Category Archives for Lounges.
American Express is opening a Centurion lounge at New York JFK’s terminal 4 in early 2019. It will be the largest Centurion lounge yet and they promise “new amenities” on top of standard Centurion lounge offerings.
Over the summer I wrote about someone bringing 19 people in an airport lounge using the Priority Pass Select card that comes with the Chase Sapphire Reserve. You get unlimited airport lounge visits at participating lounges (over 1000 worldwide, here are the U.S. airport lounges). You also get unlimited guests at no additional charge.
It turns out the woman who brought in 19 guests was just a piker.
Etihad has been selling access to their business class lounge in Melbourne, Australia for AU$99. However they’ve dropped the price for economy passengers to use the lounge down to AU$75.
And anyone inside the lounge can now reserve the private Residence lounge for just AU$40 additional.
Priority Pass is a card that gets you into lounges around the world. You don’t have to belong to an individual lounge program, this program works to have lounges in most of the places you go.
There are over 1000 airport lounges that a Priority Pass will gain you access to, most of those are spread throughout airports around the world. A year ago there were 41 lounges in the U.S.. Priority Pass aggressively builds out its network and now they’re up to 59 as of this writing.
Etihad has opened its new first class lounge at their Abu Dhabi airport home. First class passengers no longer need to use the ‘roped off section’ of the business class lounge, that’s no really different than the rest of the lounge except that a staff member will bring you drinks (and your spa treatment is free).
There’s there’s cooked to order food including a tasting menu. There’s a cigar lounge (unclear whether cigars are complimentary or paid) with recommendations on pairing each cigar with whiskey or cognac. There’s both a Six Senses Spa and Style & Shave as well as a fitness room.
Regus has furnished offices all over the world. You can rent an office for a day, a week, whatever you need. They also have ‘business lounges’ which are open lounges in their offices, with wireless internet and coffee and tea. Some people like to use them, but I’ve never found it all that much more appealing than going to Starbucks or a similar venue. Even business lounges can be expensive to use, I suppose there are people who pay for it (you can even earn American Airlines miles if you do). But they’ve long given away free access to use their business lounges, which can’t cost them much to do. I have a ‘Gold’ membership from them, which I think was marketed to me in an email from American AAdvantage. Gold ‘sells for‘ $600 per…
In yesterday’s Washington Post, Keith Alexander suggests that airline club lounges are becoming less relevant: Those plush airport clubs began to lose their appeal after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Duffy frequently found herself stuck in long security lines and often had to rush through concourses just to catch her flight, leaving little time to relax in the club. And because of heightened security, Duffy could no longer hold meetings with clients in the clubs as she once did. So she began renting meeting rooms or suites at nearby hotels. Though it requires a bit more of a cumbersome process in the past, it’s still generally possible to hold meetings in airline clubs even if you aren’t traveling. Renting a club conference room or attending a meeting in one is usually enough to get a…
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 »
