Amex Australia cut Priority Pass for additional cardholders and halved Plaza Premium guests on October 1

News and analysis · Sources checked October 6, 2026.

The second half of American Express Australia's 2026 lounge cuts took effect on October 1. According to Amex's own lounge update page, Additional and Employee Card Members on Australian-issued Platinum cards no longer receive a complimentary Priority Pass membership, and the free guest allowance at Plaza Premium lounges drops from two to one for Platinum Personal and Platinum Business cardholders. Corporate Platinum keeps two Plaza Premium guests.

The changes were announced in March, when Point Hacks first reported them, and they landed in the same week Amex shut its Sydney and Melbourne Centurion Lounges for two weeks of works. We covered the closures separately; this piece is only about the access rules, which outlast any renovation.

What changed, exactly

Priority Pass. Until September 30, the primary cardholder and one additional cardholder each received their own unlimited Priority Pass membership. Now only the primary holder can enrol. The primary member still gets one complimentary guest at Priority Pass lounges that admit guests. An additional cardholder who had an active membership should expect it to stop working, not to be grandfathered.

Plaza Premium. Primary and additional cardholders still get in, which is the important part. The cut is to guests: one free, where it used to be two. Unlike the Centurion rule, there is no requirement that the guest be on your flight.

Centurion, for context. The Centurion changes were the July 8 tranche: one guest instead of two, the guest must hold a reservation on the same flight, and layover access is limited to within five hours of the connecting flight. Those rules did not change on October 1. Amex has also dropped Lufthansa lounge access from the Australian Global Lounge Collection entirely.

Who actually loses something

The additional-cardholder change is the one that hurts, and it hurts a specific type of household: two people who travel separately on the same account. A spouse who flies for work on their own additional card used to carry their own Priority Pass. Now they do not, and the primary cardholder's guest allowance is useless when the primary cardholder is at home.

If the two of you travel together, less changes than it sounds. One Priority Pass membership plus one guest still gets a couple into The House or Marhaba. And at Plaza Premium, both cardholders are admitted on their own cards, so a couple with one additional card can still bring two guests between them.

Solo additional cardholders have three realistic options at Sydney and Melbourne. Plaza Premium is still open to them on the Amex card. The Centurion Lounges are still open to them (once the October works finish). And for anything Priority Pass-only, they need a different Priority Pass source, a day pass, or a Qantas or Virgin lounge through status or fare.

What that looks like at Sydney and Melbourne

At Sydney T1, the Priority Pass options are The House, which opens at 05:00 and sits before gate 50, and Plaza Premium opposite gates 25 and 26. Plaza Premium is the one additional cardholders keep, and it is the better of the two anyway, with showers included rather than behind an AUD 20 upgrade. Note the two-hour cap on Priority Pass visits there; the Amex route to Plaza Premium is the one that matters for a longer stay.

At Melbourne T2, the loss is more annoying because the Marhaba Lounge is the highest-rated lounge at the airport in our data and it is Priority Pass only. The Plaza Premium Lounge near gate 9 is a fine substitute from 08:30, but it does not open early enough for the first wave of departures, and Marhaba does.

The Centurion Lounges at Sydney and Melbourne remain the strongest option for anyone on the card, primary or additional, as soon as they reopen.

Our take

Amex Australia framed the March announcement as a mix of a higher foreign exchange fee and some lounge trimming. Taken together, the Platinum card now offers one fewer Priority Pass membership, half the Plaza Premium guests, half the Centurion guests with a same-flight condition, and no Lufthansa lounges, all within seven months. Nothing was added.

Removing Priority Pass from additional cardholders is the kind of cut that does not show up in a headline benefit list, because "Priority Pass included" is still technically true. But the people who valued it most are exactly the households that justified a second card on the account. If that is you, the honest question is whether the additional card still earns its place, or whether the second traveller is better served by a separate card that carries its own lounge membership.