Check out our Top Rewards Cards to boost your points earning and travel more!
Bogotá Airport’s refreshed Terminal 1 has two airline lounge choices for Priority Pass members: Avianca and LAN. Which to choose?
Short answer: LAN.
Sorry, hometown Avianca.
Avianca has a Diamond lounge for its own top-tier flyers that is not accessible by Star Alliance Gold or Priority Pass.
The main lounge is huge and utilitarian.
Food offerings do not rise above mini sandwiches and sugary sodas.
Periodicals say a lot about a lounge and this one only has local El País.
The showers are nice and the amenity packet contained L’Occitane products that are going straight to my wife.
There is a large kids area so families may enjoy Avianca.
The lounge closes at 23:00 with the last Avianca flights and does not reopen till 06:30.
LAN is open till 03:00 and reopens at 02:00 for its flights throughout the night.
LAN is smaller though in every respect is higher quality.
Bathrooms are private and nice. I did not inspect the showers.
Seating areas are varied and classy. There are various tables, chains, sofas and lounger chairs.
A full range of publications is on offer.
The food includes sushi, fresh cookies, ice cream cups, and a wide range of local beers, fruit drinks and teas. The bottled white tea with mangosteen is excellent. Any lounge that serves anything with mangosteen wins my affection.
For domestic flights, both the main terminal and separate Puento Aéreo have Avianca lounges. I could not access either because my Copa flight to San Andres Island was in a separate, disconnected domestic wing.
(Note: my Diners Club app claimed that there is a 3rd, non-airline lounge after international immigration. I saw no sign of it. Perhaps a casualty of renovations.)
Check Out Our: Top Rewards Cards ¦ Newsletter ¦ Twitter ¦ Facebook ¦ Instagram
Thanks for this article, Stefan. In regards to everyone’s comments about this article not being useful…it’s the internet. It’s everywhere, for everyone. As advertised, this article helped me decide between which lounge to use in Bogota during a 7-hour layover. Very helpful.
It’s a post on the difference between two lounges in a country that most americans have no desire to visit (rightly so, for safety reasons). If they did, which lounge they choose to visit is of relatively little consequence. And even if it were of consequence, the likelihood of people remembering your selection when the time came for them to use it is incredibly small. IOW: very narrow appeal. Would have rather seen your posts on what to see in Columbia, what hotels, how to be safe, etc. Is the “white tea with mangosteen is excellent” gonna be the takeaway… Read more »
@anonymous – narrow appeal to the general traveler, though this is the kind of thing much of the core BoardingArea audience loves, both as practical tip and travel porn if they don’t ever visit. This trip was only transit, I visited Colombia extensively in 2007 pre-blog, though I will post on my destination this trip, the Colombian Caribbean islands of San Andres & Providencia, which, too, will be limited appeal to English-language audience though should be destinations on the radar. Colombia has changed dramatically in the past few years in terms of tourist appeal and improved safety, getting a handle… Read more »
Filed under “info i’ll most likely never ever need”
@anonymous – because you don’t travel to one of South America’s great highlights, don’t know how to get lounge access on the cheap, or both?