Turkish Airlines Gold Istanbul Lounge

This huge lounge is, surprisingly, just for economy class passengers with the right Frequent Flyer card, although there is nothing to stop Business Class passengers popping in too.

The new Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles Istanbul Lounge is up on a balcony, architecturally inspiring, and almost the same as it's Business Class cousin on the opposite side of the concourse.

This enormous lounge can accommodate more than 750 passengers, which is a good thing since quite a few classes of passengers have access to it, and it also has different types of seating throughout the lounge to give you the choice of relaxing on a plush sofa or sitting up at a table with some Turkish food.

With a multitude of place to eat, and different places to sit, there are also a huge number of things to do, the one surprise is that there is no bar in the lounge, and any type of alcohol is hard to track down.

Istanbul Turkish Airlines Gold lounge review

The Turkish Airlines Gold Istanbul Lounge is huge - it is 5,600 square meters, and the lounge can accommodate up to 765 people seated, and is designed for 4000 passengers a day.

It is gigantic but this multiplicity of areas breaks up the impression of size, gives more variety so you can find something that works for you.

There are restaurants, cinema, pool room, library, even a toy racing car game. Food is good, and you can watch everything from Pide to pizza being cooked in the Turkish Airlines Istanbul Business Class lounge. Drinks are set on booze trolleys around the lounge. And it always has a sense of space.

Access is on the opposite side of the shopping area from the main Turkish Airlines business class lounge in Istanbul, near Gate E1 and up the escalators, to the left hand side of the main international departures hall next to the Cafe Crown, where some pretty stern bouncers will check your boarding card thoroughly.

Then at the top of the escalators, there is a separate security check, and there is the novel feature of automated entry to the lounge, via automated gates with bar code readers.

Once you're in, the new Istanbul Turkish Airlines lounge is spread before you. You firstly see the grand piano, before the whole of the lounge is spread open to you, and you get to see the library, and cinema, the slot car game, and the coffee room.

Don't forget to leave your luggage in one of the automated luggage machines by the Turkish Airlines Istanbul lounge entry.

As you explore around the lounge you find the patisserie, massage & relaxation rooms, shower facilities, a library, and a movie room and popcorn.

Taking a walk through these seating areas in the Turkish Airlines Istanbul Gold lounge, as you walk in by the airside entrance, you'll walk past several cooking stations, made of what looks like stone with a wooden overhead trellises plus wooden tubs with trees. If you go through the large circular arches there isa small coffee room.

There are comfortable squashy armchairs dotted throughout the lounge, although they are fairly scarce, and at peaks times (7am and 10pm) finding somewhere to sit can be a problem.

Next up in the Istanbul Turkish Airlines lounge is a huge flat-screen TV area with 12 TV screens, screwed to the wall, which shows Turkish news TV channels. There are quite a few other large TVs in the lounge too, all on Turkish TV, apart from one in the central area which shows CNN.

Walk further around the Istanbul Turkish Airlines lounge, and there is the cinema. Showing DVDs, the seats here are lovely and comfortable huge black leather recliners. There is a popcorn machine at the entrance.

At the far end of the lounge, to keep children out of the way, there is a play room for children and private infant room also available for passengers travelling with their children. It is, rather inevitably, called the Miles and Smiles heroes area.

Don't forget the three separate eating areas, and if you get hungry there are also other tables with pastries and olives laid out on them. It's vast, but alas is already starting to age, and parts are getting pretty squalid, with huge piles of rubbish heaping up just after midday when there seems to be a cleaner change over.

Food

If there is one thing that defines the Istanbul Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Gold lounge it is food. There are a vast array of options to suit Western and middle eastern tastes, even if it does lean a little towards the latter.

The main dining area is in the middle of the lounge, and is designed to look like a series of stone huts, joined by overhanging wooden trellises, which covers it from the tall vast ceiling of the airport and somehow manages to feel more intimate. Although there are numerous small side tables and chairs which also span the area, if you want somewhere more conventional.

There is a barbecue grill where Do&Co chefs prepare kofte (meatballs) plus Pide. And Prejudice is not evident against western catering either, with salads, meat pies, ham and cheese all available.

Throughout the main thoroughfare however are multiple live cooking stations making a range of omelettes, Pides and other Turkish delicacies.

In the morning it's possible to get a full cooked English, with a kitchen in full view serving sausages, eggs, mushrooms and grilled tomatoes. Yogurt and muesli is available for those with a healthier bent.

Further up there are a couple more stalls making other dishes, although about as western as it gets is one stall making pizza, and a small tub of curry.

Dotted around the lounge are the pastry carts, plus olive trolleys. These have a huge number of olives (from small and green, to black and stuffed) in wooden bowls.

However the highlight of the lounge is the four sided tiered salad bar, with numerous options. Here, there are a dozen different bowls of salad, and about 50 types of dressing on the top of the fridge.

Bar

The real surprise about the Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Gold Istanbul Lounge is there is no bar!

Instead there is a small trolley with a few bottles of wine, hidden near the Pide stand.

Don't miss the other drinks trolley. The wooden carts have Turkish wine at one end, and about 40 types of free pour spirits. Oddities and rarities are in there, from different types of whisky, to five types of gin.

Soft drinks are in many of the vast fridges around the lounge, and include Organic Apple Juice, Eker Ayran, Sour Cherry, homemade mint and non-mint lemonade. There is a juice machine, and a real cappuccino machine.

Business Facilities

A work area offers several iMac computers and a printer.

Lockers make it easy to secure your luggage to let you enjoy the lounge's amenities.

There is a decent computer room, with eight iMacs, plus some other iMacs in other areas of the lounge, with four computers arranged on a circular shelf attached to the pillars.

There is of course free wi-fi in the lounge, which while not spectacularly fast, is certainly useable. To use it get a voucher from the machine at the entrance.

One ten person meeting room is available.

Newspapers - piles of them - are on the newspaper carts. Few however are in English.

Bathrooms

There are a dozen private suites with showers.

Showers are very good at the Turkish Airlines lounge Istanbul, and a vast improvement over the old lounge, with special toiletry kits (ask at the desk by the showers for these).

Access

All Turkish Airlines business-class passengers have access to the lounge, as do economy-class passengers flying Turkish Airlines or one of its Star Alliance partners who are members of Miles & Smiles Elite and Elite Plus, Turkish Airlines Corporate Club, or Star Alliance Gold members.

It is not possible to buy your way in, if you are in economy or comfort class (premium economy), however there are plenty of other pay in lounges at Istanbul Airport.

Video: Turkish Airlines Gold Lounge

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