Delays plagued air travel in 2022, and families spent an average of an additional 26% of their flight ticket cost on food and drinks while waiting in airports. That average totaled to about $240 spent on food and drinks for a family vacation! While that amount is less for single travelers or couples without children, unpredictable travel delays, flight cancellations, and rescheduling have made airports crowded and chaotic. Unless you always travel on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in low season, being stuck in a crowded airport and spending one-fourth of your flight cost for food is not fun!
In 2022, Patrick and I took 16 flights and paid a total of $33.10 in food for the two of us. That $33.10 paid for tips for lunch at the Bracket Room at Reagan International Airport, dinner at Chef Geoff’s at Dulles International Airport, and breakfast at the American Tap Room at Reagan International Airport.
We did not fast for the duration of our travels. It just cost no money because I have lounge access. We visited multiple lounges at our home airport, Dulles, where we were well fed and watered before departing on flights. We enjoyed sit-down meals, buffets, snacks, desserts, warm beverages, and alcoholic beverages across three continents, five countries, and many airports. I was even able to get my parents a free breakfast with our lounge access in Athens!
Why You Need Lounge Access
This afternoon, I will be sitting in a comfortable chair in a Dulles lounge before my flight to Munich. In addition to the free food and drinks, the comfort and relative quiet of lounges allow you to start your vacation early. While waiting in a terminal, it is difficult to enjoy a book. Watching a movie means potentially draining your laptop battery so that it may not last the flight. In a lounge, charging ports are ubiquitous. There are desks for those trying to get some work done and glasses of wine for those trying to be done with work.
The relaxing atmosphere feels miles away from the chaos at the airport. In my recent travel experiences, my ideal travel moment was enjoying a lovely second breakfast in Toronto before a 15-hour flight to Seoul, leaving the lounge, and arriving at the gate right as my boarding group was allowed to board, happily missing all the early announcements and crowds.
The relaxing atmosphere is more important in the new age of delays, cancellations, or even long layovers to save money. I remember sleeping on some uncomfortable chairs in the London Airport at age 21 because the cheapest flight back from Cairo included an 11-hour layover in London. This was possible at 21, but it was not fun. With lounge access, you can relax in a more comfortable location and even rent a small sleep room, take a shower, or get in a workout at some of the newer lounges. Tomorrow morning, we have a five-hour layover in Munich, and I am excited for the long layover because there are lounges I want to visit there with great food and drinks, according to reviews.
Lounges help you start your vacation early. They help you endure delays without frustration since you remain in a comfortable environment away from panicked fliers. You receive premium service. Your food is free (or just requires a tip, if you choose a sit-down option or order drinks from a bar). Air travel has become more chaotic and expensive, but your air travel can be calmer and less expensive.
How to Acquire Lounge Access
I have lounge access through my Capital One Venture X card, which provides Priority Pass and Plaza Premium membership in addition to access to the new Capital One Lounges. These work well for the DC area since Capital One’s headquarters are located in McLean, VA, so our local airports receive many of the perks first. (A new Capital One culinary lounge experience is supposedly coming to Reagan International Airport soon.) That said, the Capital One Venture X card is not the best card for every situation. For example, these memberships provide no lounges that I can access at Los Angeles International Airport or Salt Lake City International Airport. If I lived in Los Angeles, I would want a credit card that provided lounge access at LAX.
Chase is currently building more lounges, making the Chase Sapphire Reserve card an option for those seeking lounge access. Prior to Chase and Capital One accelerating their lounge perks, The Platinum Card from American Express offered the best lounge access in the United States. Regardless of where you live, do your research to see what works best for you. All of these cards come with high annual fees, but many of them easily offset the fees with travel rewards. Identify the one with benefits that you will use naturally, so you can secure lounge access and enjoy other travel rewards.
An alternative to credit cards is to establish elite status with an airline by consistently flying (or at least doing most of your flying) with the same airline alliance. If you fly frequently and consistently choose airlines within Star Alliance, SkyTeam, or Oneworld, you can receive lounge access for lounges connected to that air alliance. However, this does take a lot of flying, and the lowest statuses do not get you into the lounge. After our flights last year, I have United Premier Silver. This provides Star Silver status within the Star Alliance, but lounge access does not kick in until you get Star Gold status with Star Alliance. Unless you are a frequent business flier or live a nomadic lifestyle, the threshold is much higher than for a credit card! That said, alliance loyalty is worth it if you are flying regularly. Even before lounge access, the early boarding groups, free seat upgrades, preferred seating, free checked bags, and more make flying much more stress-free.
Pro tip: Within each alliance, you can generally choose to accumulate miles on any airline. Your best bet is to accumulate miles on the same carrier each time, even if you sometimes fly on a different airline within the alliance. For example, we accumulated the points from our Air Canada flight from Toronto to Seoul with United, part of the reason I now have Star Silver status.
Finally, you can pay directly for a lounge membership like Priority Pass or LoungeBuddy, but this strictly gets you lounge access. While the cost is slightly less than the annual credit card fees, if you book one trip a year (which you are, since why else would you need lounge access in the first place?), the credit cards tend to offer better deals with their travel credits, rewards points, free Global Entry or Clear membership, and more. There may be unique airport locations for which one of these services makes more sense than a credit card or airline alliance loyalty program, but I have not found that situation yet.
However you decide to secure your access to lounges, get started on it today so you can enjoy your travel with less stress about flying. Last summer, our flight from Athens to Dulles was delayed, and it provided me the opportunity to enjoy an extra lounge breakfast with my parents before we parted ways after a wonderful two weeks in Crete. When you get lounge access, delays become new travel memories rather than new travel stress. Start your vacation early, in a lounge.
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