“Would you wait 40 minutes to get into a lounge, or pay $9 to skip the line?” Is your time and comfort worth more than $9, or would you refuse to spend more money after spending $895 to the card that’s supposed to get you in in the first place?
- Premium credit cards charge you $395, $595, $795, or $895 annual fees. For that, they bundle a variety of benefits but perhaps the biggest one is lounge access.
- Chase, American Express, and Capital One have their own lounge networks but they’re small. Most cards bundle a Priority Pass membership of some kind.
- The rules vary a bit, how many guests you get and which kinds of facilities you can enter. But they get to advertise you can visit ‘over 1,500’ lounges even though they have fewer than 30 that are unique to their network.
Those Priority Pass lounges aren’t as nice as Capital One or Chase lounge’s, and everyone with a premium card regardless of issuer can access them, so they tend to be overrun.
Priority Pass even runs their own lounges. Or rather, the company that owns Priority Pass also has lounges, branded as The Club. There are over 20 of those in North America and they get pretty busy. If you want to be sure of getting in, your $895 credit card alone won’t do it. That’ll be $9, please. They’ll sell you a reservation to get it.
Would you wait 30-40 mins to get into priority pass at SFO or pay $9 to skip the line?
byu/NoSurprise7196 inChaseSapphire
You’ve already paid for an $800 annual fee card, and they want you to pay them even more for your ‘free’ benefit? Yes. There are too many people paying for those $800 cards who want to use the lounge, relative to capacity. Access needs to be rationed!
- One way to do it is queueing (long waits).
- Another way to do it is giving some cardmembers priority (American Express Centurion cardmembers don’t wait to get into Centurion lounges the way that Platinum cardmembers do).
- And still another is willingness to pay more. $9, please! The funny thing is $9 is about all I’d pay to enter some of those lounges!
There’s a reason that most lounges settle on rationing capacity via queueing. That $9 probably makes a lot of sense, but it rubs a lot of customers the wrong way, and you don’t want to turn off your premium customers.
- Delta Sky Club membership gets you into those lounges… if you have enough time once you get to the front of the line.
Line for Delta Sky Club New York LaGuardia - Amex Platinum is supposed to get you into Centurion lounges, but those are so busy no one goes there anymore (and the food isn’t as good as it used to be, either).
American Express Centurion Lounge Las Vegas, Credit: TravelZork - Capital One introduced virtual queuing, copied by Amex. Add yourself to the waitlist via app based on how busy the lounge it – maybe when you head out to the airport, when you arrive curbside, or when you clear TSA.
Capital One Lounge, Washington Dulles - On the other hand, Capital One Landing at Washington’s National airport accepts reservations – which are free for cardmembers. Pick your time and arrive within 15 minutes of that time to avoid queueing – however reservations are limited and do fill up.
Capital One Landing, Washington National
Capital One Landing Tapas
It seems like $9 to skip the line could be worth it, depending on how long the line is, how crowded the lounge is once you get inside, and what services are offered.
I find that Capital One lounges do a good job managing crowding. They have queues to get in, but once inside you’re going to be able to find a seat and there’s not really a line to speak of at the bar.
Capital One Lounge Bar, Washington Dulles
Still, I’d love to see a premium option – maybe a trump card once a year cardmembers can play that says “this visit is the one time it’s really important to me to have entry priority.” Or, now that it takes $75,000 a year spend (like Amex) for free guests, maybe a $150,000 level with no wait? Or ‘redeem 2,500 points to skip the queue’? Queue jumping is a bit anti-democratic, but the whole idea of a premium airport lounge is as well.
Should you pay $9 to reserve an entry time for The Club? They aren’t as nice so as to be worth it, and they’ll be busy once you get inside.
- You can generally reserve a specific entry time at least a day in advance through their app
- You pay $9 for the reservation. This doesn’t include access, if you do not already gain access such as from a Priority Pass card.
The Club at CHS
On the one hand, pre-booking eliminates unpredictable wait times, and $9 seems low enough to be worthwhile. On the other hand, you’re not getting much once inside and there goes the concept of complimentary lounge access once it’s no longer complimentary. Still, if you’re going to pay for overpriced snacks and drinks in the terminal without lounge access, $9 seems pretty cheap by comparison once you do have the ‘complimentary’ lounge access.
Clearly there’s demand for this because at airports like San Francisco and Chicago Midway The Club reservation slots can sell out quickly. You might skip a 45-minute wait, but on the other hand you don’t know for certain there’ll be a wait especially at non-peak times and then you’re just lighting your $9 on fire.
The Club at MSY
Chase Sapphire Lounges really need to offer priority for their J.P. Morgan Reserve cardmembers, too. It seems like a pretty terrible experience for a Chase customer who ostensibly has at least $10 million in assets under management with the bank to get turned away from their airport lounge (or wait in line, for that matter). Of course there are legacy cardmembers from when any old Chase Private Client customer could get a card, and a period of a few days in 2016 when the application was available online, in error. So it’s not just ultra-high net worth individuals with the card.
Chase Sapphire Lounge, Washington Dulles
Chase Sapphire Lounge, Philadelphia
Ultimately, premium cards promise free, exclusive access but can’t deliver. The benefit is used to sell cards and it works. There are too many people with the cards that offer access to deliver a consistent, quality experience in a limited amount of space. I think the Chase lounges are great, and I enjoy Capital One lounges (and have always been able to manage getting into those, either by reservation or virtual queue or walkup) I just wish there was a premium option.
Yet I’m somewhat non-plussed by the premium reservation option with The Club, and it feels like a cash grab, because the product isn’t as good. But if I know I’m going to have a couple of hours to kill at the airport, I’d lay down the $9.
And it’s better than what United co-brand cardmembers endure trying to use their annual club visit passes – signs at the door saying they aren’t being accepted due to crowding. There’s no advance notice of this, nor any buy out – just a message that the cardmember with the pass isn’t welcome.
When American Express first opened Centurion lounges, the food was fantastic and lounges weren’t busy. Not everyone had discovered them yet. There weren’t as many cardmembers. Those managing the budgets hadn’t quite anticipated that when you open a nice lounge, more people will show up, stay longer, and eat more. They were producing food at a smaller scale and with what seemed like a bigger budget per head. Back then there were no limits on how far in advance you could arrive at a Centurion lounge, and no lines to get in.
Centurion Lounge, Seattle
Credit card premium lounges are a victim of their own success, attracting more customers (which detracts from the experience) and driving up costs (which lead to cutbacks in the experience). I’d love to see premium cards offer an annual skip the line pass. Charging feels gauche. At the same time I’d pay. It’s just that if I pay to skip the line at a The Club I’ll feel pretty cheated. What do you think?
At this point Priority Pass/The Club should just change its name to Delta. That way the additional fee to be admitted into the same lounge is considered “Premium”…
ah, the poor privileged people. Maybe we can start a gofundme for them.
Hey Gary, I will try centurion when I fly to Portugal next year.
Tanis DeRuosi
I paid £15 to get a reservation for Clubrooms at Heathrow. Without Priority Pass I could have had the same reservation for £50.. so effectively a £35 discount for having the credit card. I still think there’s value there, especially since the “free” option (No1 lounge) had a line 50 people deep.
Membership should be rationed to ensure that overcrowding and long waits don’t happen. Charging $9 on top of an $800 fee is unacceptable. As for @Gary’s comment about being “privileged”, there is nothing privileged about paying for something that you can afford. This is one of the many ways that G-d made life work.
I wouldn’t pay $9 in total to get into most lounges. 7/11 style food. Crowded. Loud. Dirty bathrooms.
When you pay an annual fee of $895 for a Platinum American Express card, you expect to enjoy the benefit of complimentary access to American Express Centurion Lounges at various U.S. airports, including JFK, LAS, DFW, and PHL. However, many AMEX cardholders are often disappointed by the lengthy wait times—sometimes exceeding an hour—to enter these overcrowded AMEX airport lounges.
Fortunately, there is a solution. Holders of the more exclusive AMEX Centurion card can bypass all lounge waitlists and bring their guests immediately into the lounges, gaining access to areas reserved exclusively for Centurion cardholders.
To help offset the higher annual fee of $5,000 for the AMEX Centurion card, you can offer a $100 to $200 honorarium per person to skip the waiting lines at crowded AMEX lounges. Once you pass the velvet ropes, you can enjoy the reserved Centurion cardholder lounge space, tables, and special champagne. Paying an honorarium to an AMEX Centurion cardholder for immediate lounge access could be a better value than purchasing a FastPass or a Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at a Disney resort.
I won’t know what to think about this until @1990 shows up and replies to himself 10 times with MSNBC talking points
Yeah, that paid reservation system for The Club at CLT rubs me wrong… or, is it that we’re rubbing the CLT wrong?!
In the case of The Club at SFO, the $9 reservation fee is only available for bookings from open to 6pm. But the real need is after 6pm when it gets super crowded. The real “ding” is the $25 fee for a shower.
Last week I had to wait 30 minutes to get the Chase Sapphire Lounge in BOS and this is even with a CSR priority (supposedly). Got inside to find one table available. But at least we were still able to get showers (which have a reservation time).
Many in the reddit type community say stand alone Priority Pass users shouldn’t be given any access to Chase Sapphire Lounges at all and I would at least say PP should get in only during non-peak hours at a Chase Sapphire lounge.
Escape Lounges and Plaza Premium lounges already have priority access/waiting for Amex Platinum/Centurion holders vs. Priority Pass holders.
Random thoughts…just my 2¢, and probably worth far less — keep the change.
1) I thought The Club @ SFO was excellent when it first opened in T1, but like most airport lounges, it went downhill shortly thereafter. (I have multiple cards that give me access to Priority Lounges.)
2) As most people know by now, the Citi AAdvantage Executive card included Admiral’s Club access and costs less than either an American Admiral’s Club membership OR an Alaska Lounge membership and gets you into both.
3). That gives me THREE lounges to access when flying out of SFO’s T1, plus three more in International Terminal A that accept Priority Pass, and three restaurants I still get a discount at (T2, T3, and ITG).
…I never have to queue or wait to get in.
Cancel the “premium cards” and sit at the quiet, deserted gate. There is absoulety nothing premium about the entire experience –waste dozens of hours keeping track of “benefits,” which are nothing more than a list of pre-paid things you probabaly wouldn’t have bought anyway. Save your brain power for something worthwhile.
Clubs used to be an oasis. Someplace to hang that was quiet, had some water, coffee, maybe a snack or two. A service desk to help you with delayed flights was a plus as well. The value was getting away from the hustle and bustle. Now, most airports have nice bars and restaurants you can pop into, wider corridors, more seating, and large, clean bathrooms and you can change flights on your airline app.
What is the point of the club if the airport is now the oasis, and the club is the loud, crowded, dirty location? I would rather take my chances with the airport amenities than pay for the priviledge of being annoyed.
I just don’t see the value of sitting in a crowded lounge anymore. I used to love the Northwest WorldClubs back in the day. Self-serve booze, great TV screens and plush seating. Almost a hotel away from the chaos. Now, a bartender has to serve you, and that entails waiting in line, and you can only get certain drinks without paying. Also; the furniture is no longer what it was. I think it would be best to save money on premium cards and go buy a nice dinner at a restaurant in the airport or go to a bar. You’ll save hundreds and likely have a better time, and though very frequent travelers may still want to pay to sit in a pretty room with strangers, the value is still negligible.
I like the idea in theory of a once a year skip the line pass but I suspect that the reason they are nervous to offer something like this is that on a day where an airport is experiencing a bunch of cascading IROPs due to something like weather there might be too many people seeking lounge access to even accommodate only people using their 1 annual skip the line pass.
Now they have to turn away or make people wait who they have especially promised no wait access too.
Now putting some kind of high annual spending limit to get the line skipping pass might solve this if it results in a small enough pool of people getting these passes.
But yeah I imagine they are scarred of big IROP days when everyone’s delayed and everyone and their mom wants to wait out their delays in the lounge.
“Yet I’m somewhat non-plussed by the premium reservation option with The Club, and it feels like a cash grab, because the product isn’t as good.”
That’s Collison. They are used-car spivs trying to run a luxury business.
Most lounges suck. I’m not going out of my way to enter and get a crappy coffee, a soggy breaded something and a beer. I’d rather have a better coffee at a shop on my way to the gate.
@L3 – wasn’t it about a week ago you were telling me that Priority Pass lounges were indistinguishable from the better Capital One and Chase lounges?
I went to re-read the similar article Gary posted in March but it says page not found 🙁
People and plane watching at the airport is fun so unless it’s a lounge I’m particularly excited about food-wise I don’t mind not going to one so I’ll keep the $9. It does indeed feel like a money grab whether it is or not.
@1990 — Who knows, when it comes to the CLT there is no CLEAR…answers
I appreciate you @Gene for always keeping me grounded when I get too excited about anything in the credit card industry 🙂
Here’s what I’d propose. A two-tiered system:
The standard annual fee gets a cardholder three visits a year and then it costs $35 per visit thereafter. Up to one guest per visit for $35, then $50 per additional guest beyond that.
Then, a second tiered platinum card with unlimited visits for $1,000 more per year. Once you hit $200,000 in annual spend, you get the full $1,000 back as a statement credit and up to two guests for free every visit.
Of course, the numbers could all be tweaked in over time to get to the point where there are no long queues and the lounges are rarely more than 85% full.
The problem with the reservation fee is that you have to reserve 24 hours in advance. What if you don’t know when you will arrive at the airport, or worse, if it’s a connecting flight and it’s delayed.
The SFO Club, even though it may be the best Club, is still weak and not worth a long detour. I’d rather go to the Alaska Lounge nearby.
I agree paying $9 more would rub me the wrong way, but the way I’d look at it is that should only affect my decision to renew the card again. At the point when you are at the airport your options are: wait in line, spend $9 to get in sooner, or go spend $50 – $100 on food and drink in the airport. I think I’d begrudgingly give them the $9.
Based on my one and only experience at The Club BWI a few years ago. I’d pay $9 not to go to that lounge.