Coming off of my excellent Polaris trip from Dulles, I now had about four hours to kill before the next leg of my journey.  Because I was swapping from United to Iberia, I couldn’t access the very nice Brussels Loft.  Instead – I had access to the Brussels Terminal A Diamond Lounge, which worked for Iberia business class passengers as well as serving as a priority pass lounge.  Having done some research on the lounge, I came in expecting to be underwhelmed… which was an accurate foreshadowing of what was to come.

As a reminder, for internal “house” reviews, we score on the same 1-3 scale we use elsewhere. A 3 indicates that a given category exceeded reviewer expectations, a 2 indicates it met expectations, and a 1 failed to meet expectations. We evaluate the categories we believe are most relevant to the flight, hotel, or lounge experience.

Name of Lounge: Diamond Lounge

Location: Terminal A, Schengen

Time/Length of Visit: 7 AM – 11:00 AM

Date of Visit: 4/12/19

Seating – 2/3

Seating was sufficient for most of the time I was there (7 AM – 11:00 AM), although the lounge got quite crowded at 10:30 AM.  Many seats were frayed and torn – signs that the lounge would be refreshed were abundant, so maybe that’s changing.  The high chairs were not super comfortable but had the most power outlet options.  Overall, seating was average.  

Drinks – 2/3

The drinks were probably the strongest offering, with plenty of beer, wine, liquor, soda, two coffee/espresso machines (which dispensed good enough coffee).  Unfortunately, after having just the right amount of alcohol on my last flight (i.e., a bit too much), I wasn’t in a rush to drink any more at… 7 AM.  Still, if you were here at other times, you’d be able to successfully get your drink on.    

Food – 1/3

Food was pretty mediocre, with decent croissants (it is Brussels, after all), and then some yogurt and cold cuts, which I didn’t try.  I didn’t take pictures as people were pretty actively going at the cold cuts the few times I went by and I didn’t want to be a creeper.  But the quality seemed good enough.

Cleanliness – 2/3

Overall, the lounge wasn’t as clean as a lounge could and should be.  Not gross level dirty, but enough to be noticeable.  It didn’t feel like the staff were coming through to collect plates and clean very often or generally tidying up.  One could argue a correlation effect with the lack of concerted correlation. 

Bathrooms – 2/3

Bathrooms were average.  They were clean enough but pretty industrial in nature – nothing to really set the bathroom apart or feel warm in any way.  No showers at this lounge.

WiFi – 2/3

WiFi was good enough to do work.  I wasn’t watching videos but no complaints at all for working and looking up reviews for Premium Travel Insider. 

Views – 1/3

There were some tarmac views – nothing special, but you could see the Ryanair planes come in and out. 

Brussels Terminal A Diamond Lounge Overall – 1.5/3

Overall it was… fine.  Which was exactly what I expected going in, and exactly what I got.  What was frustrating (in the land of “First World AvGeek problems”) was knowing the Brussels Loft was next door with superior offerings… and I was cut out.  If only Star Alliance had the flights I needed for this leg, but they did not, and so the Diamond lounge was my refuge.