American Express is tightening Centurion Lounge access again — targeting guests who are not on the same flight and limiting long connection layovers to five hours. It sounds like a crackdown, but it misses the real driver of the lines: too many cardmembers with effectively unlimited entry relative to lounge capacity, so crowding won’t change until access is capped.
Lounge crowding has been a problem for ages, even if it accelerated post-pandemic. People spent more time in airports because of the shift towards leisure travel versus managed business and increasing variance in wait times at security leading to passengers showing up at the airport earlier. The number of people with premium credit cards offering access has also grown markedly.
Back in 2018 I wrote that I often just skipped Centurion lounges because they’d gotten so busy.
And of course the lines to get into Delta Sky Clubs, especially at places like New York JFK before the opening of a second club, a Delta One lounge and a Centurion lounge in terminal 4 (not to mention a Chase and Capital One lounge) were so bad – something akin to refugee camps – that Delta had taken to offering sustenance to people waiting in the lines to get in.
We’ve seen various efforts ostensibly meant to limit crowding, none of which have worked.
- No free guests (often unless you spend at least $75,000 annual on a card) that was American Express’s play mirrored by Capital One.
- Fewer cards able to pay-in for access, or elimination of limited annual entries.
- No access until 3 hours prior to flight (this has become standard for credit card lounges)
- Limited number of annual entries (Delta Reserve)
- Restriction from entering when traveling on the cheapest fares (Delta)
- Requirement to have a seat assignment on your boarding pass. This keeps out nonrevs. But it’s also confused some lounge staff, who have kept out Southwest passengers in the past (this is one thing that Southwest’s move to paid assigned seats solves for).
American Express is back with plans for additional restrictions.
- Guests must be on the same flight as the cardholder whether the guests are free based on $75,000 annual spend, or paid.
- Connecting passengers can’t enter more than 5 hours prior to departure. Capital One and Chase have 3-hour prior to departure rules even on connecting flights, while American Express has only applied its 3-hour rule to the first flight on an itinerary rather than connections. Amex is moving to a 5-hour rule for connections.
The exact start date of these new rules hasn’t been announced, other than to say they’ll go into effect mid-2026. I do not expect them to make any material difference in crowding.
The drivers of crowding are:
- Too many cards relative to lounge capacity. And in Delta’s case, that it’s not just Delta Reserve cardmembers with access but every Amex Platinum customer flying Delta.
- A relatively limited percentage of cardmembers who are power users
Issuers aren’t going to restrict applications because they can’t deliver on promised benefits, which means if they were serious about dealing with lounge crowding, and thus the degradation in the lounge experience, they’d be forced to deal with unlimited access in some way. For instance,
- Limit each cardmember to a specific (low) number of entries per year, perhaps allowing unlimited entry only to high spenders or allowing cardmembers to redeem points for additional entry.
- Allowing high spenders to have priority on the waitlist. Give each cardmember perhaps two ‘fast passes’ per year, so they can actually get into the lounge when it matters most to them, and allow points redemptions for more or earning more at various spend thresholds.
By the way, enforcement of rules around entry times prior to departure varies in my experience and often isn’t ‘hard’ – show up 3 hours 15 minutes prior to departure and many lounges will still let you in (though not every employee at every lounge). It’s also important, by the way, to screen shot your boarding pass. Some airlines, like Southwest, update times on boarding passes (without retaining display of original time) when a flight is delayed. That can keep you out of the lounge!
At the end of the day there’s nothing premium about an hour’s wait to get into the lounge, or a packed space where you’re zigging and zagging around people once you’re inside.
Amex needs to open more lounges, plain and simple. For the annual fee, plus the additional user fee I’m not sure it’s a great value, unless I’m diligent in clipping coupons.
Lame. Devaluations while increasing fees is no bueno. Over-crowding will happen at peak times, regardless. Looking forward to whenever they finally open the new Centurion at EWR Terminal A; Newark has been neglected for far too long. Still haven’t made it to the on at ATL yet. Overseas is fun. SYD had better food than SkyTeam, and didn’t have restrictions like the US locations. Tried to get into the one at HND, but the line went all the way out to Shinjuku (I’m exaggerating a bit).
The solution is simple. A competitor needs to come in with an elevated experience and steal away Centurion Lounge customers. Think it can’t be done? Blackberry thought so too.
Clearly it can no longer be argued that bank cards with lounge access are more desirable than those without. Since the benefit does not in fact exist.
It’s Priority Pass for all cards!
Would limiting to 10 free entries per year help?
The problem with a low-entry-count limit is that it is likely to lead to folks dropping surplus cards. There are enough coupon book antics afoot as it stands…I suspect that they’re wary of pushing too hard and losing accounts.
@Nick — Shhhhh….
I used to travel a lot prior to the pandemic, now it’s mostly pleasure and I take the train between Boston and NYC for business. HUGE difference in the lounge crowds between those two time references and not for the better. The lounge people now have strollers in town, act like they’ve never eaten before, rudely keep ordering drinks…you get the picture. It used to be relaxing and a little oasis in a busy travel day. Now it’s nicer to sit at an airport restaurant like I just did on a short trip, in comfy seats, and have a cocktail. This will NOT change until the credit card companies do one thing, which they probably won’t do: SET HIGH SPEND LEVELS. Now, for example, the AMEX fee SEEMS high, but it isn’t because it’s easy to make it up in discounts (I’m already set for the year and it’s not even February between an FHR credit, another spend credit, Lululemon credit, Resy credit, Sak’s credit, and ongoing digital credit). If they made lounge access only available to the card holder (and any PAYING addition card holder), then added people at 25K increments, watch what would happen. Would people stop flashing their Platinum cards? Highly unlikely because most people view it as a symbol. That’s the only way to stop the overcrowding.
Lounges are caught between a rock and a hard place
On one hand, standalone lounges don’t seem to make enough money – hence why PP is on every credit card, basically no one buys a standalone membership. So you have to bundle it with cards, status or services
On the other hand every middle class person seems to have an Amex Plat these days, which is a topic for another conversation, resulting in no way to stop crowding
I gave up my AMEX Platinum card a couple of years ago largely because the lounges became unusable. I might add that when they first opened, the food and drinks were really quite good, but swiftly moved downhill.
No reason to get an Amex Platinum card IMO, many better options out there.
Typical MBA moron type thinking. Let’s market this card far and wide with lounge membership but no one dare asks on a Teams Call “won’t there end up having long lines to get into our lounges?” These are the people running our society, and it shows.
The maximum 5 hours restriction even for transits will hit me occasionally.
I could play the refundable ticket game but it’s just not worth it.
Taking for example the LHR Centurion lounge, it’s an uncomfortable lounge. I’ll just skip it and use the airline lounges and likely consider getting rid of the card even as a power user of some Centurion lounges.
In regard to the Delta Sky Club, I actually thought we’d see a real thinning of the herd as we got to Q4 2025. My – erroneous – thought was that by then most people would have used up their allotment of visits. Well, my trips in November and December disproved that theory (especially in ATL). My thought? If an airport has both a Centurion and a Sky Club then Amex Plats should heave to use the Centurion or pay an entrance to the Sky Club. Vice versa for the Reserve card folks. Free for the Sky Club and fee for the Centurion. I have no if that would work? However, the real underlying problem is mentioned in the article. Too many Amex Plats out there!
@George Romey — Blaming the post-grads… another George Nathan Romey go-to trope! Good one, sir. Yeah, get rid of those elites. Let the people, decide. Workers of the world…. /s
The free card to active military had made Seattle unusable. As retired military myself; it still pains me to see a que of 20 to 40 folks that only for the card while there is. Two hour wait.
Interesting to see they haven’t solved the problem after shutting out people like me who paid extra for a Delta Platinum Amex only to be shut out of the Skyclubs a few months later.
Just charge an entry fee for each person and animal. Have the fee depend on how full the lounge is or the time of day. Make it high enough and fewer people will want to go in. Have a packaged food and drink to go table for those who don’t pay to go in but otherwise qualify.
After 20 I cancelled my AMEX Platinum and replaced with Chase Sapphire Reserve.
The centurion lounge benefit is poor at best and the experience once inside the lounges is akin to a zhuzh’d up Port Authority terminal.
You wait a half hour to get in. Then it’s asses to elbows to find a seat, then they try to force you to move to make room for others. Then you stand in line at the bar 10 minutes for even a Diet Coke. And the food has become marginal at best.
AMEX doesn’t need MORE lounges, they need BIGGER lounges that are better design for guests who want different things (productivity, socialization, relaxation, grab-and-go, kids, etc.
To help prevent overcrowding at American Express Centurion® Lounges, AMEX could take a page from American Airlines’ book—specifically, their takeout lounge at CLT. This AA lounge is called “Provisions by Admirals Club,” which is basically a snack heist headquarters for travelers in a hurry at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), near Gate A1. It offers complimentary, pre-packaged food, snacks, and non-alcoholic drinks—perfect for anyone who’s ever wanted to feel like a kid getting away with extra cookies. My recommendation: AMEX should dub their new concept “Kettles by American Express.” Tailored for the AMEX Platinum cardmember (you know, the ones still learning how airport security works), it features an all-you-can-grab-and-dash buffet of snacks and drinks, so you can sprint to your gate with both dignity and a suspiciously full backpack.
Here is the dirty secret of almost all lounges . . . there is almost always more plentiful and often more comfortable seating in the terminal.
Lounges used to be generally nice and somewhat exclusive, and terminals were almost uniformly awful. But most airports now have refurbished or new terminals with more mindful seating options, while the ubiquity of credit card lounge access has made them uncomfortably crowded. People suffer and stay in crowded lounges – or worse, wait in line to get into a lounge – often only because they feel like they need to justify the high annual fee on their card.
I love Qatar and Cathay Pacific’s lounges but can think of only a few others in Asia and perhaps one or two in Europe, perhaps one in South America, and not a single one in North America that are reliably comfortable. Few others are really nicer than being in the terminal, and at peak periods are less nice to be in, are more crowded, and often have worse views of the tarmac which I like to look at.
Another problem with a low-entry-count limit is that you are hurting the people that fly the most. I fly 6-8 times per year so a limit will not have an effect on me.
@Mak yep, finding a table at a airport restaurant or bar is the play nowadays. CC lounge access is a badly diminished “benefit”. Yesterday I cancelled my AAdvantage Executive World Mastercard. Admiral Clubs are generally packed which you expect at a captive hub like DFW, my home airport. Sometime in 2026 I will cancel either my AMEX Plat or Cap1 VX. I no longer trek to the AMEX Lounge in T-D (impossibly overcrowded) and pass on by the Cap1 if the waitlist stewards are standing outside the entry. I now prefer to get a table at a concourse restaurant or bar. DFW has a great number of desirable places for food and beverage that exceed the offerings at credit card lounges.
Thank you, @Ken A, for not neglecting the CLT Centurion. We can count on you, sir!
Probably not a super popular idea, but give everyone a set number of visits per year (say 5) and then you can get more based on card spend (maybe another for each $5-10k of spending. That way you’re rewarding your bigger spenders with more access. Not sure what that would do to card retention for Amex, but it would provide some base level of access and also encourage spend on the card.
As an aside, Capital One Lounge Denver did let me in 3:45 prior to flight time on a layover. Agent said they’ll extend the 3 hr time to layovers, but had to show my initial boarding pass with arrival in DEN. Bummed they are taking away guest access. I put spend on the card, but I won’t put $75k on the card to get it, or pay the $125 for AU access.
Last year at JFK Delta terminal 4 lounge we were denied entry because our flight was 3hrs & 15 mins later. I asked if we could enter and was NO! and rep walked away.
Connecting in PHL, we don’t think of getting in to Centurian lounge, we think how long the wait is and how dirty the lounge will be.
The solutions are a no brainer, you wonder why they haven’t implemented them?
Maybe the heavy lounge users are the biggest spenders? But that could be addressed with the spend waivers. Certainly Amex knows who the most profitable customers are and who the abusers aka frequent travelers are.
It should also be noted that the 5-hr and 3-hr rules are really more akin to 4-hr and 2-hr as most of us leave the lounge close to an hour before ETD as boarding often begins 30-45 minutes earlier. And it can take a while to get from the lounge to the gate, particularly in places like DFW or DEN.