Chase is enlarging their Phoenix airport Sapphire lounge. It’s currently the smallest U.S. bank lounge at just 3,500 square feet and room for 78 passengers, although no lounge ever supports as many passengers as there are seats – a group of 3 takes up a table for four, a solo passenger puts their bags on a seat. So there’s really not much space here today.
The lounge, in Terminal 4 near gates D11-D18, has a wraparound bar and an “indoor patio” that opens to the corridor of the concourse. Instead of QR code ordering of hot food, it’s got an Airstream you walk up to and order from. There are two bathrooms, no showers, and they actually have a reaelly good reservations process through the Chase app so you can prebook entry and not wait in long lines.
The airport has shared internal work updates showing the work being done on this space.
- Overnight work June 21-25 behind temporary construction walls. This involves and activities including Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing; demolition and salvage; and layout of millwork and power.
- They’re explicit that this is for “TI 26-027 Sapphire Lounge Expansion T4S1.”
- Walls in place are expected continuosly through September 2026, so that’s the best estimate for the construction window though completion could be delayed.
It’s not clear exactly how much additional space is being added, though roughly it looks like it may be doubling the lounge’s current size. That’s still small, but would be a fantastic addition. There’s also no indication whether there would be any changes to the current lounge operation, such as the reservation system once the space is larger (Chase doesn’t offer this at any of their lounges larger than this one – even the Las Vegas lounge which is almost as tiny.)
PHX Sapphire lounge expansion has begun!
by
u/essentiallyappalling in
ChaseSapphire
Phoenix airport is also going to get a separate future Terminal 3 lounge. The north concourse is adding 173,000 square feet, six gates, and a mezzanine lounge with an exterior terrace, with at least core and shell delivery expected in 2027.
Credit: Phoenix Airport
The lounge space will be 10,000 square feet, and with Chase and American Express already offering lounges in the airport that creates an opening hopefully for Capital One.
Good on Chase. LGA is the best one, IMO. SAN and BOS are great. JFK is alright. Haven’t tried PHX, but hope they continue to expand existing footprints and new locations. (Was at HKG, but when you got CX The Wing and The Pier, you don’t bother with Chase or Amex.) These lounges are one of the few lingering reasons keeping one CSR in the family is still sorta, kinda, maybe worthwhile. (Eh, but the increased AF, the tedious coupon credits, the price-gouging on The Edit… *grunts*)
I was there last weekend and was not impressed. First, they changed the Ritz rules, so we had to pay $27 for our second child. Fine, that’s the new rule. But it was borderline not worth the $27. I had a reservation and told them, and I was still told to wait in line. There were no glasses for water, so we were asked to either use coffee mugs or coffee paper cups. We got seated at a high top with small kids (our smallest one is 7, so it’s a bit of a struggle with high tops). Eventually we switched to a regular empty table next to it, only for the staff to ask us why we had switched, as each table is pre-assigned. What does it matter? A table is a table, and they were next to each other. The airstream is an ok touch, but most of the food both from the airstream had a spicy touch and was served in paper containers. The bar is the central feature and was fine for ordering drinks. They were good. Other than that, we’d rather stick with the Admirals club, which can get our whole family in for free.
Visited the Chase lounge in PHX last Wednesday during my outbound segment with a reserved time slot. Sat at the bar. Nice view. Tasty food (liked the spice!), good service.
My inbound was a different story: Ended up last minute rebooked on a flight that arrives in PHX four hours later. There was no way to edit or even cancel the lounge reservation. As a walkup, I was put on a waiting list (assured that CSR customers had priority), but gave up after 30 minutes and went to the AA club.
I understand that these are first world problems. But it did give me pause to think about the economics of premium lounges:
1) For CSR cardholders, they’ve already got your money vis-a-vie the annual card fee. In the short term, this provides the lounge network with no incentive to prioritize cardholders. Conversely, the lounge network would want to maximize day pass customers. At $100 per visit, can a day pass customer really consume $100 worth of food/drink in the limited time that you’re allowed to remain in the lounge?
2) The ability to reserve a spot in the lounge in a nice feature, but is useless in the very, very rare scenario that an AA flight is delayed. There is no capability to change the reservation or cancel the reservation. And arriving outside the time window that the lounge has allotted for your original reservation due to abnormal flight operations does not boost your waitlist priority.
3) The lounge representatives handling guests outside the lounge requested departure time info. It wasn’t until after I let them know that my flight didn’t depart for a couple of hours that I realized this info could also be used to determine your waitlist placement. Why would you let someone into the lounge for a couple of hours when you can limit them based on their departure time?
Anyway, these are more observations than complaints. The Admirals Club was just fine.
Happy to hear about the expansion. The Sapphire Lounge PHX has been my go-to when I fly out of T4 (imo the food is better than the Centurion and the reservation system is great). Hopefully they keep the reservation system after the expansion.
Now we just need some news on the T3 lounge…