I’ve finally arrived in Hong Kong from Taipei!
Since EVA Air and British Airways don’t have an interline agreement, I had to clear immigration and re-check my luggage. Fortunately, I had plenty of time between flights, so it wasn’t much of an issue. My next leg was Hong Kong to London in business class, booked using the BA Amex Voucher for just 50,000 Avios plus £42.60 in taxes and fees. I even received a tax refund afterwards, which made the deal even sweeter.
My original plan was to visit the Sky Bar, then the Qantas Lounge, and perhaps the Plaza Premium First Lounge if time allowed. I chose Qantas because I’d already visited Cathay Pacific’s business-class lounges before, and I’d heard Qantas was actually the better lounge experience.
As it turned out, fate had other plans!
At the end of last year, I used an American Airlines promotion to match into Oneworld Emerald status for four months and attached the status to this booking so I could select seats for free. The status had long since expired and reverted to basic membership, but thanks to some wonderfully broken IT systems, British Airways still showed me as Emerald when I checked in!
Well, there was only one possible response to that: straight to Cathay Pacific’s The Pier First Class Lounge 玉衡堂. I’d been wanting to visit for ages, and who knows when I’d get another opportunity. Cathay’s The Wing First Class Lounge had also just reopened, but the current entry rules are quite strict (Cathay Pacific First Class and Diamond members only).
After arriving at Hong Kong Airport and reclaiming my luggage, I headed back upstairs to the departures hall to wait for check-in to open. I was still slightly nervous as I approached the First Class check-in counters, but when I received my boarding pass, Emerald was there in giant letters. The agent even reminded me that I could use the First Class lounges.
With plenty of time to spare, I spent a while at the Sky Bar first (more on that in the next post), before making my way to The Pier. First of all, here’s a lounge map created by @Mr. Miles:
Hong Kong Airport is huge, and The Pier is located almost at the very end of the terminal. Passing The Deck lounge 逸连堂 was the first sign that I was finally getting close.
The Pier’s First and Business Class sections are completely separate. The entrance itself is surprisingly understated, and you need to take a lift down into the lounge.
My first impression? It’s actually quite small. The colour palette, materials, and overall design felt very similar to the Cathay lounges I frequent in London. It’s certainly not bad, but it didn’t exactly scream luxury either.
There are private workrooms available for those who need them.
Following the advice from countless online reviews, the first thing I did upon entering was try to book a massage. Unfortunately, I was told all appointments for the day had already been taken. A lady nearby mentioned she’d arrived around 5 p.m. and was still waiting for her slot now, at over 8 p.m.
Since I was already here, I figured I might as well have a shower. Thankfully, there wasn’t much of a wait for that.
After freshening up, I headed to one of the Day Suites for a rest.
Now these were genuinely impressive. The rooms are spacious and feature large windows, making them ideal whether you want to sleep, work, read, or simply watch aircraft movements outside.
Next came the food. There’s a small buffet area offering coffee, soft drinks, pastries, and fruit.
But let’s be honest: nobody comes to The Pier First for the buffet. I planned to sleep as soon as I boarded, so I wanted a proper meal beforehand.
The dining room is enormous, seemingly occupying nearly half the lounge.
Everything is à la carte, and the menu for the evening looked like this.
Honestly, I struggled with it. Not a single one of the six main courses appealed to me personally. That’s obviously a matter of taste, but it certainly didn’t help. To keep things simple, I ordered the tasting menu instead:
After finishing, I realised I could barely remember what I’d just eaten. The portions were tiny as well. I ended up ordering Cathay’s famous Dan Dan noodles afterwards.
If this had been British Airways or another European airline lounge, I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it. But receiving food of this quality in an Asian First Class lounge felt rather disappointing.
I entered The Pier with enormous expectations and left feeling distinctly underwhelmed. Perhaps the lounge simply doesn’t photograph as well at night, and maybe I was unlucky with the menu selection that day. But aside from the excellent Day Suites, I honestly struggled to identify any standout positives.
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