Where Would a Centurion Lounge Go at Washington Dulles?

by Gary Leff

Yesterday I wrote about American Express making Denver’s United concourse a priority for a new Centurion Lounge.

One of the blog’s commenters left a bit of a cryptic note about a possible American Express Centurion lounge at Washington Dulles.

I work in IAD concessions and during the last managers all hands we were told that AMEX has been in touch with the management to open a lounge in the now defuct UA lounge in the Intl terminal.

This confused me a little bit, both the reference to:

  • A closed United lounge
  • A United lounge “in the international terminal”

My first thought was terminal B where many international airlines (and some domestic carriers) operate from. And United has never been an occupant there.

Then I thought of ‘closed United lounges’ and I vaguely remembered that until about a decade ago there was an Star Gold lounge by United Express gates. I can’t think of any other former United club space that’s no longer in use.

The commenter, whom I do not know personally and therefore can’t vouch for their story (e.g. that they work at Washington Dulles), came back and confirmed that it was that old lounge. I’m not quite convinced, but it’s an interesting theory and fun (for me at least) to speculate.

And if nothing else, fun to think of Washington Dulles before Independence Air.

About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  6. @Marshall Jackson – presumably only enough space for a Centurion ‘studio’ there. I don’t remember how big the closed Star Gold lounge was.

  7. It was definitely a small space, and I don’t see a “studio” lounge being enough to service a pretty well-heeled populace of Platinum and Centurion cardmembers. Now I’m imagining where we could place a Centurion Lounge at DCA. 😀

  8. Slightly off topic, but what are the odds of a Centurion Lounge at IAH? IAH is a hub and serves the 4th biggest city in the country, but has no American or Delta clubs; if you aren’t with United, you’re basically out of luck.

    There’s vacant lounge space in Terminal A (which conveniently serves Delta and AA) next to the Chilis. The terminal currently only has a small United Club of the opposite end of the terminal, and not much else.

  9. Gary, what other locations have you heard rumors for? I’ve been hearing from people with pretty good track records about IAH and ORD, which do seem very logical airports to build one at.

  11. @Marshall Jackson – British Airways expanded the size of their lounge last year (to coincide with the start of A380 service) and took over the IAD Admirals Club space. I flew on BA out of IAD a few weeks ago and was able to visit the renovated lounge.

  12. What a mediocre choice. There are already a handful of decent lounges there (BA & LH come to mind) – a better choice would be Terminal C as it would be easy to pick off UA customers from the mediocre UC lounges.

  13. It used to be that United passengers traveling in First class could go into their lounge even if they were flying domestic, now they won’t allow you, also they used to let passengers with PlatioAmex go into the Lounge, no more, not even with my Centurion Card,; Dulles is a busy airport, you should have a Liu he in every terminal

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