The Plaza Premium Lounge in Changi Airport’s Terminal 1 is one of my favourite airport lounges of all time. I’ll look forward to visiting the lounge before my flight out of Singapore.
I’ve actually visited this lounge multiple times in the past, but never got a chance to fully review my experience. I finally got the chance to do it during our flight from Singapore to Dubai for our month-long Middle East trip!
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This blog post is a review of our experience in the Plaza Premium Lounge at Singapore’s Changi Airport Terminal 1.
Basic Information
Opening Hours: 24 hours daily
| Access Method |
|---|
| American Express Platinum Charge Card |
| Paid entry with various packages |
Unfortunately, Priority Pass members were no longer able to access Plaza Premium Lounges after the 2 companies ended their partnership in July 2021.
Luckily for Singapore residents, if you have an American Express Platinum Charge Card, you’ll still be able to access these lounges. In my opinion, Plaza Premium lounges are one of the better airport lounges. Because of this alone, makes holding the AMEX Platinum Charge Card worth its high annual fee.
AMEX Platinum Charge cardholders can access the Plaza Premium Lounge for free together with 1 guest.
If you do not have an applicable credit card, you can consider paying for a lounge pass. However, we typically do not advocate for spending money on lounge access as they are usually exorbitantly expensive and there are many ways to access them for free.
Location
The Plaza Premium Lounge in Terminal 1 is located a short 5 minutes walk after clearing immigration. After immigration, turn left and walk towards the Lotte Duty-Free and Uniqlo shop at the end of the walkway.
Over there, you’ll see a sign and an escalator that leads you to the Plaza Premium Lounge.
Experience
The Plaza Premium Lounge can be split into 3 distinct sections.
The first section is the plane viewing gallery area where there are many small lounge sofas for guests to relax in. During the day, guests can get a panoramic view of the runway.
It tends to be the most crowded around here, with most seats taken whenever we visit the lounge. We visited the lounge on a Saturday night this time and there were barely any empty seats available.
The second area is the single honeycomb clusters where guests who prefer more privacy can relax at. Similar to the first area, the honeycomb seats are fully packed during our visit and we did not manage to find an available seat there.
The arrangement here is very similar to that of the Plaza Premium Lounge in Taipei Taoyuan Airport, with lounge chairs and single honeycomb seats.
The third and final section is the standard sit-down area beside the food counters. There are only a couple of tables here, yet there were barely taken. We typically prefer to sit on these tables as they are more comfortable for dining in and doing work.
Food and Drinks
Typical of other Plaza Premium Lounges we’ve visited, the food section is split into 2 – a buffet and an ala-carte menu.
The buffet spread is pretty extensive and changes according to the time of the day. There was hot food like coconut rice and a salad bar for those who are more health conscious.
On the side, there’s also Chicken Porridge with condiments.
The ala-carte menu is my favourite out of all the lounges because it has Hainanese Chicken Rice and Laksa. This never fails to be my final meal before flying out of Singapore every time.
I can’t say it’s the best chicken rice I’ve ever had, but it does get the job done.
As for beverages, they have the usual coffee machine, tea counter and soft drinks fridge.
There is an alcoholic bar counter at a corner of the lounge. Unfortunately, beverages here are not free and cost extra.
Amenities
Bathroom
The bathroom is pretty standard over here. It isn’t as good as the bathrooms I’ve experienced in Japanese lounges like the ANA Lounges. You can’t expect warm toilet seats, but you can expect a clean and large space to do your “business”.
Shower Room
There are shower rooms in the Plaza Premium Lounge. However, I haven’t got a chance to visit due to the long wait needed.
As typical of airport lounges, you’ll need to get a shower room queue number when checking into the lounge. During our visit, we had to wait more than 2 hours. This is similar to our experience at the Changi Lounge at Jewel.
Conclusion
Plaza Premium Lounges are 1 of my favourite airport lounge networks in the world and the branch in Changi Airport’s Terminal 1 does not disappoint. I’ll choose to visit this over the nearby SATS Premier Lounge if I’m flying economy.
It is also typically less crowded than other lounges as it does not admit Priority Pass members. This has started becoming a problem recently as travel begins to pick up again and lounges start to get overcrowded with Priority Pass members. SATS Premier Lounge has routinely turned away members because they were at capacity. We have almost never had this issue at this Plaza Premium Lounge.
And most importantly, it has my favourite Hainanese Chicken Rice which I must have before every flight out of the country.
