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.
Only 8 drinks in 3 hours across 9 lounges? #rookie
Sapphire Lounge would not allow me entry because my connecting flight was delayed more than 3 hours in PHL after a 9hour international flight The rolling delay ended up almost 7 hours and it closed before I was allowed in! Just when you need the perk, they deny you! The Sapphire Reserve has lost its value and I am going to cancel after this ridiculous policy.
agreed. Total rookie loser
What is the point of sampling 8 DL sky clubs? They all have the same food except maybe the international lounge.
A much more interesting tour would be LHR terminal 3 – which has the largest concentration of lounges anywhere in the world. I personally tried 3 and would have done 4 if I hadn’t been improperly excluded from the BA lounge.
This is like people riding every ride in a big theme park in a single day: possible but absolutely not worth it.
@Boraxo
Maybe they excluded you because you were over the limit.
Living it up! I respect it.
I once had a bunch of time to burn at DFW back when Cap 1 PP wasn’t nerfed so I was able to get a massage, play video games, and visit a couple lounges for an awesome half-day at the airport. Those were the days.
Have visited all the SkyClubs at ATL in one layover before, but, not since the new access rules, so I was glad to see confirmed here that “all Sky Club entries within a 24‑hour period starting with your first check‑in only count once,” because otherwise that’d severely limit those seeking to do the ‘crawl.’ Or, should it be called a ‘climb’ instead? Keep Climbing! 100 more years!
I wouldn’t visit 8 DL lounges at ATL, but I have been known to do lounge tours of LHR T2 and T5, JFK T4 and IAD on long connections, combining business class access with Amex Plat and PP. Not the worst way to kill some time.
I did it in 2022 (and there were nine SC’s back then). I was doing an MQM mileage run and had like 4 hours before my next flight. Worth it? 100%. But totally personal and no one else cares. But, it is like your own little badge of accomplishment. Will I ever do it again? Nah….
There was a promotion back around 2012 where one received a paper voucher that could be redeemed for 1000 points (delta or amex Mr IIRC) per lounge visit. Pretty sure it was a near year end. I hit every SkyClub lounge in ATL on about a 3 hour layover. And went for a drink at every one. Things got fuzzy… I remember being in a real hurry at the end and…really needing a bathroom.
Don’t forget to review each lounge on LoungReview. I’ve done that with each of my tours.
Been there. Done that. He’s not the first and certainly won’t be the last. He is just one who documented it.
Why?
This all seems rather childish. Are to applaud those who do this, taking up scarce resources and leading to loungers and passengers who are drunk?
Grow up!
@John Needham — Maybe embrace a little ‘joy’ instead of just complaining about the youths… lest you become Grampa (Abe) Simpson: “I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore, and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!”