Access at more than 1,300 airport lounges worldwide is granted through the Priority Pass program for people with some of the most popular credit cards in travel. Those cards include the Chase Sapphire Reserve, Capitol One Venture X Rewards, and American Express cards branded as Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant and Business Platinum.
The popularity is the whole problem.
Regular air travelers may already be aware of the rapid deterioration of Priority Pass effectiveness. But if you're shopping for credit cards and think having the pass would mean you'll always have free access to an airport lounge, think again.
Some popular travel websites have made fortunes selling credit card applications to readers, and, thanks to dramatically oversubscribed lounge programs through credit card benefits, Priority Pass membership is no longer worth what it once was.
Travelers who thought they had Priority Pass club access because of their credit cards are being diverted to waiting lists that take longer than flyers have time for—or they are denied entry altogether.
Lounges listed on the Priority Pass app and website are turning away travelers, and many are complaining online.
No room at the lounge—if you can even find one
At airports large and small, passengers who try to use their Priority Pass credit card benefit are finding the only available lounges are struggling with a logjam of visitors.
Some lounges, as shown in the below photo posted to Reddit, are simply banishing the majority of Priority Pass holders to the most inconvenient hours of the day.
In an increasing number of cases, lounges are even denying entry to a subset of Priority Pass travelers based on which credit card issued the membership.
In an example logged by Mike Siegel of the Travel Tales podcast, holders of Chase Sapphire Reserve (annual fee: $795) have been banished completely.
In many terminals, there's no Priority Pass lounge at all
The situation has led some lounges—and other vendors that used to offer Priority Pass benefits, like restaurants—to flee the program.
At Chicago's O'Hare, the Priority Pass site and app list no lounges in terminals 1, 2, or 3—there's only access in the international terminal (5). That means members will find zero options when flying domestically.
For Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the drought of Priority Pass lounge access includes terminals 1 through 8, covering all the domestic terminals.
In New York City, JFK's Terminal 8, which serves American Airlines and British Airways, currently has no traditional lounge offering Priority Pass; travelers can only access private Minute Suites or a gaming lounge.
Lounges that do still participate often direct all would-be entrants to mandatory waiting lists via QR codes. The image below shows the queue at an Aspire Lounge at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport at 10:30am on a Sunday morning in early July.
Joining the wait list required travelers to hover close to the lounge's check-in desk, because when a passenger's number finally came up, they had just 5 minutes to check in or they'd have to rejoin the queue at the end of the line.
Checking availability of Priority Pass lounges
To get around these prohibitions, members are sometimes given the option to prebook entry via the official pass app, but doing that costs additional money. And Priority Pass is sold to cardholders for its "complimentary" lounge access.
At JFK's HelloSky Lounge or Air India Maharaja Lounge, for example, Priority Pass holders who want to guarantee entry will have to plan ahead and pay an extra $9 each.
Which means convenient lounge access isn't complimentary after all.
It's possible to obtain a membership directly with Priority Pass that grants unlimited and uncharged lounge entry at higher rates and at more lounges than memberships based on credit card benefits. But direct memberships with Priority Pass cost $469 (€459/£419) per year. Even then, Priority Pass lounge options can be scanty and the available lounges are still overstuffed.
So if you're eyeing a credit card with a luxury-priced annual fee because it offers Priority Pass lounge access, beware.
Before you sign up for the card, check your local airport's Priority Pass coverage for yourself. In countless cases, it's not what it was even a few years ago.
Because travel consumers have flooded the credit cards that offer access and the places that honor it, the program now has more subscribers than its lounges can handle.