Regus Business Lounges, Lousy?

Published by Bobby Laurie | 4 comments

It’s no secret that I travel a lot. When I’m not flying for work, I’m..well.. flying for work. I mean, when I’m not flying as a flight attendant I’m still traveling around the U.S. as a “Savvy Stew” blogging and writing about my experiences and insights into destinations.

I recently obtained a free gold membership to Regus, the world’s largest provider of flexible workspaces. In short, Regus is a company which rents out office space to large and small (even home based) businesses as they need them. They even have memberships which grant you access to their business lounges, which is what the gold membership does, which they advertise as:

• Comfortable, well-equipped workspaces in worldwide locations
• Dedicated support teams offering administrative assistance
• Networking opportunities with like-minded professionals or extra privacy in a Regus Thinkpod
• FREE secure WiFi and print / scan / copy facilities
• FREE refreshments

Simply drop in and work; it’s as easy as swiping yourBusinessworld membership card and sitting down.

I was excited to see that with my gold membership I could drop into a lounge in whatever city I’m in, have a drink, and write my next article or blog post.

So, now I’m in Portland, OR. I’ll be appearing with Gailen on MORE Good Day tomorrow, and we arrived in Downtown around 1 p.m. but our hotel room wouldn’t be ready until 3pm. So we decided this was the perfect opportunity to use the Gold membership. Gailen had been to a few business lounges and raved about the atmosphere and the value of the card.

So we walked to Congress Center in Downtown Portland and headed up to the 11th floor where they swiped my gold card and showed us the way into, what I thought was, a waiting room.

I felt as though I was sitting in a Doctor’s office waiting room. But, in fact, I was in the business lounge. This lounge looked nothing like the lounges I had seen on their website so I was a bit shocked to see the sign on the door confirming that I was where I wanted to be. Five chairs, two tables and a phone. That was it. No sign of the refreshments, staff, and it surly wasn’t a “well equipped work space.”

Gailen keeps reassuring me that they’re not all like this one, and I hope he’s right. With the travel plans we have coming up I plan on using the gold membership and working at some of these locations. But in Portland, a Starbucks has better amenities.