Playing the Airport Lounge Game: How Not to Lose

By Robert McGarvey

You believe – we all believe – that it is our network of airport lounges that keep us sane as we travel. Outside, in the airport public areas, there is a madding crowd and its vulgar din. Inside, in our lounges, there is tranquility and civility. We take all that as fact.

But now our beliefs are under attack. Mainly due to overcrowding of lounges.  A recent Travel Weekly headline offered up this verdict: “Airplanes are packed, and the lounges also seem to be crowded.”

You’ve had this experience: enduring a long line and wait to enter a lounge and, once inside, there’s nowhere to sit and who wants to stand in a crowded room and slurp cheap wine?

That is why I am now doing something I don’t believe I ever have done before: mapping out my lounge experiences pre-trip and I am thinking beyond the Centurion which had been my go-to – but its deserved popularity is undermining the guest experience at many airports. If there is one and it doesn’t look to be bursting, I’ll of course check it out and Amex even makes that easy to do in the mobile app. One Mile at a Time tells how here.

And when I just checked the Centurion at PHX, the app warned me: “almost full.”

That’s why nowadays I want alternatives.

Incidentally, there is a belief that the overcrowded lounge is something of a myth.  That Travel Weekly story reported this: “Priority Pass network includes more than 100 U.S. lounges and pass-affiliated restaurants, said visits in July remained 7% below July 2019.”  American Airlines told the publication overcrowding hasn’t been an issue at its clubs. United said that where it has seen overcrowding it’s due to club closures (e.g., at EWR).  So maybe the worries about overcrowded lounges are exaggerated.

Even so I am doing a pre trip think that I have never before bothered with.

Understand however: planning in advance is no guarantee of success. Just now I clicked on Priority Pass, looked up lounges at SCQ in Spain, and my pleasure when one popped up on my screen receded when I noticed this: “Note: The lounge is temporarily closed until further notice.”

Uh, okay.  I’ve made a mental note to just grab a coffee at that airport which, in my past experience, is neither crowded nor hectic so doing without a lounge is not a big deal.

When there aren’t lounges – or they are overcrowded – do the smart thing and step into an airport restaurant.  Sure, you have to pay for that glass of red but usually the free wine at an airport lounge is worth what you paid for it.  Open the wallet and that is a way to buy a piece of quiet refuge in many airports.

Understand too, sometimes there’s no reason to think about lounges. On Day 1 of an upcoming trip there is a tight connection in Atlanta and, much as I have liked Delta’s lounges, there won’t be time for a visit so that’s out of mind.  Ditto for the return flight through Atlanta. 

On Day 2, in Madrid, I have better luck. After landing I journey to Terminal 2 for a TAP flight to Lisbon and there’s a Priority Pass lounge there, Puerta De Alcala.  

And then there’s my return to the US and in Madrid Airport’s Terminal 1 where Delta is housed there’s also a Priority Pass lounge, Cibeles, so I am good.

Not surprising, when I check the lounge access that comes with my Diners Club card, it’s the same two at MAD.  Right there is part of the current problem. The reason so many lounges are overcrowded is that increasing numbers of credit cards dangle them as perks and we the traveling public have become convinced that without lounges life on the road would drive us insane.

But will it, really?

Here’s the funniest bit: when I take the time to drill into lounges and my needs probably I will in fact only twice make use of lounges on a trip that involves six flights, three countries, and five different airports.  That triggers an Alfred E. Neuman moment, what me worry.

Just maybe this is much ado about nothing.