Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
When flying through an unfamiliar airport, it can be surprisingly difficult to know which lounges are available. Even more difficult is figuring out which lounges you can get into due to flying business/first class; or due to the credit cards you hold; or due to your elite status. I used to use an app called LoungeBuddy to help with this, but Amex bought LoungeBuddy and eventually killed it off. Fortunately, the free app LoungeReview does all of the same things — at least, all of the things that matter to me. Despite its name, the app is not yet well populated with lounge reviews, but in my experience it does all of the other things well.
Home Screen
One of my favorite LoungeReview features is that the home screen automatically shows you the closest major airports. This makes it super easy to look up lounge information when at an airport. In contrast, I always found LoungeBuddy a bit cumbersome in that it wanted me to enter my flight details first.
Browsing Lounges
You don’t have to create a LoungeReview account to use it effectively. You can start browsing lounges within an airport immediately after selecting an airport. If you do create an account, though, you can input stuff like which premium cards you have and what elite statuses you have so that LoungeReview can tell you which lounges will give you complimentary access. You can even import flights from TripIt so that LoungeReview can tell you which lounges you qualify for thanks to the airline and class of service you’re flying.
Airport Map
LoungeReview includes airport maps that show where the lounges are. Of course, when viewing a lounge, LoungeReview also tells you exactly where it is. For example, when viewing the AA Flagship Lounge in Chicago, it says this right under the lounge title:
Chicago, IL – O’Hare (ORD)
Terminal 3, between gates H6-K6
Easy.
Lounge Access Rules
When viewing a lounge, simply click “Access” to view the access rules. If you can get in with your elite status or premium credit card, the app will say so.
Conclusion
I find that I actually like using LoungeReview better than LoungeBuddy (which is no longer an option anyway). Over time, hopefully more people will write reviews so that the app’s name will make more sense, but for now it’s a great tool for finding lounges and learning about their entry requirements.
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[…] Lounge Review App: Finally, an app for checking out what lounges are in each airport, along with access rules. I like it a lot and I deleted Lounge Buddy. […]
thanks for the tip! been really upset about the downfall of Loungebuddy
Will give it a spin – typically- I find myself checking Amex Global lounge Plat benefits against PP (PriortyPass).
I have noticed checking it seems that Loungebuddy (Amex Benefits) is basically the same lounge access as PriortyPass (minus PP $28 Experinces- –we still get 8 *$28 for F&B with USB Altitude Rsrv per card member year).
With VenX We have Cap1 lounge, Premium Plaza access as well as one Sapphire lounge visit every year.
With Amex Plat – we Get Centurion, Escape (on is coming to PDX soon) and Delta when flying Delta. We don’t transit airports with Sapphire lounges enough – but we do with Cap1.
We mostly fly UA/Star Alliance partners on red-eyes – so then we use SFO Polaris lounge for Int’l.
Greg- do you have an affiliate link we can use to thank you for all that you do for us?
I know that it’s free, but at least you’d get credit with them for driving traffic their way…
I appreciate that but no I don’t have one.
If you want reviews get on Google Maps. No access policy, but plenty of candid reviews and pictures.
LoungeBuddy still exists as a website – loungebuddy.com
Thanks, this looks like a great app. Just added it.
I find Lounge Review containing inaccuracies, which is something you didn’t address for your review. While it functions as a more than decent replacement for Lounge Buddy, I’ve run across inaccurate information as to what cards have access at certain airports (as I did at CDG in Paris this past July). Strongly recommend if you review a product or app, you actually put it through its paces before writing it up.
Hi Drew, Tyler from LoungeReview support here. If you found any issue with our dataset, we’d love to hear from you. Please consider emailing us at support@loungereview.com and sharing the details, so other users can benefit from your experience.
When did AmEx kill off Lounge Buddy?
It’s still listed as a benefit of the Green card.Oops… I was mistaken. Don’t know how I missed the news.Thanks Greg, will check it out. The Priority Pass app works well for all participating PP lounges and PP restaurants, but I’m glad to have another app to view the non-PP lounges.
Thanks! I was just lamenting the loss of LoungeBuddy this morning (although FYI the web-based version still works, but perhaps they aren’t keeping the information updated, so it’ll only be useful for so long).
Thanks for this tip. I’ve been using AwardWallet’s trip feature which also lists lounges.
Also I see some reviews of lounges. I was just at EWR Polaris and they gave a review of that lounge. Fairly detailed as well with photos. Finally, lounge buddy still lives on with a website but it’s not as good as the app. https://www.loungebuddy.com/EWR