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The Plaza Premium Infield lounge welcomes travelers from 3:00 PM to 10:30 PM in Pearson Airport’s satellite concourse, a building accessible only by bus. Since airlines assign gates there on an ad hoc basis, you cannot plan your visit in advance.
If you are shopping for a card for lounge access, first compare the options on our best credit cards page.
The satellite concourse, which Pearson calls the Infield Concourse (IFC), has no corridor connecting it to the two terminals. According to the airport, it features six boarding gates equipped with bridges, restrooms, information desks, as well as a few shops and restaurants.
The journey is therefore made by bus. You check in at Terminal 1 or Terminal 3, go through security and customs there, and then your airline directs you to the bus platform. Pearson estimates the transfer takes about 10 minutes.
With this opening, Plaza Premium operates seven lounges at Pearson. No other operator manages as many in this airport.
The lounge is open from 3:00 PM to 10:30 PM daily. This 7.5-hour window is by far the shortest of the seven Plaza Premium lounges at Pearson. For comparison, the other six all open at 5:30 AM.
The consequence is direct. If your flight departs from the IFC in the morning or early afternoon, the lounge will be closed. You will therefore need to take advantage of the services in Terminal 1 or Terminal 3 before boarding the bus.
Pearson specifies that airlines use the IFC on an ad hoc basis, during peak periods, for both domestic and international flights. You therefore do not know in advance whether your flight will depart from there.
In other words, you don’t choose this lounge; you end up there. Now consider the two constraints. First, your gate must be assigned to the IFC. Second, your flight must depart between 3:00 PM and 10:30 PM. The useful window therefore becomes very narrow.
In Pearson’s six other Plaza Premium lounges, access is usually via Priority Pass, DragonPass, or a paid entry on-site. For this seventh lounge, however, the situation requires caution.
For the lounges you can actually plan for at Pearson, the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Privilege Card remains one of the best Canadian options. The American Express Platinum Card, for its part, opens up the widest network.
For most travelers, no. A lounge open 7.5 hours a day, in a building where airlines send you without notice, does not change the credit card calculation. You simply cannot aim for it.
That said, the opening resolves a real pain point. Until now, a passenger directed to the IFC at the end of the day had to wait with only a few shops as an option. Now, they have at least a quiet place to sit during evening peak hours.
My advice remains simple: choose your card for the six lounges you can plan for, never for the seventh. This lounge is a bonus when chance leads you there, not a selling point.
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