3 Hours. 9 Lounges. 8 Drinks. How One Guy Squeezed Every Last Airport Perk From His Credit Card

Several airports are real hot spots for lounges. You’ve got American Express, Chase and Capital One lounges all within a stone’s throw of each other inside New York JFK’s terminal 4. In Denver you have Capital One, American Express, Delta, American and 3 United Clubs plus their ‘grab ‘n go’ Club Fly. You’ll soon have American Express, Chase and Capital One lounges together in Las Vegas, too.

Chase and American Express Lounge Entrances New York JFK

Capital One Lounge Las Vegas

These are top places for lounge hopping! Kill time in the airport not just by nestling into a lounge (which may be crowded) but by keeping things interesting, moving around, going from lounge to lounge. This isn’t a great way to get work done, but it can make for a challenge – to see and do as much as possible. Some Chase lounges even have video games. And don’t forget Priority Pass spots like The Club and Minute Suites!

Chase Sapphire Lounge Philadelphia

One frequent flyer made a video as he set out to visit nine lounges in Atlanta all within 3 hours of his flight – hitting 8 Delta Sky Clubs and the American Express Centurion lounge there. He uses the airport’s Plane Train to move fast, and timed his feat to avoid the breakfast rush – ultimately concluding, “It is possible, but probably not worth it.” Along the way,

• He samples the food (chicken curry sandwich, veg lentil soup, peri peri chicken, BBQ pork, cheesecake, fruit/veg/snacks)
  
• Has eight drinks: sparkling wine, vodka soda, Michelob Ultra, cabernet, bourbon & Coke, chardonnay, Baileys on ice, and a dirty martini. He manages to remain seemingly sober!

@itspartypat Would you attempt this @delta dining dash? #travel #skyclub #frequentflyer #amex ♬ It girl, Fashion, Glamour – Athostvz

Delta doesn’t let you into its lounges until 3 hours prior to departure. You still need to make it from lounge to gate for boarding. American Express has a similar rule. That limits the time you can spend at each spot.

LaGuardia Sky Club

The Plane Train connects T – F in minutes and runs every couple minutes at peak times. To get this done, you need to avoid lounge lines.

• The “Sky Club crawl” is a meme and even comes with rules: one drink per club, tip bartenders, don’t cut lines.

• Sky Clubs limit your visits if you gain access via credit card rather than membership. However all Sky Club entries within a 24‑hour period starting with your first check‑in only count once against the total for Amex Platinum and Delta Reserve cardholders that applies without $75,000 calendar year spend.

• To accomplish the feat you need to start as soon as you cross the 3‑hour mark and sequence visits far‑to‑near going from the furthest away lounge to the one closest to your gate… or do the crawl while connecting, which isn’t bound by the 3‑hour rule, but doesn’t achieve the same level of glory (there’s no real degree of difficulty here). Note though that the B and C lounges can still face queues at times.

Atlanta Sky Club Buffet

Delta lounges are generally a bit better than United or American lounges, but aren’t worth queueing for and aren’t worth seeing all in one day. This is something fun to do once, but it ultimately cuts against the point of lounge access. But so, too, does the 3-hour rule. That’s fine most of the time, but it even means that for some late night flights at places like New York LaGuardia you may not be able to access a lounge at all given lounge closing times.

Delta Sky Club LAX

Here’s how different lounge products treat access:

Lounge		3-Hour Access Rule		Connections Exempt		Arrivals Access
American Express Centurion		Yes		Yes		No
Chase Sapphire		Yes		Yes		No
Capital One		Yes		No		No
Delta Air Lines		Yes		Yes		Yes
United Airlines		No		N/A		Yes
American Airlines		No		N/A		Yes
Alaska Airlines		No		N/A		Yes

Chase Sapphire Lounge New York LaGuardia

Chase’s published rules don’t show the 3 hour rule waived for connections, but Chase has said it’s waived in that case. Capital One doesn’t, but in practice I’ve found them to be more generous with access than their published rules. United only applies the rules to day passes, which was a new change this year.