Aspire's three-tier lounges: what Luxe and Suite cost at Birmingham and Copenhagen, and when to pay

News and analysis · Sources checked October 6, 2026.

Aspire, the Swissport-owned lounge brand, has finished turning Birmingham into the clearest example yet of its three-tier model. The refurbished and enlarged Aspire Lounge by Gate 1 reopened in early June, and two new lounges followed on June 23 in a new corridor linking the north and south ends of the terminal, Luxe by Aspire and Suite by Aspire, according to InsideFlyer. The old North lounge closed to make room for restaurants. The plan was announced by Birmingham Airport in May with a summer target, and for once the target held. Head for Points reviewed all three at the end of August, so there is now enough on record to judge the model.

Copenhagen got the same idea first. Aspire's rebuilt lounge by the A gates, which opened in December 2025, pairs a standard Aspire Executive Lounge with a Suite by Aspire inside it, a format Future Travel Experience described as a two-tier concept with champagne on arrival and à la carte dining in the Suite. Birmingham adds the middle rung.

The three tiers, priced

At Birmingham, the ladder works like this:

• Aspire Lounge (135 seats, South, near Gate 1): the standard product. Buffet, bar, families welcome, and the one that Priority Pass sends you to by default. Pre-booking from £42.99.
• Luxe by Aspire (104 seats, North): a quieter, more adult room with booth seating, in-floor charging, prosecco and spirits included, hot and cold buffet. £52.99 to book direct, or a £15 upgrade on top of Priority Pass or DragonPass entry.
• Suite by Aspire (52 seats, North, adults only): table service, an à la carte menu, sparkling wine and a wider wine list. £62.99 direct, or a £22 upgrade with a lounge card.

Both north lounges run 03:30 to 20:30 in summer and from 04:00 or 04:30 in winter, with a three-hour maximum stay and Aspire's delay cover for direct bookings. Suite is 18 and over; Luxe allows children but is pitched at business and upscale leisure travellers, which in practice means it is quieter than the South lounge at 6am on a school holiday.

In Copenhagen the standard Aspire Lounge costs DKK 339 per person to pay in, and the Suite upgrade is DKK 199 for three hours with à la carte dining, per Copenhagen Airport. Priority Pass, LoungeKey, DragonPass and DreamFolks are accepted for the base lounge, which may restrict card holders in the early afternoon.

Does the upgrade make sense?

The honest answer is that it depends on which card you hold and how busy the base lounge is.

If you have Priority Pass or DragonPass, the £15 Luxe upgrade at Birmingham is good value on a busy morning, because the base Aspire Lounge is where the card holders are and Luxe is where they are not. The £22 Suite upgrade is harder to justify: InsideFlyer's review noted that Suite shares its bathrooms and buffet with Luxe, that the separation between the two is a glass partition and velvet curtains, and that with no airline contract yet the room was running near empty. Empty is nice. Paying extra for a slightly nicer chair in a room that feeds from the same kitchen is less obviously nice.

If you are paying full price, the gap between £42.99 and £62.99 buys you table service and an à la carte menu, which is a genuinely different experience from a buffet, but you are also paying hotel-restaurant money for a short visit before a Ryanair flight. Compare the alternatives before you decide: the No1 Lounge and its premium Clubrooms are the other pay-in options at Birmingham, and Emirates passengers have their own lounge.

In Copenhagen the sum is simpler. DKK 199 is a modest upgrade on a DKK 339 base, and the Aspire Lounge there is small and may turn card holders away between 12:00 and 16:00, so the Suite upgrade is one way around a full room. SAS passengers with status should still prefer the SAS Lounge.

Our take

Tiering is Aspire's answer to a problem the card networks created. Priority Pass sends more people into the base lounge than it can comfortably hold, and the operator's only ways to cope are to turn people away or to sell them a way out of the crowd. Luxe is the honest version of that trade: a reasonable fee for a reasonably different room. Suite is the aspirational version, and until an airline buys into it, it is a premium label on an overflow space. We would pay £15 for Luxe without thinking. We would pay £22 for Suite once, to see it, and then go back to Luxe.