I would totally buy caviar with miles.
1 Like
Sounds like Amex is also changing up their lounge strategy - and increasing annual fee along with it.
Lounges must be big drivers for some.
1 Like
The late father in law worked for British Airways as a loading supervisor. As a perk, he got one flight a year free, always on standby rather than confirmed seats. He always wore a jacket and tie when flying, working on the basis that he might be offered a freebie upgraded seat if he was āproperly dressedā. Seemed to work - fairly often he would mention theyād flown business class.
Itās my completely unscientific observation that dressing up often works to oneās advantage.
2 Likes
Right. We have Global Entry, which has made things much easier/faster.
1 Like
Lounges are best for long connections, not for before the flight (though the use of the lounge for a shower after a red-eye, as mentioned above, is also a great thing). If youāre on a multi-leg international trip with many hours between flights, the lounge is a godsend.
2 Likes
Even for layovers domestically itās a very nice thing to have. If you only fly āhub-to-hubā in the US I get not seeing value, but so many places require flying to a hub and having a somewhat long layover.
1 Like
We each get one set of lounge passes per year thanks to our airline-branded cards. They come in very handy when we fly out East for Thanksgiving, especially when we need to have a decent breakfast & coffee.
My brother and I went on transatlantic flights as unaccompanied minors (starting young, 7 or so I think) so our parents could send us to stay with our grandparents. I donāt recall any special treatment but Iām sure it had to be trying for any adults sat next to us.
I do see value in the concept of a lounge, but I donāt see a reason to queue up to enter one.
Generally, the food at lounges is a big meh, or worse. Occasionally, thereās a standout; I havenāt been to more than a handful of the latter, but one of the Emirates lounges at Dubai DXB paved a shining path to voracity.
To sum up my average lounge experiences:
- Mexico, for bottles of water
- the U.S. for some packaged rubbish
- Japan, for a swift kick in the behind (even the airline lounges there are ho-hum)
- China, for peanuts and chilies (because finding something edible is otherwise tricky)
If youāre carrying a Priority Pass, Bangkok and Dubai are good choices for transitingā¦just donāt grab a flight through Dubai in the wee hours of the morning (thatās peak traffic). As for Priority Pass in the U.S., yeesh, thatās a tough one.
Yes, the long connections or the inevitable delays for local flights. I still remember coming back from the West Coast to New England, and due to an unexpected delay we had to hang out at the Seattle airport for about 5-6 hours (a few times of might be ready byā¦X). Got home at 3am rather than the 10pm the night before and I had work the next dayā¦ A lounge would have been a godsend! All I got was a $12 voucher for food at SeaTac.
I agree thereās a benefit of lounge use for connections. One summer I was on a business trip in Portugal for a client event. The last day there was a round of golf and then a scramble to the airport in Faro to catch a flight to London. I was all sticky and sweaty on the flight. Before my flight back to NYC I was able to take a shower in the lounge which made the flight back so much better. That shower was so good I donāt remember anything else from the visit. I do recall one time when I connected through LHR going to the BA lounge and first thing I did when I entered was zero in on this
I texted the picture to a buddy of mine to tell him this helps take the edge off of shitty travel.
āWe like exclusivity,ā said Laura Parkey, a luxury real estate adviser from Marco Island, Fla" well la di freakin daā¦ how cringe 
3 Likes
Arriving with less than around 1.5 hours doesnāt make you nervous? I guess it doesnāt if you fly enough. Even within the US I do those, sometimes even travel without luggage and I know I will almost always be sitting around, but I still prefer that to fear of missing a flight.
I especially dread ATL and LAX, but I canāt say a lounge would help.
Not even a little. I am the person who really would like to arrive at the airport 45 minutes before my flight (at least most of the time), because I know my way around airports, I have TSA PreCheck, and I never check bags. A few times on work trips Iāve gotten to the airport 35 minutes before flight time (once in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, once in Ankara, Turkey, and once at JFK in NY) and I still got on the plane. In 40 years of frequent flying, mostly international, I have missed a flight exactly one time, and that was because I slept through my alarm and woke up after it had already left 
When I fly with Mr. travelmad478, who is a more anxious person than I am, I compromise and will get to the airport maybe an hour and 15 minutes before the flight, but that is it.
3 Likes
Thanks to the ever present, mostly transparent corruption in Thailand, the great lounges at BKK (Oman Air, Air France, etc) are no longer available to Priority Pass cardholders. Only Miracle and Coral lounges now.
Most airline lounges in the US are OK. The non-airline Priority Pass lounges are pretty useless and I wouldnāt get to an airport early just to use one.
But I recently got to try the new-ish Chase Sapphire / Etihad lounge at terminal 4 at JFK. In addition to a nice hot and cold buffet with decent food, there was a small menu of meals cooked to order. Also a fully stocked bar with friendly, knowledgeable bartenders. Itās a very pleasant experience if you have free access. I wouldnāt pay the $75 fee otherwise. Itās nice enough that Iāll now be switching to flights out of Terminal 4 at JFK regularly instead of going out to Newark.
Aināt that the truthā¦I wrote up a report about the TK lounge a couple of years.
Meh, there are still edible things at the variety of Miracle/Coral lounges, plus (at least one of them) has some neat coconut latte machine.
Iāll usually just have a decent beer. I like to bring some goodies from wherever Iām coming from when I fly. Nothing better than egg salad on a flight. 
Your seatmates might disagree
4 Likes
