At the Capital One lounge in Denver I was #73 on the wait list and waited 40 minutes for entry. Capital One does a nice job with their lounge entry,

• You can waitlist in the app whenever you wish (including before arrival at the airport)
  
• And they estimate how long the wait is
  
• The lounges don’t actually feel as crowded as Centurion lounges when you do get in – no long queues up at the bar, and you’re not usually dodging and weaving around other passengers.

Capital One does a great job with ‘grab ‘n go’ but you have to get in to use it. Grab ‘n go is for guests in a hurry, but if you’re in a hurry you can’t ust grab ‘n go. That saves money on food and packaging, but defeats the purpose of the offering and leaves cardmembers dissatisfed.

American Express copied Capital One’s in-app waitlisting, but without the time estimates. American Express lines to get in are legion and the digital waitlist at least reduces the optics of having people standing in a queue. Otherwise Philadelphia queues would wrap the terminal.

In 2018 I wrote that Centurion lounges were so busy nobody goes there anymore and that’s long before the lines and digital queuing. The number of cardmembers with access has grown as American Express has put far more Platinum cards in customer hands, and extended access to Delta Reserve customers.

You go to the lounge to get away from the crowds not to,

1. say you had lounge access
   
2. sit in spaces just as cramped as the terminal

I like the concept at Capital One’s Landing at National Airport (that’ll be repeated at New York LaGuardia when it opens) of actually offering reservations like a restaurant and showing guests to a table.

Priority Pass-accessible The Club lounges will sell you reservations.

Ultimately, though “when everybody has lounge access, nobody does.” Nowhere in the country should passengers be easier to accommodate in lounge than New York JFK’s terminal 4, and yet we see 40 minutes to get into several of them at the same time.:

Airport lounges are officially cooked. To a crisp. 40 min waits for delta, centurion, and sapphire.

We need to #MakeLoungesExclusiveAgain pic.twitter.com/ksmueTGkHh

— Mid Thirties Manhattan Guy (@Mid30sManhattan) August 22, 2025

• New York JFK Terminal 4 has two Delta Sky Clubs and the Delta One lounge; Chase, American Express, and Capital One lounges; the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse, Air India Lounge, HelloSky and Emirates; and a Minute Suites. Is any other single terminal or concourse so packed with lounge options?

• JFK terminals aren’t connected airside, so you have very few passengers from other terminals using these lounges.

American Express gives entry priority to their Black Card customers. Delta has Sky Club priority lines for first class and top status. I’m surprised Chase hasn’t done anything similar for J.P. Morgan Reserve cardmembers (new applications restricted to J.P. Morgan Private Bank clients) and Capital One for its top cardmembers with exceptionally high spend.

Banks have sold too many cards offering lounge access – the problem is that cardmembers take the product imagining a better experience, but then the experience falls flat. How does that land on a customer who dedicates significant wallet share to a product and then gets disappointed? Lounges need to deliver because it’s not only the promise and cardmember acquisition that matters.

Chase has tested consumer appetites for higher annual fees with their Sapphire Reserve product. American Express is expect to test even higher fees will with Platinum in an announcement that could come as soon as before the end of next month.

A few hundred dollars in fees isn’t likely to change much, though the issuers may say they’re doing it for the good of cardmembers. A higher fee could make sense to actually gain access to the things that have been promised at lower fees. But we aren’t likely to see that because it would mean fewer cardmembers and this is a numbers game for the banks.

In the meantime, Capital One kept their Venture X at $395, with a $300 travel credit and 10,000 bonus points at card renewal. So that card remains a value despite the lines, though I think there’s room for a more premium offering there with greater priority.

I’ll just keep making reservations at Capital One Landing, one of the few places besides Tortas Frontera where I’d be happy with the food outside the airport, and I’m more than good.