Category Archives for Lounges.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 changed the tax treatment for business entertainment expenses. It made airline club lounge memberships no longer deductible to a business. But a bit of financial engineering would seem to make lounge access still deductible.
It’s not very good! But it’s free food! Of course the schnorrers are going to come out in droves and take the food, even if they don’t eat it.
Delta has been addressing lounge crowding by taking away access from their most frequent passengers, devaluing SkyMiles elite status and their premium credit card, and those Sky Club access for those buying memberships.
Why not just ban the passengers who behave badly? And if it’s families with children you get the geometric benefit of four or more bans for the price of one.
With plenty of time, I went straight to the D terminal which has the best lounges. My first stop was the American Express Centurion lounge across from gate D12. I saw a line to get in.
According to a manager at Virgin Atlantic’s Clubhouse at London Heathrow airport, people are trying to sneak in “all the time.” One recently fellow “ran in and locked himself in the toilet.”
JetBlue crewmembers have been told that the airline will open club lounges at New York JFK and Boston. They’re currently expected to be called Mosaic Clubs.
Chase’s Washington Dulles airport lounge is now open. It’s been redesigned as a Chase Sapphire Lounge, in the old Etihad Airways lounge space, and still hosts Etihad premium passengers for their once daily flight as well.
The Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority is saying both will open in the second quarter of this year.
The best airport lounge in the world is probably the Air France La Premiere lounge at Paris Charles de Gaulle. It has true gourmet dining, a spa, and a car service to take you to and from the plane. However, almost nobody can use this. You actually need to be an Air France first class passenger. They only make one award seat available per flight, and you have to be a Flying Blue Platinum member to book it.
However there are many great lounges that most of us have real world access to. These are my favorites.
Airline passengers will show up earlier, and stay longer (and eat more) at airport lounges than you expect when there’s a great lounge option at no added cost. And that’s true even when you expect that they’ll show up earlier, stay longer, and eat more.
So even as these lounges have expanded, and Capital One and Chase have both gotten into the airport lounge game, there’s just not enough space for the passengers who want to use these lounges.
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 »
