Airport Lounges on a Coach Budget
I’ve mentioned it in passing on here before, but I’m a little embarrassed to share that I’m a nervous flier. Like really nervous. Can’t sleep well for nights before, anxious stomach, sweaty palms, nervous flier. One day I will work up the guts to write what it’s like to be a nervous flier who travels around the world for a year. But today I’m going to share, absolutely, my favorite part of the flying experience - airport lounges!
We visited over 10 airport lounges during our year of travel. When we fly, we tend to book flights with long layovers to avoid missing our connections. So we have spent countless hours in lounges all over the world and have loved our experience. No, we are not rich. We are also not flying first class and getting access to airline lounges. We just know how to work the system and syphon every benefit out of our credit cards. So here’s our guide to enjoying airport lounges on a coach budget.
PRIORITY PASS
We gained access to over 1,300 lounges in more than 600 airports around the world through a company called Priority Pass. As members of Chase’s Sapphire Reserve card program, we automatically received a membership to Priority Pass. It does take an extra application process to get your Priority Pass card. From my memory it only takes a few minutes to complete and we received our card in the mail within a couple of weeks.
Through Chase Sapphire Reserve, your Priority Pass membership will grant you and two guests access to any of their lounges. Both Trent and I are (independently) cardholders which meant that our family of 4 always entered for free. We also loved the experience of treating my mom and sister to lounge access during our flight from Marrakech to Lisbon.
HOW TO FIND LOUNGES
Priority Pass has a great app that makes it easy to locate what airports have lounges and where lounges are located within the airport. Most lounges that are available through Priority Pass are located outside of the U.S. which was perfect for our travels. You can currently find lounges in more than 40 U.S. airports and hopefully that number continues to grow.
LOUNGE BENEFITS
Besides the fact that lounges are more comfortable than airport terminal seating, they also block out the never-ending airport background noise. Rolling suitcases and flight announcements every 12 minutes. We love the atmosphere of the lounges and consider them the biggest perk.
But there are many more benefits! Almost every lounge that we visited offered a buffet of food and complimentary beer and wine. We rarely needed to purchase airport food which saved us hundreds of dollars over the course of our travels. Easily balancing out the high annual fee for the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. Every lounge also offers free Wifi which is a dream to any long term traveler.
The quality of lounges ranged a lot. Our least favorite was in Marrakech, but even that lounge beat sitting in a terminal for hours before your flight. The best lounges offer perks beyond food and drinks. In Thailand, we visited one that also offered complimentary massages! Some have children’s play areas, video games, massage chairs, showers, and even swimming pools.
Have you visited a lounge through Priority Pass? What are your favorite travel budget hacks?
