Plaza Premium Lounge (international)

Came here before a morning flight because I had a voucher from a credit card. It was nice to stop somewhere to eat and relax before flying. This lounge was pretty easy to find near my gate, and the entrance seemed quite polished and extravagant. It was decorated with Christmas trees for the season as well! You take an elevator up to the next floor where the buffet and bar are. The breakfast buffet was okay... regular scrambled eggs, sausages, and some hash browns that were kind of soggy. Breakfast food at a domestic lounge never impresses me lol. I enjoyed their tea selection though! I liked that they had Earth's Own Barista soy milk, free to use. They also had a wide range of cold salads and little cake desserts. I didn't try them though. I tried some of the yogurt which was pretty good too. Nice couches and a relaxing atmosphere in general. Service was very attentive and helpful.

When you compare the lounge to sitting by the gate there's just no comparison the lounge is packed, the service is slow, and some things are shut off to save on the budget. Avoid frustration and enjoy the terminal instead, even if your access is free it just isn't worth the stop.

Sadly there are a limited selection of lounges for flights United States bound. Plaza Premium Lounge is where I ended up. Breakfast selection was ok with scrambled eggs, waffles, cereal, and pastries. They also have a salad bar. Highlights of this lounge are the showers, coffee machine and open bar. Plaza Premium is an OK lounge to relax at prior to your flight.

Other than an Air Canada lounge, the Plaza Premium Lounge is the only other lounge available in the US outbound terminal. It 's a a very small lounge but it is a 100X upgrade after the renovation of the old lounge when it was even more cramped and there were seats so dirty you would want to sit on. The lounge opens at 0500 which is perfect for me because I always seem to be flying out no later than 0630. Despite of being a small lounge, I have to give thumbs up ti the hot item selections: scrambled eggs which do not taste like reconstituted egg powder, breakfast wieners with casing that pops upon biting into, and crispy hash browns. The coffee machines provide a number of coffee options. The foods are much better than first class breakfast offerings on short haul flights to the US. The bar doesn 't open till 0900 but it is likely due to local regulations which are archaic and puritanical. The decor of the lounge isn 't very inspiring but it is limited probably to size. One suggestion to the check in agent ... I was asked how can I help you? upon approaching the front desk. What could I possibly be going into the lounge for??? I have never been asked such a question going into any airline airport lounge. Say welcome to the Plaza Premium Lounge. May I see your membership and your boarding pass please? This single question from the argent gives off a vibe that the lounge is not equipped with serving experienced travelers.

We decided to try Plaza Premium Lounge in the International Terminal, during our layover in YVR. Although we heard great things about the Air Canada lounge nearby, I've enjoyed some Plaza Premium Lounges in Asia in the past, so I figured it was a pretty safe bet in YVR. First off, the check-in process seemed a bit antiquated. Instead of scanning our boarding passes/passports like every other lounge I've ever been to, they looked our names up on a paper printout they already had behind the counter. I'm guessing because we were flying Business Class with ANA that our names happened to be on there, but it was certainly an odd check-in process for 2023. While the lounge itself is fairly spacious, we found the lounge filled up pretty quickly as passengers were nearing their flight times. Thankfully, we were able to snag our choice of seating early on before the rush. The seats and decor were pretty old and outdated, and desperately in need of replacement. Outlets were limited, and a single outlet needed to be shared between two seats. Added to the fact that seemingly a decent number of outlets were not even working forced us to seat hop around a few times until we could find a working one. There's not a large selection of hot foods available, but we appreciate the fact that they kept the trays pretty full. There were two different hot soup options available as well, one of which was labeled as some variety of chicken vegetable noodle soup. Unfortunately, while there were certainly a gracious amount of veggies in the soup, I couldn't find a single piece of chicken. There are quite a few non-alcoholic drinks available, as well as a limited selection of alcoholic varieties. For some reason they keep all of the dessert in a glass case near the bar, accessible only to the bartender on duty. So we needed to pester him every time we wanted a few cubes of cake. It didn't help that the bartender only understood limited English, so he often served us the wrong dessert pieces.