After a week in Spain seeing Madrid, Salamanca and Barcelona, it was time for our onward journey back home to Canada. This trip would have us connecting Spain – Germany – United States then Canada with a short stopover in Germany (for a pretzel). The Puerta de Alcalá VIP Lounge turned out to be a great prelude to our Shengen flight with Lufthansa.

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This post is one chapter in our Around the World in Star Alliance First Class via China, Thailand and Spain. This trip was booked using Air Canada Aeroplan miles. For more information on how this trip was booked, please see our trip introduction here. For other parts of the trip, please see this index.

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Review: Puerta de Alcalá VIP Lounge, Madrid Barajas Terminal 2, Madrid, Spain

After one final night in Madrid, it was time for the next leg of our journey. We took a taxi to Terminal two of Barajas, which we discovered was mostly a Shengen terminal for intra European flights. The terminal reminded me of the smaller Canadian Airports of the seventies. It was a small curved building with only 3 entry / exit doors from the outside. 

We headed over to the Lufthansa check in area, and there were three desks open today for their flights to Munich and Frankfurt. We were travelling Madrid – Frankfurt – Seattle – Vancouver on this particular leg. However, we checked our bags to Frankfurt as we were planning on staying the night in Mainz on a 20 hour connection. There were no issues with this request

We were welcomed to the lounge opposite gate D60, although at check in our host didn’t provide a name of it. We decided to head straight in, since there wasn’t much outside on the public side worth looking at. 

Accessing the Puerta de Alcalá VIP Lounge:

The lounge today was accessed courtesy of our Lufthansa Star Alliance Flight in Business Class. The Puerta de Alcalá VIP Lounge appears to be the main contract lounge for Lufthansa Business Class, in addition to

After some exploring, we located gate D60 and the nearest lounge.

We headed through the stairs to a very spacious VIP Alcala lounge. There were contract signs most Star Allance partners on the door but no star gold logo.  

There were also no signs of Span Air logos anymore. We presented our business boarding passes and the lounge dragon passed our boarding cards off to another lounge dragon who started to complete an internal voucher with our names on it – likely to chargeback our visit to LH. After that was completed, we were granted entry. 

Inside the Puerta de Alcalá VIP Lounge:

The first impressions of the lounge were great. It was large and spacious with lots of light thanks to large windows.

The lounge was spacious. There was lots of free, self service alcohol with a few sandwiches and olives on offer. Wines were one chardonnay “Torres”, one Jerez Sherry, and one red Roija Temperillo. I was surpised that there was no Cava on offer, considering Cava is so well known in Spain. I helped myself to Gin and Tonic (which I had been missing out on) with ICE and lemon – total bliss since none of the hotels that we had stayed at offered ice machines. 

There was also a large working area for laptops and desktop computers available. The best part about the lounge were the large windows, which offered great views over the apron. 

Before long, our ride to Frankfurt arrived. Heading down to the gate, which was a bit messy with people, we waited to board. They announced business boarding and as with everywhere else in the world, the gate was swarmed with people. To LH’s credit, they sorted it out and the tidal wave was slowed. 

Regretfully, we didn’t get to see the interesting Barajas Terminal 4 since it’s a One World strong hold. Despite that, the Terminal 2 was completely functional, if not missing a few places to eat a meal to pass the time.

The Bottom Line:

The Puerta de Alcalá VIP Lounge was a surprisingly reasonable place to stop in for the start of the flight. I’m never usually too impressed by contract lounges but this one was pretty reasonable. The light space along with the reasonable drink selection made the place more pleasant to spend the time. Although there wasn’t any Cava available, there were quite a few choices instead. I would be sure to pass through again on my next trip through.

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