If you are flying out of Milan on British Airways, which airport should you fly out of for the best BA lounge experience? Malpensa (MPX) vs. Linate (LIN).
Once you arrive at either airport in Milan, we have reviewed the best hotel executive club lounges in Milan.
Free Airport Lounge Access
If you have not paid for Business Class or First Class, you can access lounges at this airport for a fee or for free if you have a Priority Pass. Get an unlimited Priority Pass with the Amex Platinum card, or you can also access most Priority Pass lounges for free using the free American Express Gold with its two free Lounge Club passes. To get extra referral points and advice on these free-lounge-access cards and more, have a read of our best credit cards for luxury travel.
1. Milan Linate British Airways Lounge
This lounge is a smart rectangular room with coffee machines and a dining area on one side and sofa seating and partitions on the other side. There are no windows or views in this lounge.
The great thing about this lounge is that it has just had a major refresh! Improvements include catering and bespoke furniture and lighting. The lounge reopened 25th Oct 2019 and includes a new look reception, a brighter environment, new seating, and powered hub tables for “perfect working conditions”.
Enhanced dining options include the introduction of hot dishes such as scrambled eggs in the mornings as well as the usual sandwiches, small salads, pizza slices, filled croissants, cakes, and yogurt. Snacks throughout the day are fresh fruit, biscuits, crisps, and nuts. There is also a bar area in the lounge where you can pick up alcoholic drinks.
Brand new British-made Boss armchairs, specifically designed for British Airways, are complemented by relaxing, decorative lighting by UK-based Tyson lighting. Adapting the lounge design to the location, high-quality Italian finishes are used, including terrazzo stone flooring and Carrara marble.
The terminal itself is pretty drab and dated, so this lounge is a luxurious rest bite and much better than sitting at your departure gate in an otherwise uninteresting terminal.
Another advantage of flying out of Linate is that it is close to central Milan. On a Friday afternoon, or at any rush hour, a taxi ride to Malpensa can take up to 3 hours. This is why many travelers prefer to fly out of Linate.
The disadvantage of this lounge is that the bathrooms are outside the lounge, airport-operated, and not part of the lounge.
2. Milan Malpensa British Airways Lounge
Malpensa MXP is a modern (ish) Terraces lounge with good food and drinks, including alcohol. The Malpensa lounge is large and fairly good, but Malpensa is quite a way out of town, around 50km away, which is expensive by taxi and can take a long time! There’s an express train to get to MXP if you can get to a station on the line. Otherwise, it is less convenient than Linate.
Until last year, the Milan Malpensa British Airways Lounge was better, but since the refurbishment of the Linate lounge, the Malpensa lounge is now the one showing its age and is the worst of the two lounges.
The food on offer is similar, but without the hot options. Biscuits and cakes, corn flakes, cereal boxes, nuts, and green olives along with olive bread, cheese and ham wraps, sandwiches, eggs, fruit, juice, and soft drinks (bottles, not cans).
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Image courtesy of British Airways.
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