Research Report · April 2026 · Holiday Extras · research hub
The Airport
Spending Trap
Four waves of UK survey data show that incidental airport spend consistently exceeds the cost of a pre-booked lounge — making the lounge the smarter financial choice.
spent £10+ on meals alone
did not use an airport lounge
spent £25–£50 on planned duty-free
spent £10–£25 on impulse purchases
The case for the lounge has never been stronger
Most UK travellers skip the airport lounge — and then spend more than it would have cost them anyway. Across four survey waves spanning 2020 to 2026, Holiday Extras tracked exactly how much passengers spend while waiting for their flights. The findings are consistent: meals, drinks, shopping and entertainment add up rapidly, and the cumulative total routinely exceeds the price of a pre-booked lounge.
This report presents the combined findings from our longitudinal airport spending research. The data shows that boredom, hunger and the lure of duty-free are a powerful trio — and that the lounge, far from being a luxury, represents genuine value for money against the alternative of free-spending in the terminal.
When you add up meals, drinks, snacks and a bit of impulse shopping, most passengers have already spent more than the cost of a lounge — and they've had none of the comfort. Pre-booking a lounge isn't an indulgence; it's the financially rational choice.Elizabeth Hogg - Chief Operating Officer, Holiday Extras
How the research was conducted
Holiday Extras commissioned four waves of quantitative research among UK adults who had flown from a UK airport. Respondents were asked to estimate total party spend across a range of airport spending categories.
| Research platform | Online survey panel |
| Wave 1 fieldwork | January 2020 — n=2,000 |
| Wave 2 fieldwork | February 2022 — n=1,000 |
| Wave 3 fieldwork | June 2024 — n=1,000 |
| Wave 4 fieldwork | April 2026 — n=500 |
| Total valid responses | 4,500 UK adults |
| Age range | 18–92 · mean age 38.6 |
| Gender split | Female 51.0% · Male 49.0% |
| Geography | All UK regions represented |
| Spend figures | Total party spend; per-person figures will be lower for couples and groups |
| Note on wave weighting | The 2020 wave (n=2,000) is double the size of other waves; pooled percentages reflect this imbalance |
Respondents were asked about their most recent UK departure, covering lounge usage, dwell time, flight destination, party size, and spend across eight categories: meals; snacks and soft drinks; hot drinks; alcoholic drinks; planned duty-free; impulse duty-free; paid Wi-Fi; and other purchases. All spend figures represent the total for the travelling party, which is an important caveat — couples and family groups will have a lower per-person equivalent.
Most flyers skip the lounge — and face the full cost of the terminal
The majority of UK travellers do not use an airport lounge. This is the baseline that makes incidental spending comparisons so compelling.
Across the survey waves, lounge non-usage is the clear majority behaviour. In the early-wave question format (n=3,709), 22.8% of respondents explicitly said they did not use a lounge — but this figure is dwarfed by the later format, where 45.5% of 2,897 respondents confirmed they did not use one. Among those who did access a lounge, the route was almost evenly split: 12.0% had booked one and 11.3% received it free with their ticket, meaning roughly half of lounge users paid out of pocket.
Over half of UK flyers use no lounge at all — leaving them exposed to the full accumulation of terminal spending during their dwell time.
Most passengers have substantial time to fill: 23.5% of respondents spent up to two hours at the airport between check-in and boarding, and a further 17.2% spent about an hour. That is a meaningful window in which hunger, thirst and the retail environment do their work. The majority of travellers surveyed were on international routes — 36.5% short-haul and 19.5% long-haul — where dwell times are typically longest and lounge access most available.
Meals alone can match or exceed the cost of a lounge
Food spending is the single largest category — and for many travellers, the bill at a terminal restaurant already exceeds what a pre-booked lounge would have cost.
Among 1,530 respondents who reported meal spending, the modal bracket was £10–£25 (35.3%), with a further 21.1% spending £25–£50. Combined, more than 56% of respondents spent at least £10 on meals alone — already approaching or exceeding the average Holiday Extras lounge price of £15 in 2020. By 2024, when the average lounge cost had risen to £35.74, a quarter of those eating in the terminal had already spent more than that on food before even adding drinks or shopping.
Snacks and soft drinks add a second layer of spend on top of meals. Of 3,580 respondents reporting snack spend, 17.6% spent £5–£10 and 8.1% spent £10–£25. Hot drinks — near-universal for UK travellers — saw 36.1% of 509 respondents spending £5–£10 and 35.0% spending less than a fiver. These categories stack quickly on top of a meal bill.
More than half of respondents spent at least £10 on meals alone — the equivalent of the average lounge price in 2020 — before a single drink or purchase was added.
Drinks and alcohol add significant cost — often unplanned
Alcoholic drinks are a notable and frequently overlooked contributor to total airport spend, with many passengers spending as much on drinks as they would on a lounge entry.
Among 368 respondents who reported alcohol spend, 29.6% spent £5–£10 and 27.2% spent £10–£25, with a further 10.9% spending £25–£50. When combined with hot drinks (typically £5–£10) and soft drinks, a family or couple can easily accumulate £20–£40 on beverages alone — a figure that sits squarely in the range of a pre-booked lounge for 2024 and 2026.
Over half of those who bought alcohol spent at least £5–£10 on drinks alone — a category the brief had not originally highlighted, but one that materially strengthens the lounge value case.
Duty-free — planned and impulse — tips the balance decisively
Shopping at the airport, whether planned or driven by boredom, consistently pushes total spend well above the cost of a lounge. Planned duty-free involves the largest single sums; impulse buying is widespread and adds up.
For planned duty-free (360 respondents), the dominant spend bracket was £25–£50 (28.3%), followed by £10–£25 (22.8%) and £50–£100 (15.6%). In other words, nearly half of planned shoppers spent more than the 2026 average lounge price of £30.39 on duty-free alone. Add food, drinks and incidentals, and the total terminal spend for these travellers is multiple times the lounge cost.
Impulse duty-free (289 respondents) tells a slightly different story: spend is more diffuse, with 29.8% spending £10–£25, 19.7% spending a pound or two, and 18.3% spending £5–£10. This boredom-driven buying is by definition unbudgeted — exactly the kind of spend that a lounge eliminates by providing a purposeful, comfortable environment with food and drink included.
Nearly half of planned duty-free shoppers spent more than the 2026 lounge price on shopping alone — before a single meal or drink was factored in.
The cumulative picture: lounge cost versus total terminal spend
Taken together, the spending categories surveyed make a consistent case: the typical airport passenger spends more in the terminal than a lounge would have cost them — in every wave from 2020 to 2026.
| Year | Avg. lounge price | Modal meal spend | Modal alcohol spend | Modal planned duty-free | Combined modal spend (illustrative) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | £15.00 | £10–£25 | £5–£10 | £25–£50 | £40–£85+ |
| 2022 | £25.00 | £10–£25 | £5–£10 | £25–£50 | £40–£85+ |
| 2024 | £35.74 | £10–£25 | £5–£10 | £25–£50 | £40–£85+ |
| 2026 | £30.39 | £10–£25 | £5–£10 | £25–£50 | £40–£85+ |
The illustrative combined modal spend — meals, alcoholic drinks and planned duty-free at the most common bracket in each category — consistently lands between £40 and £85 in total party spend. Even at the lower end, this exceeds the lounge cost in every year except 2024's peak of £35.74. On a per-person basis for solo travellers, the picture is particularly clear: modal meal spend alone (£10–£25) already represents between 67% and 167% of the lounge price across the four years.
An important caveat: the survey collected total party spend, and the most common travel configuration is a couple ('one other', 23.9% of 2,254 respondents). For a party of two, dividing the total spend in half gives a per-person figure — but even halved, the combined categories routinely exceed the individual lounge cost. For solo travellers (10.4% of respondents), the raw figures apply directly and the case is strongest of all.
The savings that have been highlighted through our analysis are all achievable through a bit of forward planning. Thinking about the things you’ll need around the holiday itself is important, and booking early – as soon as you have booked your trip – is the best way to avoid higher costs closer to, or on the day of, your departure.Elizabeth Hogg - Chief Operating Officer, Holiday Extras
Across all four waves and every spending category, the modal total party spend in the terminal consistently exceeds the average Holiday Extras lounge price — making the lounge the financially rational pre-book.
What the data means for travellers and the lounge proposition
These findings have clear and actionable implications — for how Holiday Extras communicates the lounge value proposition, and for how travellers should think about pre-trip planning.
Lead with the savings argument, not the luxury argument
The data shows that lounges save money, not just stress. Communications should foreground the cost comparison explicitly — most travellers have no idea their terminal habits are this expensive.
Target the meal-and-drinks spender first
Over 56% of respondents spent £10+ on meals alone. This group is already spending at or above the lounge threshold — they are the highest-value audience for a value-framing campaign.
Impulse spending is the hidden villain
Boredom-driven duty-free purchases (29.8% spending £10–£25) represent unbudgeted spend that a lounge directly displaces. Messaging around 'what the waiting costs you' resonates with this behaviour.
Solo and couple travellers are the most compelling case study
Since spend figures are total party spend, per-person spend for couples is halved — yet still exceeds lounge cost for the typical combination of categories. Solo travellers face an even clearer financial case.
Planned duty-free shoppers need a different message
Passengers spending £25–£50 on planned duty-free are already in a high-spend mindset. The lounge argument for them is about comfort and value-add, not pure saving — the lounge cost is a small fraction of their total budget.
Longitudinal consistency strengthens credibility
Four waves of data — 2020, 2022, 2024, 2026 — all point in the same direction. The finding is not a one-off; it is a structural truth about how UK travellers behave at airports. That consistency is a powerful editorial and PR asset.
About Holiday Extras
Holiday Extras is the UK's leading provider of airport travel services, including airport lounges, parking, hotels and transfers. Every year, millions of UK travellers use Holiday Extras to take the stress — and, as this research shows, the unexpected cost — out of getting to their flight.
This research was commissioned by Holiday Extras to understand how incidental airport spending compares to the cost of a pre-booked airport lounge. The findings have been consistent across four survey waves spanning six years.
For press enquiries contact [email protected]
Research note
All survey data was collected via online panel. Wave 1: January 2020 (n=2,000); Wave 2: February 2022 (n=1,000); Wave 3: June 2024 (n=1,000); Wave 4: April 2026 (n=500). Total valid sample: 4,500 UK adults. Spend figures represent total party spend; per-person figures will be lower for couples and groups. The 2020 wave is double-weighted in any pooled analysis owing to its larger sample size.
© Holiday Extras 2026. All rights reserved.