Airline Lounge Access: Priority Pass Review
December 3, 2007
I’m bought a Priority Pass membership today, for airport lounge access. If you want lounge membership, but don’t fly one single airline enough to get their discount, a low-cost Priority Pass
membership may be right for you too.
Do any of these sound like you?
- I’ve always wanted a quiet place away from the chaos.
- I get stuck in layovers, a lot.
- Since my trips seem to rotate between flying Alaska, Northwest, and United, I can’t commit to a particular airline’s program. For example, a Red Carpet (United) membership isn’t very useful at Minneapolis, what MSP being a Northwest hub and all.
There’s over 500+ airport lounges worldwide with Priority Pass. Being a sceptic, I figured most of the lounges would be in Europe and maybe a few major cities in North America. I had little hope of finding any in the cities I frequent.
I was wrong.
Here’s the results of my search:
- Seattle? yes
- Austin? yes
- Chicago and Minneapolis? yes
- JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark? yes, yes, and yes
- Phoenix? yes
- Salt Lake? yes
- San Diego? yes
- Spokane? nope (no big shock there)
They offer three membership levels, ranging from $99 (plus a per-visit fee) to $399. It’s competitive with what the airlines charge for their memberships, but gives access to a wider variety of lounges. If you nearly always travel one airline, you might want to look at an airline-specific lounge membership. Oh, and if you have Amex Platinum you already have no-cost entry into Continental, Delta and Northwest airline lounges. (lucky you)
If, like me, you value a chance to sit in a comfortable chair with some peace and quiet and complimentary beverages, lounge access is worth while. Yes, the quality of lounges varies widely. Some are little more than a closet. Many others (Heathrow Red Carpet comes to mind) spacious oases of calm.
Large or small, they all offer a refuge from the lines, the crowds, the chaos caused by flight cancellations. I like my Priority Pass, and you will too.
Safe travels.
Comments
6 Responses to “Airline Lounge Access: Priority Pass Review”
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How do you like priority pass?
I’m enjoying it. If I only flew one airline I’d probably stick to that airline’s lounge program. But, since I often fly United, Northwest, Alaska, and Continental routings…havng access to the extra airports is an important feature.
Interesting. Your review sounds much like one I wrote last december… The language; “chaos,” “oasis,” “refuge…” Another Priority Pass article I wrote at the same time was titled “Priority Pass Review - Airport Lounge Access Program;” interesting that’s the title of your article as well.
I STRONGLY disapprove of plagiarism, and any similarities are not intentional. If you’ll post/email the url of your article, I’ll gladly compare — and adjust my article if they are indeed more similar than is comfortable.
At the moment, without the ability to compare, there isn’t much I can do.
1) you didn’t leave a link, so neither I nor the blog’s readers have any way to verify your claim.
2) I googled your title “Priority Pass Review - Airport Lounge Access Program”: two articles were returned — one at a blog that’s been suspended by Wordpress for violation of terms of service, and one referenced by TravelEverywhere (http://traveleverywhere.biz/?m=200711&paged=36) which has ALSO been suspended by Wordpress.
3) Google for both “Priority Pass” and “oasis of calm” in the same query and you’ll see more than 13 distinct URLs — including 2 from Flyertalk’s forum, posted in 1998
Again, though any similarities between your article and mine are NOT intentional, I’ll be more than happy to adjust my article if you’ll be so kind as to point me to it, for review.
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