Should You Skip Airport Priority Pass Lounges?

Booking a flight used to be a relatively simple thing. These days, it seems to be anything but simple. As a matter of fact, things haven’t been simple since airport security started making people take their shoes off 20 years ago. However, there are a few things that make traveling to the airport a little less painful. One of the biggest things involves the priority pass lounge, something that comes with membership and allows you to enjoy the best lounges at airports across the world. It’s also worth noting that these same lounges are not accessible to anyone who doesn’t have a membership, so it’s not like you have to fight off every person in the airport in order to get a seat at the bar. However, they’re not perfect and this has caused some people to ask whether or not they’re actually worth the price. According to some, you should just skip the lounge and wait to board your flight like everyone else. Below, we will explore both the pros and cons of having access to these types of lounges. By the time you’re finished reading, you should have a clear idea about whether or not it’s worth it for you and yours.

Are Airport Priority Pass Lounges Worth the Cost?

Perhaps you’re wondering whether or not these types of lounges are actually worth the asking price. You wouldn’t be the first person to ask that question, as they don’t exactly come cheap. Access to these types of lounges is achieved by having access to the types of credit cards that partner with airlines in order to get you miles and other perks. As previously mentioned, you must have membership in order to have access to the lounges themselves. This comes with an annual fee that varies in cost between the type of program that you decide to buy. Typically, you can get the basic program or move up to something called “select” which offers more perks and costs more money. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility for these memberships to cost several hundred dollars per year. Therefore, you have to ask yourself a question. Do you travel enough to actually utilize priority pass lounges often enough to make it worth the price of membership? That answer isn’t going to be the same for every person. Someone that only travels once or twice a year may not want to spend the money on membership. On the other hand, a person that travels every month is probably going to get far more out of that membership than it will ever cost them monetarily. Like so many other things, it comes down to whether or not you enjoy the perks provided by these lounges enough to pay the membership fee and how often you actually use them.

Benefits of Priority Pass Lounges

There are a number of benefits associated with priority pass lounges. Perhaps the biggest benefit that most people associate with them is the fact that you can get free drinks there. That alone is often worth the cost of an annual membership. It’s also worth noting that you don’t have to buy membership in each lounge at different airports. That membership is good for roughly 1,200 different locations around the world, giving you access to places that other people simply cannot go. If you’ve been to any airport recently and you’ve purchased cocktails, you know how expensive they can get very quickly. Having membership in something that allows you to have free cocktails with no limit (within reason of course) is worth a lot, especially if you are a nervous flyer and you’re not particularly excited about the idea of getting on a plane without having at least a little bit of liquid courage. Of course, the free drinks aren’t the only benefit. You also get free snacks and at some of the lounges, you also get free hot meals made by world-renowned chefs. If you think that you’re going to walk into a lounge of this type and have someone throw a sandwich at you that has been sitting in a glass case for the last six hours, think again. These airport lounges have definitely strengthened their game over the last several years. In addition, almost all of the lounges also provide free Wi-Fi so you can stream your favorite TV program or movie while you wait. In addition to that, there are even a fair number of them that have places where you can rest or even take a nap without being bothered. That’s worth a lot if you’re traveling exceptionally long distances or you are boarding one flight after another on some type of marathon trip around the world. Sometimes, just having that little bit of privacy and a warm meal is enough to be worth the asking price, no matter how much membership is going to cost you.

What Are the Disadvantages?

Of course, there are always two sides to every coin and this is no different. There are a lot of good perks associated with priority pass lounges, but there are also some drawbacks as well. One of the biggest drawbacks is that even though they are considered rather exclusive, more and more people are choosing to pay the membership fee so they can use them. This often leads to overcrowding. That is especially true when you’re dealing with several flights that have been delayed back to back and everybody decides to go to the lounge as a means of killing time. This is something that really gets to some people because the whole point of buying membership in order to have access to one of these lounges is so that you don’t have to deal with the crowds. Therefore, some people decide that the cost of membership just isn’t worth it when they find out that the airport lounges are just as crowded as every other part of the property. At the end of the day, you have to decide what works best for you. If you like the idea of being able to enjoy a few drinks, get a meal and skip the airport lines, the lounge is probably your best bet. If you’re fed up with crowded lounges that don’t seem to offer a great deal for what you’re paying for them, it may not be the right thing for you. The good news is that it’s your choice.