of about AUD$63.

Supreme pizza
Salt & pepper calamari

The food was surprisingly good; I was rather impressed by the freshness of the ingredients. Or maybe that’s just Australia. Whatever the case, I was happy to be having a quality cooked-to-order meal instead of a (often sub-standard) lounge buffet.

(Although the Plaza Premium Lounge at Brisbane International Airport did look rather respectable, and was apparently serving steak and chips on request; unfortunately I never got to try it out as I was already stuffed from the visit to Corretto.)

Meanwhile, at the Plaza Premium Lounge BNE…

Conclusion

It’s a bit of a moot point since airport restaurant / lounge availability is unlikely to be a large factor in your choice of destination, but when travelling I think it’s certainly worth checking out airport restaurants if they give credit to Priority Pass holders.

If you’re looking for somewhere quiet to work, this probably isn’t the thing for you; but if you prioritise free food, most times I find that cooked-on-demand almost always beats buffet offerings hands down.

You can check out which cards offer lounge access via Priority Pass here.

Louis Tan
Louis Tan
Louis believes he caught the premium travel bug after attaining KrisFlyer Elite Gold and occasionally being upgraded while shuttling between the UK, Singapore and Japan (in economy class). These travels have led to a wonderful marriage, as well as a burning desire to avoid flying long-haul economy. He previously travelled with a gryphon plush toy, Griffles, which often stood in for him in vacation photos. Griffles is mostly busy with entertaining a toddler these days, but still manages to continues amusing (and confusing) air stewardesses, hotel staff (and just about everybody else) all around the world.

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Sambal Sotong

There is a PP restaurant at changi – forgot the name but it does Korean-Japanese food . Passholders can pick a bento meal from a choice of maybe half a dozen? I chose the sashimi bento so the food was freshly “uncooked” to order.

Dereth

I went to TGM last Nov on Plaza Premium access and subsequently visited another PP lounge on the same day as well. Food at TGM was decent and was cooked-to-order.

rtw

Yes it’s always to TGM first for a proper meal, then to Plaza Premium for alcohol haha! The sashimi bento set is rather good. I’m surprised it has swordfish sashimi!

Alien

Its a waste that you didnt order some awesome coffee (merlos) from there.

trackback

[…] The increase in price to USD32 has definitely been coming given that Priority Pass lounge access prices have not increased for quite some time. Priority Pass can also be used for dining at certain restaurants in select airports around the world where you will receive meal credits to offset the cost of dining. You can have a read of Louis’s experience with that here when he was at Brisbane. […]