Tag Archives for chase.
United Airlines is taking a page from Delta with club lounge access restrictions, and together with Chase they’re taking a page from American Express with changes to their co-brand card portfolio. But I think they’re doing it a little bit more thoughtfully.
The Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club at the Philadelphia airport opens on Thursday, February 20. The 20,000 square foot lounge in the Terminal D-E connector features a beer garden and game room with retro arcade machines and multi-screen wall with seating, as well as a la carte menu from Chef Matt Cahn of Middle Child Clubhouse including cheesesteak sliders and potato pancakes.
I covered all of the airport lounge moving pieces at the Austin airport like plans for all airlines to move to different spaces, and to add credit card and common use lounges, as new construction finishes.
However the most immediate change deserves to be pulled out separately.
Hyatt’s latest earnings call reveals a firm commitment to premium brands as CEO Mark Hoplamazian dismisses low-end market competition, emphasizes loyalty growth, and sets sights on renegotiating a lucrative credit card partnership.
Bear in mind though that after gutting awards on Delta and devaluing ANA business class awards up to 26% without notice, Virgin Atlantic plans to move to dynamic award pricing in just two weeks. You know it’s bad when the change is about to happen and they won’t give concrete details for what to expect.
Another Chase Sapphire lounge in the pipeline, this time at LAX in the Tom Bradley International Terminal. It will be 9,234 square feet near gate 148.
The Chase Sapphire lounge is small, but I was there in the morning – from around 8 a.m. until 11 a.m. it wasn’t super busy and there was plenty of available space. The lounge is well laid-out, food is good, and staff are friendly. The exterior of the lounge is branded Etihad (it’s a joint Etihad and Chase lounge but the exterior signage doesn’t mention Chase) and I wonder if that limits awareness and thus crowding.
Chase is making changes to its Priority Pass cards, eliminating part of the benefit. Starting in July cardmembers will no longer receive credits at airport restaurants that are part of the program.
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 Chase Sapphire Lounge at New York LaGuardia airport only just opened on Tuesday. Usually it takes awhile for new lounges to get crowded because word of mouth has to spread that the lounge even exists. This one is 22,000 square feet – twice the size of the nearby American Express Centurion lounge. And the existence of both in the same terminal should help spread out the crowding.
And yet there’s already queueing to get into this new Chase lounge!
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 »
