Recently, the Plaza Premium Lounge at the Vancouver Airport located in the international departures terminal was closed and re-opened in a larger space. The new “flagship lounge” opened on December 2, 2024. Joins us on a quick tour and review of the new lounge!

Location: 

The new Plaza Premium Lounge YVR (International Departures – Pier D) is located between gates D67 and D68.  For hours, check the most up-to-date info here.

Access: 

Note that this lounge is only accessible to passengers departing on flights to an International destination (departing from a Pier D gate). 

The lounge is divided into 2 sections – one “regular” lounge area for all passengers, and a dedicated “Plaza Premium First” area. Currently, the only way to access this area is by paying an extra $30 CAD per person (this is on top of your original method of access for the regular lounge).

At the time of our visit the lounge was already fairly busy when we arrived, and quickly reached capacity with many passengers having to join a waitlist. However, it appeared that the “First” section remained almost empty the entire time.

Overall Impression:

While this lounge might be slightly above-average when compared to offerings at most North American airports, we thought it was still rather disappointing overall. Perhaps our expectations were too high as we were pleasantly surprised by the previous Plaza Premium upgrade to their YVR Transborder lounge, and we’re excited to see what improvements would be in store for this new flagship lounge.

However, in general we found: 

+The space is new and in good condition 

+The staff were friendly 

-The regular lounge space is still fairly small and feels cramped, with narrow access to move through the lounge from the entrance/exit and most seating to the food/beverage areas.

-Food offerings are average overall (with the exception of the noodle bar) The options were mostly the same as the YVR Plaza Premium Domestic or Transborder lounges 

-The bar was self serve with limited options

-There were not enough bathrooms and they were not very clean

-Even with most options being self-serve, staffing felt a bit sparse for the number of passengers when busy

Check out our other lounge reviews here.

Do you think it is worth paying $30 more per person to access the “First Class” section? Have you been? If yes, what did you think?