How 2 Lounge?

Nearly every airport have lounges for flyers to hang out in prior to a flight, but how do you get in them and enjoy those perks?

Well, it isn’t nearly as restricted to the upper crust of society as one might think or in days past. Today, there are many options that can get you past that check-in desk. So many options in fact, lounges are suffering from overcrowding issues! If you see a line to get in to a lounge, you may be better off finding a restaurant or open gate area to hang out at instead.

First, if you are flying internationally, you will nearly always get lounge access with a business or first class ticket. When you are spending the big bucks or a large number of frequent flyer miles, you kind of expect some freebies at the airport. However, many airlines are now “unbundling” business class tickets and removing lounge access (looking at you Qatar, Emirates, Etihad, and even Air France/KLM now!). On the other side, some airlines offer lounge access with a premium economy ticket like SAS, JAL and ANA. Just check the information on an airlines website when purchasing a ticket. At Dulles, my wife and I were at the Air France lounge prior to an Emirates flight, and several customers were surprised to find their business class tickets did not include lounge access.

Another option is to have a credit card that grants lounge access. These are typically premium cards like the AMEX Platinum, Chase Sapphire Reserve, or the Capital One Venture X card. All three (and several other premium cards) offer Priory Pass lounge access. This is an international lounge network typically found in most larger airports as well as some unexpected smaller airports (like Charleston SC!). As a note, the Sapphire Reserve priority pass members also get money towards certain restaurants at select airports, which has been pretty awesome for my family at Dulles, Heathrow (T5), and JFK. AMEX Platinum also grants access to Centurian lounges and if flying delta, Delta Skyclubs. However, both of those lounge options have been very crowded as of late based on internet posts.

A third option is that some lounges allow you to buy your way in for a flat fee. I’ve seen anywhere from $15 to over $200. Usually you can only do this 3 hours or less before your departure time. You could also buy a yearly membership for American Airlines admiral clubs, United Clubs or Delta Skyclubs, or get an airline credit card that provides that membership as a perk (typically those credit cards have a $450+ annual fee).

A final option is by having elite status with an airline. At certain frequent flyer levels, you will get lounge access as a perk (with some restrictions, looking at you Delta!). Say if you have the second level of American Airlines frequent flyer status (Platinum), you get their global alliance (OneWorld) status of sapphire. This status will get you into partner business class lounges around the world (with some exceptions).

So, if you see folks in the lounge enjoying some relative peace and quiet, there might have been a number of different ways of getting in and perhaps not as expensive or as difficult as you might think.