The best airport lounge program is the American Express Centurion Lounge system. But you can NOT just pay your way in, like with some other airport lounges.
• The Platinum Card® from American Express.
These two American Express cards also grant you access to Priority Pass Lounges. In my experience, Priority Pass Lounges are pretty hit or miss. They’re always way better than not having a lounge at all — so I don’t want to sound spoiled! But while some of the Priority Pass lounges I’ve been to had delicious food and free-flowing drinks, others aren’t as great.
My buddy who lives in Las Vegas tells me he keeps The Platinum Card® from American Express in large part because of the awesome Centurion Lounge in Las Vegas and because he frequents airport restaurants that are covered with Priority Pass. He gets $28 worth of food and drinks for free at participating Priority Pass restaurants. And of course he has access to the Priority Pass lounges too.
When you’re flying with Delta, you can pop into Delta SkyClub lounges free of charge.
Yes, each of these cards has a hefty annual fee. But if you actually use a bunch of the perks and points for travel, AND the airport lounges… you’ll come out way ahead.
is about to jump from its current $450 to $595. So if you’re considering this card, I recommend you lock in the lower $450 price by applying in December.
We each have the Chase Sapphire Reserve and use a few of the Priority Pass lounges regularly. Some lounges are hard to get to (far from our gates), and some require you to go through airport security a second time (so I cannot my beverage to the airplane). There are some lounges only for international travel and require a boarding pass for international travel.
Once we know where a lounge is, we tend to use it more. We flew in and out of Boston and couldn’t find a lounge to use this past spring. We also fly in and out of San Francisco, and the Priority Pass lounge was non-existent, as far as we could tell. We were flying Southwest.
We definitely love our experiences at the Denver Timberline Grill. They say you need 90 minutes, and it seems ridiculous to me. They ought to cook the food faster and move people in and out at a faster pace. Seems like that would be much more profitable.
The Timberline Grill is super easy to get to from any concourse. We travel a lot in C and that is where it’s located. The train goes to C in just about five minutes from the terminal. Then you can go back to any of the other concourses easily via the train. The Timberline Grill is literally at the top of the escalator.
The value of the pass is great, even though we haven’t used it as much as we would like. We get our value out of it by flying from our homebase in Denver.
Oakland has no lounge, as far as I can tell. We fly in/out of there often.
I had the “pleasure” of being in an AMEX Centurion Lounge last Sunday at the EZE airport in Buenos Aries. The food was decidedly mediocre, small so-so snacks, no hot food what so ever. After an hour or so the lounge became so crowded took on the ambience of a Times Square subway station: no seats available, kids screaming, people standing over garbage cans eating food, extremely long lines just to get into a bathroom. I decided to spend the remainder of my flight wait time in the regular part of the EZE passenger lounge – quieter and no lines to use the bathrooms. Disgraceful. AMEX has nerve charging $450 for their card. Please, in the future do not become a part of AMEX’s phony PR system.
Are the benefits the same for the Amex Ameriprise and Schwab Platinum cards?
Yes! Same as the regular personal version.
Wrong….. these lounges are overcrowded.