Category Archives for Lounges.
Capital One is making major changes to lounge access for their Capital One Venture X product – restricted complimentary guests to cardmembers who spend $75,000 per calendar year; adding a fee for authorized user cards to access lounges; and eliminating complimentary Priority Pass guests altogether.
The idea here, I guess, is to shift the burden of homelessness off of society at large and onto airlines and other lounge operators even where those lounges have extremely limited space and too much demand, and they’re expensive to maintain – and lack social services. What could possibly go wrong?
American Airlines will open its new business class Flagship lounge in Philadelphia on Thursday along with the new Admirals Club next door.
American’s new Philadelphia business class Flagship lounge that’s about to open will have made-to-order food items, something that the airline hasn’t offered since ‘Bridge Dining’ was available in the no longer open New York JFK Flagship lounge (that space is now the joint BA business class Greenwich lounge).
The first rule of any all you can eat buffet is that you can consume food while you’re there, but you can’t pack of extras and take it with you. Yet a Delta Sky Club member was spotted filling up plates of food, and packing himself several meals to go – mostly ribs, garlic chicken, associated sides and chocolate chip cookies.
I wanted to get to the airport because our tickets would allow us to visit the Air Canada Signature Suite. I was really looking forward to this! I’d been before and I was blown away. I’ve also been to the one in Vancouver and it was very special. So I happily plunked down extra miles for my family to visit.
American Airlines has business class lounges at New York JFK, Los Angeles, Chicago O’Hare, Miami and Dallas – Fort Worth. They’ve been promising a lounge for their primary transatlantic gateway – Philadelphia – for many years. It’s finally almost here, and should be really worth the wait.
United Airlines is taking a page from Delta with club lounge access restrictions, and together with Chase they’re taking a page from American Express with changes to their co-brand card portfolio. But I think they’re doing it a little bit more thoughtfully.
American is promoting new food and beverage choices in their clubs, new first class domestic breakfasts, and pre-order burger and fries up front.
Travelers are stealing everything from airport lounges that isn’t bolted down. That surprises me, because there’s nowhere with more cameras watching you than inside an airport. There’s nowhere with more law enforcement agencies (DEA, CBP, FBI, TSA, local police to name a few). And every passenger in the lounge has identified themselves when checking in.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
