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Chase Sapphire Lounges will change their access policies on August 15, in a way that’s a win for Sapphire Reserve (and Ritz-Carlton and J.P. Morgan Reserve) cardmembers, and that’s a loss for passengers trying to access the lounge without a premium Chase card.
- The lounges will no longer be part of Priority Pass (or LoungeKey).
- The window to access these lounges during a layover increases from 3 hours to 5 hours (matching American Express)
Chase Sapphire Lounge Dallas – Fort Worth Bar
Restricting Access to Cardmembers
There is no change to access for Chase Sapphire Reserve® (See rates and fees) (and Sapphire Reserve Reserve Business), Ritz-Carlton Reserve and J.P. Morgan Reserve cardmembers. Cardmembers enter free, with up to two guests. Extra guests are $27 per person; kids 2 and under are free.
These customers still have access within 3 hours of a departing flight, and can still bring up to two guests without the spending requirements that both American Express and Capital One impose for complimentary guest access.
Lounges will still have a pay-in option but Priority Pass will not only no longer offer its one time per year free visit to a Chase lounge, but also no longer offer a discounted paid option.
It always seemed strange that Chase lounges had access via Priority Pass cards issued by competitors like American Express and Capital One! But these lounges are run in partnership with Airport Dimensions, which runs The Club lounges, and is part of the same parent company (Collinson) as Priority Pass.
Accepting Priority Pass in some cases was appealing to airports that awarded the space to Chase and Airport Dimensions, so this change may have required working with airports. It has likely been some time in coming. Limiting access to cardmembers accomplishes several things.
- It encourages cardmembership. Many passengers use a Sapphire lounge just once a year, or have multiple Priority Pass cards. Now, to use the lounges, they’ll want an eligible Chase card – access will no loger be an ‘extra perk’ of competitors premium cards.
- This makes the lounges less crowded for cardmembers. Cardmembers have had priority for entry ahead of Priority Pass customers, but those passengers helped fill up the lounge. One of the best parts of a lounge, and arguably the best part, is simply peace and tranquility and fewer people with access supports this.
- Shorter waits. Although cardmembers already receive priority, once Priority Pass customers do get into the lounge they fill up space that might be taken by cardmembers trying to enter after them. So restricting access reduces wait times for Chase’s own customers.
Chase Sapphire Lounge Dallas – Fort Worth
This is unfortunate for Priority Pass, of course, because Chase Sapphire lounges have generally been the nicest lounges that Priority Pass has offered complimentary access for.
Expanded Access On Connecting Itineraries
Allowing customers on connecting itineraries to enter within 5 hours of their connecting flight, instead of just three hours, is great for passengers on long connections. It’s also competitive with American Express, which has implemented that same policy. And restricting Priority Pass access helps to free up space for cardmembers on connections, too.
In general I find the larger Chase lounges (Philadelphia, New York LaGuardia, now Dallas – Fort Worth) to have fewer times where crowding is an issue allowing for access to begin with.
Chase Sapphire Lounge Las Vegas
Changes I’d Still Like To See
Current Chase Sapphire lounges now include Boston, Dallas – Fort Worth, Las Vegas, New York JFK, New York LaGuardia, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, and Washington Dulles.
Chase Sapphire Lounge New York LaGuardia
They’ll be opening Los Angeles soon, doubling the size of Phoenix, and adding one in Miami.
Lounge crowding is an issue not just for waits to enter a lounge, but for space, peace and tranquility once inside as well as access to amenities lke spa and rest pods.
Restricting access to entering no more than 3 hours before departure hasn’t been a major solution to this issue at Centurion Lounges or Capital One lounges. I’d love to see this rule abolished. When your meetings finish up early, it’s nice to go to the airport to sit down, have something to eat and work. Having to wait to enter the lounge isn’t a great experience.
Chase Sapphire Lounge Washington Dulles
One way to balance this expanded access would be to give entry priority to customers a few times a year. There are some people who use these lounges weekly and even multiple times per week. The occasional passenger should get to experience the lounge the two or three times a year they try to do so.
It makes sense to offer a couple of priority admittances per year. Chase already has the ability to do this functionally, since they’ve been able to prioritize cardmembers over Priority Pass guests on their waitlists.
Meanwhile, access priority could also be something offered to cardmembers as part of the $75,000 spend tier on Chase Sapphire Reserve® (that today comes with Southwest travel credit, Shops at Chase credit, and IHG and Southwest elite status) or they could offer incrementally more priority admittances at progressively more spend each year (e.g. a priority entry every $10,000 spent on the card).
It’s always surprised me that J.P. Morgan Reserve cardmembers – who are supposed to be J.P. Morgan Private Bank customers with at least $10 million in investable assets at the bank (this can be lower, but on average is far higher) – do not get any priority at all. The one time during the year they show up with their families and want to use the lounge, they might get turned away, especially in the smallest Las Vegas and Phoenix lounges. American Express of course offers both priority ‘skip the line’ status and reserved seating for Centurion (‘black card’) cardmembers.
Chase Sapphire Lounge Las Vegas
Personally I’m most looking forward to the opening of Miami, and the Cuban coffee bar that was part of their proposal to the airport, and wish they’d improve the grind of the meat for their Sapphire Burgers – which aren’t nearly as tasty as when these lounges first opened several years ago.
Sapphire Burger New York LaGuardia
And I hope they extend the Dallas – Fort Worth experiment with grab ‘n go.
That’s fair to prioritize CSR cardmembers; even so, most of the waits are short, and they often send you to other lounges while you wait (at airports like LGA, where you get Maple Leaf access for what amounts to usually 10 minutes before you get a text from the lounge to return anyway).
Where I’m a little skeptical on your framing… the layover time-limits are all relatively new anyway, so them expanding from 3 to 5 hours isn’t necessarily the big win, because there used to be no limits for layovers anyway. Either way, so long as they set clear expectations, and this benefits CSR holders, seems aight.
They need every lounge to have digital wait lists that you can join while walking to the lounge like Amex. Why is Phoenix dropping reservations? Due to the expansion?
Makes sense to match Amex connecting policy and drop PP. Food is still better than Amex.
JPM card used to be offered very broadly to employees of companies that had banking relationships with JPM – so plenty of folks that have that card are not “real” JPM 10m+ folks and are just enjoying legacy benefits.
Can always buy the more private reserve suites at LGA if you want guaranteed entry (and caviar)… not that those private rooms make any sense at a distance restricted airport like LGA (no one really needs it before their 1-4 hour flight).
@Peter — Thought the other benefit of those ‘suites’ at LGA was an actual shower. Then again, not many folks are actually connecting through, having layovers at LGA (unless you’re flying down from, say, Burlington, VT, then onward, which is pretty rare). Like, majority of LGA passengers are starting or ending at NYC.
Will authorized users on the Ritz Carlton card have access?
Well poop. Was hoping to finally be able to use/see this in Dec. Oh well. Not worth a $800 AF card with other credits that I can’t use. The $75/pp is too steep to justify as well (IMO). Would’ve been nice to have seen/been in one. Life goes on though. Can understand limiting (Amex does as well, so there’s that). Although Amex, IMO, isn’t worth it any longer either (lounges are super crowded and not up to Sappphire lounges, from my reading) and the $800 AF with the reduced credit (Dell and can’t use the airline incidentals anymore like we used to).
@1990 – I’m actually surprised they don’t offer $500 off a reserve suite experience as a benefit purely to continue to push up the bogus “we provide you with $X in value” marketing number. Even with the discount who is paying $500 off $2.2-3.0k for 3 hours before their flight to Florida or wherever?
I can’t believe anyone really uses those suites other than relatively high up JPM execs that are not flying on the company plane that day.
This is a win for SR cardholders like me. The lounges have been overrun of late with wait lists in excess of an hour at IAD and PHL. Makes my card even that much more valuable.
very happy to see this. Boston’s lounge is ridiculous there is a perpetual line and always a 20-30min wait till you get in.
@Peter — You’re hired! That’s the exact subtle, deceptive-but-still-legal, marketing-GENIUS that this industry loves!
I’ve just gone to the AC in Boston instead of waiting for the Chase line, which was always more like 40-45 minutes when I’ve checked. I was using PP to access Chase lounges. Chase lounges are a LOT nicer. I’m glad I got to experience them a couple of times.
Chase Sapphire Lounges could offer cardholders a new benefit by using an empty bottle of Windex, filling it with naturally carbonated Perrier water from France, and then offering cardholders a misting instead of a shower as they enter for an extra $100. Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan Reserve cardmembers, because they’re just that special, will receive a bonus complimentary Perrier misting on their way out, presumably to wash away any lingering sense of exclusivity.
Sounds great, except that as a west coast traveler I’ve still never been in a Chase lounge. LAX will be welcome.
@Sue — SAN and PHX have them. Last I checked, San Diego, California, at least, is West Coast.
I’m surprised that J.P. Morgan Private Bank customers don’t fly private. I mean if I had $10 million+, I’m not bothering with any of the US domestic airlines.
I like the idea of a one time priority access and they definitely need a digital wait list. I am 0 for 3 on accessing the Boston lounge and it’s especially frustrating making the trek from terminal A to only find a line of 30 people waiting to sign in for the 60+ minute wait. My $795 plus spouse card fee has been a total waste this year. This potential improvement may be a little too late for me.
@Baron — They didn’t get to +$10m (and they won’t keep it) by wasting it spending 5-20x what a premium commercial cabin costs, unless it’s a business expense (psh, please) or someone else’s money.
This is pure corporate greed! How dare they exclude PP. Lounges should be free to all the workers of the world. No rich people allowed though, because they would just go around exploiting the proletariat by making them work hard. Oh and orange man bad.
@1990bot — *beep boop* Thank you for your attention to this matter!
@Baron – to add to what @1990 said, it’s a cash flow exercise. If your $10m is actually liquid and investable (exclude residences) makes ~10% a year and you can live off of ~$1m (ignore taxes for the moment) and you want to go NY to LA for the week – you’re really going to spend $100k or whatever on flying private and burn 10% of your budget for the year on some short flights? Not a chance. I guess you could do something like Aero and spend $10-15k round trip, although that adds up quickly if you have friends/family coming along – and quite frankly may not be as comfortable as just buying 4 roundtrip tickets on DL/AA/UA/B6 – each offer perfectly comfortable ways to get across the country.
No one should take out the violins for the $10m+ crowd, but the VHNWI crowd are folks that are flying commercial 99% of the time unless someone else is paying.
When you actually are a UHNWI – $30m in investable liquid assets – that’s where things start to change a bit, although that greatly depends on whether you are retiring on the $30m or still have cash flow coming in from other enterprises / business. While purely a thought exercise, I couldn’t imagine flying private with any regularity without at least $50-100m in investable assets.
@Peter gets it.
How many non-CSR and PP people are truly accessing and taking up space? They only get one free visit per year. I was one of those people until I got a CSR. That one free visit to LGA convinced me to sign up for the card. I wouldn’t waste my visit on a much smaller lounge, such as LAS and PHX, but use it on that one special trip per year. The big question is, will lines truly be shorter now that people can stay up to 5 hours? With the exception of an international layover, do airlines typically route people that offer 5 hour layovers?
@CMH Flier — Are you @This comes to mind, or do you know him, because he also flies CMH, though, he refers to it as his ‘homeport.’ Cute.
@1990 & @Peter if I ever make it to $10m, I’ll let you both know if my travel habits change. I’ve been ExecPlat for about 10 years now and maybe I’m prejudiced because as much as I fly American, I’d jump at the chance to fly private than deal with their (and most other commercial airlines) constant chaos.
@1990 Negative. I get emails of View Wings and if Gary doesn’t spin the article and turn it political, I’ll actually read it. I do love reading your comments. Sometimes it’s the most down to earth and speak it as it is type of responses. I’m a CMH WN loyalist that’s slowly turning into a DL loyalist.
@CMH – only Chase knows the answer to that question of course, and I think the 1x PP access clearly worked exactly as it was intended to with you, but the lounges are now routinely waitlisted and they had to do something. So many folks have at least one PP now (many have two or more) and they were often already restricting access for PP members during peak times, so practically not sure this changes much in terms of crowding. What it does do is potentially further incentivize people who want to access the lounge to sign up for a CSR – I highly doubt the CSR retention numbers are anywhere near as good as the Amex retention numbers post-refresh.
The 600 pound gorilla in the room is that Chase still allows free guest access without corresponding spend. It’s actually one reason I highly value the CSR because you can get your family in. Once they start charging for that, it changes the whole value proposition which is already greatly diminished by CSR 2.0.
@CMH Flier — Aww, thanks! And here’s to hoping Columbus airport’s renovations finish on-time or early, and at or under budget!
@Baron — 10 years as EP! They really should’ve offered you CK by now! (Meanwhile, @George Romey hogging it all for himself, it seems… sadly, they didn’t renew Gary at some point…)
@Baron – I hear you, and I’m EP also, but the cost of flying private is simply astronomical. Even a short hop like NY-Boston you’re looking at something like $15k round trip, no? Maybe more these days with fuel costs what they are? Sure you can allocate that cost among 4 people or whatever but are you really going to pay ~$4k/pp versus a couple hundred bucks for a one hour flight with shuttle service that leaves on the hour? If you are Google and are printing money – sure, who cares.
Look, if you have $10m and you want to spend $$$ on a special trip (especially one where you’d have to connect or could fly into a smaller airport that is much closer to where you want to spend time) you can obviously do it, but it’s a budgeting exercise like anything else. And folks who have money tend to like to keep their money / start to think about their “legacy” in terms of leaving their kids money – and if you have X kids and are dividing the pie and who knows what the tax rate will be when you pass… suddenly that $10m may only be a couple million a kid. Poor kids, I know, but it makes folks think twice about “unnecessary” five to six digit expenditures.
All that said, hope it works out for you and all of us! Until then, just remember, you are why we fly. Forever forward!
@Peter — “you are why we fly.” I still remember that ad from 2020. (Pretty much every airline has used that one.) Forever Forward℠ … DFW… 2030… maybe… giddy-up… yeehaw…