Premium American Express and Capital One customers have been frustrated by getting turned away from Virgin Atlantic lounges in the United States.
- Plaza Premium Group has a lounge access agreement with these banks, and had a contract to deliver guests to these lounges.
- Virgin dropped Plaza Premium Group from staffing several lounges, replacing them with Sodexo. However the PPG contract remained in place.
- Yet Virgin staff were turning away guests, despite this contract, and not for allowable reasons such as crowding.
This was a mess all around. San Francisco especially was known to turn people away from empty lounges, as I understand it, because local management doesn’t like to allow entry – essentially local Virgin staff violating their contract.
It appears that this has been resolved. Virgin Atlantic lounges are available during limited hours to Priority Pass, and that benefit remains in place subject to capacity controls (and during those non-peak hours or Virgin, food service gets dialed back).
And Capital One shares that there’s still direct access, not via Priority Pass, to the Washington Dulles Clubhouse.
Venture X and Venture X Business Capital One cardholders retain access to the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouses at SFO, JFK, and IAD through Priority Pass via our Partner Lounge Network, subject to availability based on Virgin Atlantic policies.
Venture and Spark Miles cardholders retain access to the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse IAD through our Partner Lounge Network and can use their two complimentary visits per year to visit this lounge, subject to availability based on Virgin Atlantic policies.
The Virgin Clubhouse at Newark, no longer supporting Virgin flights, has been closed. It appears that there’s no credit card access to the Boston Clubhouse, though perhaps if that lounge re-opens it will be added.
@Gary- the BOS Clubhouse has been “temporarily” closed since March. With the new Delta SkyClub in BOS Terminal E now open and taking VS pax (and a new Delta Premium lounge in the works for BOS) many are wondering whether the VS lounge will ever reopen.
Honestly this is hardly relevant now that the IAD Virgin Clubhouse QR code menu only allows you to order chips and hummus. All of the other hot items (like the Thai curry dish) have been removed, so it’s either chips and hummus or the limited buffet items. This is a massive devaluation, and it’s not worth stopping by since you can go to the nearby Turkish lounge for a proper hot food buffet. So sad as this used to be the second best IAD lounge after the UA Polaris lounge.
Could you please clarify: what is the current access regime for CapitalOne VentureX at the JFK Clubhouse?
Is it direct access based on the VX card, or based on PriorityPass?
The CapitalOne app is confusing as the lounge appears twice: once with a notation that PriorityPass enrollment is required, and once without.
Thanks
@PCNY – JFK access is Priority Pass access.
Venture X holder here (and PP as well) flew in premium economy on Virgin Atlantic from IAD in June. Was looking forward to checking out VS lounge as it was literally across the boarding gate but access was denied. Explanation given was that Cap 1 holders could enter only in the morning before 11:30am (??) starting in June. Business class VS flyers were still permitted to enter regardless of PP or Cap1 membership.
It looks like the IAD Virgin Atlantic lounge is going back to its pre-pandemic approach – access to PP in the morning (which is actually a good thing for people flying UA regional flights out of the lower A gates), and denying PP in the afternoon. The only time I got to visit the Virgin lounge in the afternoon was during the pandemic, when few people were flying. And though I liked the lounge, when flying international I usually have business class lounge access in A/B anyway in LH, BA or AF, all of which are usually better. (The BA lounge is great, once they stop admitting PP in the afternoon and star putting the good spreads out.)