- Sala VIP Mediterraneo, Palma de Mallorca
- Swiss PMI-ZRH
- Swiss Senator Lounge A, Zurich
- Brussels Airlines ZRH-BRU
- NH Collections Brussels Centre & Eurostar
After spending a night in Palma, it was time to get back on the road and continue Lufthansa’s 100k-mile challenge. The first leg of the day was a SWISS flight to Zurich. Since it was an intra-Schengen flight, there was no need to arrive too early, although Palma airport is genuinely huge.
There’s no airline-operated lounge here, but there are four third-party lounges that accept Priority Pass. I checked the ratings and Sala VIP Mediterraneo came out on top. It also happened to be close to my gate, so I went with that.
I scanned my boarding pass and was waved straight in, so there’s some sort of cooperation with SWISS. The conditions were genuinely decent, and even at just 11 am there was already plenty of hot food. It looked like there were some proper dishes as well, but since I’d already had breakfast, I skipped them.
I was assigned an exit-row seat today, which I was quite happy with given the nearly two-hour flight time.
I was just going to sit down quietly like the other flights but this one turned out to be rather unusual. A flight attendant suddenly came over and started talking to me, and became very excited after she learned about my Chinese origin. It all made sense when she said she’s from Serbia, and it was a nice chat.
After Frankfurt, Zurich also boasts as many as seven SWISS business class lounges. I briefly checked online reviews, which said the Senator Lounge in Concourse A (the Schengen area) is often overcrowded, and I was wondering whether to look for a backup. However, it turned out there weren’t many people that day.
I snapped a couple of quick photos. It was perfectly fine, but definitely not as grand or impressive as the Senator Lounge at Frankfurt.
As for the food, it looked promising at first glance: there was an Asian them and I was very happy to see chicken curry and Thai soup.
Then I took a bite, and my god It was awful. The chicken soup was so bland it tasted like plain hot water, while the chicken hurry seemed to have loads of sugar dumped into it. This might genuinely be the worst lounge food I’ve ever had.
On the bright side, something fun happened: I met three other fellow travellers in the lounge, all chasing the same Lufthansa challenge. We were all flying PMI-ZRH-BRU that day, which is clearly a classic route for that purpose.
Next up was the Brussels Airlines flight. The four of us Senators were all assigned aisle or window seats in the first two rows of economy.
Since I had booked the Eurostar back to London for the following day, I didn’t stay near the airport and instead chose the NH Collection Brussels Centre. Brussels has plenty of hotel options and prices are reasonable. I picked this one mainly because GHA had recently given me a D$50 birthday credit, which I used here.
Technically my GHA status had already soft-landed to Platinum, but due to a system delay the welcome letter still said Titanium. I booked a single room and, strictly following the rules, was upgraded by two levels to a Premium Double.
I was only sleeping there, so didn’t check out the hotel’s facilities or breakfast (not included anyway). The next morning it was a half-hour walk to Brussels Zuid / Midi station to catch the Eurostar.
I travelled the same route on year ago, in the Eurostar Plus cabin, and this time I bought a standard class ticket. The journey is only about two hours anyway, and standard class is perfectly comfortable, especially since I was travelling with just a backpack. And the concludes the second part of my Lufthansa challenge, where all four flight segments posted within three days.
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