The diminishing value of Priority Pass for US travelers (on Nick’s mind)

When I first got into the credit card hobby about a decade ago, Priority Pass was an absolute game-changer for me. Not only had I never been into an airport lounge before my first Priority Pass experience, but I had never even known that airport lounges existed. I still remember the first time I was in the Air France lounge at Boston Logan Airport via Priority Pass. It wasn’t even a particularly notable lounge, but it was a new world for me.

Over the past ten years, there have been some great times with Priority Pass, from the introduction of various restaurants and experiences to the expansion of access to different types of lounges, like some Escape lounges and the Sapphire Lounges (once per year for the latter). However, over the last couple of years, access limits have really made Priority Pass harder and harder to use when traveling domestically in the United States. The value of Priority Pass has always varied depending on the cardholder’s travel patterns, but, in my opinion, its general value for travel within the United States has diminished over time. In turn, that makes the benefit of limited value for many (while it continues to offer outsized value for some).

Lounge overcrowding has been a growing problem for years

There’s nothing new here, but one can’t mention Priority Pass lounges without mentioning the fact that overcrowding has been a growing problem in recent years (no doubt due in part to the fact that so many premium cards now come with Priority Pass membership). It is not at all uncommon to arrive at a lounge only to see a sign saying that access has been restricted for Priority Pass members or to learn that there’s a waitlist for entry. That makes it difficult to plan on being able to use your Priority Pass benefit when on a layover, since you can’t know whether it will be available when you arrive. I no longer find myself counting on lounge access, but rather looking at it as a bonus when it’s actually available.

This issue varies tremendously from one airport to another and from one time of day to another, but most people who have a Priority Pass have run into this issue at some point, particularly within the United States.

Some lounges and experiences now feature upcharges

Last year, Priority Pass added access to Virgin Atlantic Clubhouses, but it came with a resort fee-like $35 top-up fee. We lamented that change and wondered how long it would be until other lounge operators began asking for top-up fees. Soon thereafter, there were top-up fees added for several lounges in London. That really limits the value of the benefit to me since a discount on something that I probably wasn’t going to otherwise buy isn’t a strong driver of value.

This issue came to a head for me just this week when I went to visit the Minute Suites at Baltimore Washington International Airport, and I was charged a $5.40 “cleaning fee”. It was explained to me that my Priority Pass membership from my Chase Ritz-Carlton credit card did not cover this new cleaning fee that was added on April 1, 2026. I have visited a handful of times in the past without any additional fee.

Adding a cleaning fee to lounge admission (or particularly to an “experience” where the entire product is a clean and quiet room in which to rest or work) seems akin to a restaurant adding a printing surcharge for providing a menu or a dishwashing surcharge to provide a clean plate on which to eat. Cleaning the room is just part of the cost of doing business in offering the product that Minute Suites offers. Clearly, Minute Suites must not be happy with the reimbursement that they’re getting from Priority Pass, but it’s really unfortunate to see that cost passed along to cardholders in the form of an upcharge that isn’t disclosed in the app.

More importantly, I wonder how long it will be before additional lounges begin to institute charges for access beyond what’s covered by a Priority Pass membership from one’s credit card. On the one hand, I understand that lounges need to do something to address overcrowding. On the other hand, the benefit doesn’t feel highly beneficial if I get hit with an upcharge when I want to use it.

Different restrictions create confusion for cardholders

When Priority Pass began offering restaurant access several years ago, I thought it was a really creative solution for making Priority Pass more relevant. After all, there simply aren’t contract lounges in all airports, and even when there are, they don’t all partner with Priority Pass. Restaurant access was a creative way to give cardholders the benefit of free food and drinks in the airport, even in instances where there wasn’t a traditional lounge option possible. I thought Priority Pass was really thinking outside the box when they added restaurants.

However, after Priority Pass continued to expand restaurant access for a couple of years, some issuers began pulling back and eliminating restaurant access from the Priority Pass offered on their cards, surely due to cost.

That became confusing for all but the most dedicated credit card hobbyists, since there are cards on the market where restaurant access is covered, such as with the Priority Pass visits that are offered by some U.S. Bank credit cards or the Priority Pass memberships from the Bank of America Premium Rewards elite card (for more on which cards cover restaurant access, see our guide to the best options for obtaining Priority Pass). The inconsistency can create cardholder confusion.

For instance, when Capital One changed the Venture X business card from being a Mastercard to being a Visa card, they dropped restaurant access for those whose Priority Pass comes on the Venture X Business Visa. Cardholders who have the Venture X Business Mastercard retained access to restaurants. Most cardholders probably aren’t aware that restaurant access could hinge on the payment network on which their credit card runs.

And that’s to say nothing of time-of-day restrictions that exist at some Priority Pass lounges. While those restrictions don’t vary by cardholder, it can nonetheless be confusing for a new Priority Pass holder to arrive at a lounge that they’ve seen in the app only to find that access for Priority Pass cardholders is limited to certain hours of the day. Again, that type of restriction is understandable since an airline likely wants to prioritize access for its own customers during peak times for its own flights, but that can be surprising for those who are new to Priority Pass.

Limited locations within the United States

Further exacerbating things is the fact that the Priority Pass footprint is of such variable value depending on the airports you use. Some of the country’s largest airports have few lounge options apart from restaurants and experiences, which aren’t covered by all Priority Pass memberships. Even if the airport through which you will travel has some Priority Pass lounges, they may not be at the right terminal for you to be able to gain access. Obviously, this varies significantly.

For those Priority Pass members who live near an airport that has good lounge options, Priority Pass can be huge. I’ve been to some particularly nice lounges that accept Priority Pass over the years. There are times when some of the more creative Priority Pass lounges can be really huge. I think of the VIP One lounge at JFK Terminal 1, which offers a shortcut to airport security as an example of that, but whether or not you highly value Priority Pass likely comes down to whether the airports (and terminals) you use most often have good coverage.

Priority Pass tends to be best for international travelers (particularly economy class travelers)

Priority Pass tends to be a better fit for international travelers for a couple of reasons.

First, Priority Pass lounge options are often far better overseas than within the US. Lounges within international departure areas are relatively common both domestically and abroad, and when I’m departing an airport abroad, it is usually for an international flight (whereas the same isn’t necessarily true in the United States). Although lounge quality varies, there have been many times when I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the quality of a Priority Pass lounge abroad.

Within the United States, you’ll find many more Priority Pass lounges in the international departures area of major airports. That makes sense, as foreign airlines want to provide a premium experience for their premium cabin travelers, but the economics of operating a lounge for a couple of flights per day probably leave a lot of room to be able to offer Priority Pass a significant discount in order to bring in additional revenue throughout the day.

If you’re traveling internationally, there’s a much better chance that you’ll find a couple of lounge options at your departure gateway within the United States. That said, if you’re traveling in a Premium cabin, you probably already have access to a lounge, perhaps even the same lounge that you’d access via Priority Pass.

I tend to find Priority Pass particularly useful when I’m traveling around Europe or Asia, since I’ll often take Economy Class flights within one of those regions once I’m already there, and I won’t necessarily have lounge access without Priority Pass. It becomes really handy in those situations (though, as mentioned already, a couple of the lounges in London have added access surcharges, which makes me far less excited. I’d hate to see that continue to expand).

Along the same lines, if you are primarily an international economy class traveler, you’ll probably make consistent use of Priority Pass both when departing the United States and when departing airports abroad. I think the benefit offers the most outsized value for frequent international economy class travelers.

Bottom line

Priority Pass can be a terrific benefit for some cardholders. However, in recent years, we’ve seen cutbacks to access, with some issuers eliminating or limiting access to things like restaurants and experiences, some lounges adding surcharges or reducing access at peak times (and/or expanding those peak times), and we’ve started to see some lounges add surcharges for Priority Pass members.

In my opinion, Priority Pass is of particularly limited value for someone who is primarily a domestic United States traveler since the coverage and quality of Priority Pass restaurants within the United States is highly inconsistent. Sometimes, new Priority Pass cardholders are surprised by that trend, and it’s worth calling it out for folks trying to measure up the value of picking up a credit card for its lounge access benefits.

None of this is to say that Priority Pass is worthless. On the contrary, I tend to make solid use of Priority Pass every year, particularly during our Frequent Miler team challenges, where I’m often flying international economy class and wouldn’t otherwise have access to a lounge. That tends to be the situation in which Priority Pass is most useful. Because I find myself in that type of situation a couple of times each year, I do value having a Priority Pass membership.

If my travels were primarily domestic (within the United States), I would probably more highly value an Amex Platinum card for Centurion Lounge Access, Escape Lounge Access, Plaza Premium Lounge Access, and I would enjoy having access to Priority Pass for when that benefit is useful or a Capital One or Chase card with access to their respective card-specific lounges if I lived in a market covered by one of them (though even that can be of limited use as I recently tried to visit the Sapphire Lounge at Las Vegas and the line just to join the waitlist was at least 10 minutes long; I never got a text that space was available).

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