Category Archives for Lounges.
Nashville airport’s long-rumored credit card lounge is now a real bidding opportunity: 20,600 square feet, a required $20.6 million buildout, premium food and drinks, private bathrooms, family or gaming space, and a 15-year lease. American Express and Chase have already been in discussions, Capital One has every reason to look, and the winner could make Nashville one of the biggest bank-lounge battlegrounds in the country.
Minneapolis airport just got a new Priority Pass lounge that’s got 17 gaming stations and an Italian robot bartender — and because it is treated as a lounge rather than an “experience,” Amex Platinum, Bilt and Capital One Priority Pass members should be able to use it too.
While I write about lounges a lot, I didn’t always have access. In fact the first time I ever entered one as an adult, I snuck in. It was a United Airlines lounge back 24 years ago, and it’s part of my early travel educating me about what airport lounges were all about and why I wanted to use them. It’s also the story of my first international premium cabin award redemption, which I used to visit my family in Australia, so my ‘sneaking in’ holds extra significance to me.
Southwest Airlines has never had airport lounges, but a new Austin permit suggests that is about to change sooner than expected. A 20,000-square-foot “Project Oasis” lounge buildout appears tied to Southwest and targets completion by March.
Philadelphia’s tiny Centurion Lounge may finally be getting the expansion it desperately needs. A document describing an Amex PHL lounge extending into lower-level space — matching reports that American Express is taking over the British Airways lounge below.
The American Airlines Flagship lounge has introduced food items to order via QR code, delivered tableside. That’s something they already have in their most-recently opened Flagship lounge in Philadelphia.
Nashville airport is quickly turning into a lounge battleground. Southwest has a lounge in the pipeline, American is nearly tripling its Admirals Club, Delta already expanded its Sky Club — and now airport documents show a massive 20,600-square-foot credit card lounge moving forward, with Amex, Chase and others already interested.
Airport documents show Delta has quietly leased lounge space in Honolulu, joining Southwest and Alaska in a growing wave of airline lounge development at the airport. That means Honolulu is no longer just getting one new premium space — it now appears set for three separate airline lounges, a much bigger shift in the airport’s passenger experience than publicly seen before.
United Airlines has sharply narrowed who can use its Polaris lounges, cutting out most Star Alliance business class passengers while keeping access for its own premium customers and a small group of joint venture partners. The move makes sense if United is trying to control crowding ahead of more premium seats and new premium transcon access—but it’s a blow to Star Alliance business class customers.
Lounges got better, access expanded, and banks taught travelers to treat “free” as something to maximize at all costs — so now people wait in long lines to enter crowded rooms, hoard food, and turn what was supposed to feel premium into something closer to wartime siege.
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 »
