0:02

Airports can suck. The crowds, the

0:04

chaos, the overpriced food, but

0:06

airport lounges, they can make the

0:08

whole experience so much better. Today,

0:11

we're gonna share everything you need

0:13

to know to get into the

0:15

best airport lounges. The kind that

0:17

completely change how you travel with

0:19

free food, drinks, massages, nap pods,

0:21

showers, and more. We'll dive into

0:23

every single way you can get lounge

0:25

access, no matter what airline you're flying

0:27

or what seat you're in. Whether that's

0:29

through credit cards, memberships, elite status, or

0:32

a few other creative hacks. Plus,

0:34

we'll cover how to avoid the worst lounges,

0:36

what cards are best for which type of

0:38

lounges, how to skip the lines, and even

0:40

how to hit up multiple lounges on a

0:42

single trip. I'm Chris Hutchins. If you

0:44

enjoy this episode, please share with a friend or

0:46

leave a comment or review. And

0:49

if you want to keep upgrading your life,

0:51

money, and travel, click follow or subscribe. Now

0:53

let's get into it right after this. This

0:57

episode is brought to you by Element.

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hydrated. What

2:18

is your favorite lounge? You

2:20

know what? I got to go back

2:22

to the pier first class in Hong Kong.

2:24

It's a great lounge. It has a sit

2:26

down dining restaurant. They've got

2:28

a spa where you can get

2:30

back massages and things like that for

2:33

massages. They've got day rooms that

2:35

when you lie in, you can look

2:37

out the window and staring your

2:39

face is the Emirates A380 right there.

2:41

The food is pretty great. The

2:43

bar is really nice. It's super quiet.

2:45

It's super peaceful. I got to

2:47

say, that's probably one of my favorite islanders in the world. And

2:50

you can get to it with just one

2:52

world emerald status, which is really fantastic. I

2:55

try and go every single time I go

2:57

to Hong Kong, whether I'm flying cafe or Japan

2:59

Airlines or whatever one world airline there is

3:01

and even an economy. I love going there. And

3:03

it's a little bit of a trek from

3:05

the rest of the airport from the gates. I

3:07

like I have not been. If I

3:09

were to answer the question, I'd say my favorite

3:11

lounge is the lounge that doesn't have a weight

3:13

that's like where I am so that I can

3:15

get a meal. But if

3:17

you could take Dubai's Emirates first class

3:19

lounge and put it in every airport, obviously

3:22

that would be my preference. Even in

3:24

SFO, the Emirates lounge, you board

3:26

the plane through the lounge. You don't

3:28

even have to leave the lounge.

3:30

So Emirates has lounges dialed in just

3:32

like 25 different things you can

3:34

eat, meal service. drink service, all

3:36

kinds of stuff. If you're flying through Dubai

3:38

and you have access to that lounge, highly recommend.

3:41

We went one way and first one way in business.

3:43

Business lounge is also really nice. And I

3:45

think the thing I love about

3:47

airport lounges is one, we all

3:49

know that everything at the airport is expensive. And

3:52

it feels good to get a meal at an airport

3:54

for you and a partner, your whole family for

3:56

free. It feels really good to

3:58

just not be crammed in a row of

4:00

seats and just have a little more space. Especially

4:03

if you're delayed, you have a long layover

4:05

and you just need to kill some time

4:07

to do it in a peaceful place that

4:09

usually has reliable free Wi -Fi. I love

4:11

it. That said, not all lounges are created

4:13

equal. What's a worse lounge you've ever been

4:16

to? You know what you mentioned that? Well,

4:18

you want from a lounge is just peace and quiet, some

4:20

room to stretch out and things like that. And there's

4:22

a lot of lounges that don't get that basic part right.

4:25

And I get it. Airport real estate

4:27

is super expensive, right? But if I'm thinking

4:29

about like the Hawaiian Airlines lounges in Hawaii,

4:31

it's just a room. When I went,

4:33

there wasn't even staff there. You scanned yourself

4:35

into the room. There's no snacks. There's no drinks.

4:38

It's just the room. And it was

4:40

crowded. So I'm like, why wouldn't I

4:42

spend that time outside instead? And a lot

4:44

of the airports know why you're literally

4:46

outdoors. So you could spend

4:48

that in the sunshine instead of being stuck in this

4:50

tiny little room. It made no sense to me

4:52

why that lounge existed. We went to

4:54

that lounge, but maybe it wasn't the same one because

4:56

this one was staffed and we put our name down

4:58

for some weight. And then we got a text and

5:00

we're like, oh, finally we can go in and we

5:02

went in and we were like, there's water. Like

5:05

maybe coffee, but like that was it. And

5:07

we were like, oh yeah, we're just gonna

5:09

leave. Like why would you go to that lounge?

5:11

I have no idea. Then I've seen some other ones

5:13

that are just so crowded that you can't even

5:15

sit down. I remember one time I went to a

5:17

Centurion lounge. I made my plate of food and I

5:19

was excited to eat it. And I walked around the

5:21

entire lounge, not a single open chair. So I

5:23

put my food down on left because I

5:25

can't eat it standing up. And

5:28

where am I going to put my fork?

5:30

It was a pretty bad experience. I will

5:32

say I learned this trick at the club

5:34

lounge at SFO that if you don't find

5:36

space, sometimes keep walking because There

5:38

is secret rooms in some of these lounges. The

5:40

Centurion Lounge at SFO opened up that whole

5:42

back room in the last few years that if

5:44

you didn't know where it was or how

5:47

to get to it, you might not know that

5:49

there's plenty of seating. So if you walk

5:51

into a lounge and it's crowded, maybe ask someone,

5:53

is there another place I can go? But

5:55

for the most part, I think some of

5:57

the ways you access these lounges has gotten harder

5:59

to combat that problem. And so by the

6:01

end of this episode, I hope everyone

6:03

says, oh, now I know the best

6:05

ways to get into that lounge. Yeah,

6:08

we're going to talk about. everything from

6:10

cards that get you in, different ways to

6:12

access the lounges, all the different types

6:14

of lounges. I don't think there will

6:16

be a stone unturned when it comes

6:18

to lounges. Hopefully, if anyone finds one,

6:20

definitely shoot me an email. I would love

6:22

to know what we missed, but I

6:24

will say that when I think broadly

6:26

about lounges, they have all the purposes

6:28

we talked about. But for the most part,

6:30

I guess I indirectly pay, but you

6:32

can get all of this relatively inexpensively

6:34

through credit card and status matching. Have

6:37

you ever actually paid physical dollars to

6:39

go into a lounge? I can't

6:41

say that I have, but if I were going

6:43

to do it, it would probably be Cutter.

6:45

If you're flying business class, you can pay a

6:47

surcharge to get into their first class outside

6:49

of a lounge. That I would do. Yeah,

6:51

I had that on my list of

6:53

lounges with unique experiences. Evidently, the champagne list

6:55

at that lounge is among the best

6:57

in the world. I believe it. So that

6:59

one, I have flown Cutter business, but

7:02

I have not. flown first, and I did

7:04

not know that I could have paid

7:06

to upgrade to that lounge. How many lounges

7:08

do you think there are globally across

7:10

all the airports? So we've got

7:12

over 3 ,000 lounges cataloged in our database.

7:14

Let me tell you, when I was

7:16

going through our initial list and going through

7:18

and cleaning up the data and things

7:20

like that, I did not realize how many

7:22

random lounges and random airports there are

7:24

across the world. I consider myself pretty well

7:26

traveled. There are so

7:29

many airports, especially in Southeast

7:31

Asia, in mainland China, that

7:33

I've never even heard of. And

7:35

they'll have like 20 lounges in

7:37

it. I'm like, what is

7:39

this place? There's a lot

7:41

of lounges out there, for sure. I was trying to

7:44

figure out which airport had the most number of

7:46

lounges. And so I just started looking at the airports

7:48

I thought would. And so SFO

7:50

has 18. LAX has

7:52

25. Dubai has 27 and

7:54

Heathrow has 38 lounges. So I think I'm

7:56

excluding priority past restaurants, which we'll get to

7:58

just airline lounges or operated lounges by other

8:00

third party networks. You'll be able to find

8:02

the data and tell me, but I think

8:04

Heathrow at 38 might be the most 30.

8:06

It's a lot. I think it'd be pretty

8:08

hard for any airport to beat that. And

8:10

the fun thing is, by the end of

8:12

this episode, I think people are going to

8:14

be able to not only figure out how

8:16

to get into multiple lounges on a trip,

8:18

but you can go hop. I do that

8:20

all the time. Yeah. Let's go to four

8:22

lounges and be able to kind of compare

8:24

them and see what's different. Or maybe we

8:26

don't like this meal. Go get another meal.

8:28

Like we said before, some of them are

8:30

terrible. So that's worth doing. But high level.

8:32

Let's talk a little bit about the types

8:34

of lounges that exist, because I think we'll

8:36

talk about the networks, we'll talk about how

8:38

you get into them, and then we'll do

8:40

a deeper dive on credit cards, because I

8:42

think that's probably the easiest, most accessible way

8:44

for people to get in. So when I

8:46

think about lounges and brands, one

8:48

of them, which is probably the most well -known,

8:50

are these lounges operated by airlines. In

8:53

the US, the airline lounges

8:55

seem to have a much wider

8:57

footprint. Right? So the United Club

8:59

has probably 50 plus lounges around

9:01

the world, whereas Air France doesn't

9:03

have 50 lounges around the world.

9:05

What do you think about American

9:07

lounges? It's interesting because for the

9:09

most part internationally, if you are,

9:11

and at least that is Holder

9:13

or whatever, you can just go

9:15

into the lounge. The US

9:17

airlines have done something unique where

9:19

they started selling access to the

9:21

lounges, either by holding a credit

9:23

card, or more commonly, at least

9:25

in the past, holding a membership.

9:28

This happened during the deregulation period where

9:30

airlines really needed money. So they

9:32

started selling access to the lounges as

9:34

a revenue generating stream. But

9:36

as a result now, if you just

9:39

have access and you're flying domestically, you generally

9:41

will not have access to the lounge.

9:43

Even flying domestic first class will not get

9:45

you access to the lounge. And that's

9:47

pretty unique across the world. But.

9:49

I have to give the airline some credit

9:51

because they have improved the product pretty dramatically

9:54

in the last few years. 10

9:56

years ago, the average quality of

9:58

these lounges were, to be completely

10:00

honest, terrible. And we're talking

10:02

United American and Delta mostly. Yeah,

10:04

they were all pretty bad, but they've

10:06

really stepped it up in the last

10:08

few years. They've been renovating lounges, they've

10:10

been expanding them, they've been adding hot

10:12

food, they've been adding a lot of

10:14

amenities that just make it more comfortable.

10:16

I personally have memberships to the two

10:18

airlines that I fly the most, American

10:20

and United through credit cards. And

10:23

you know what? I enjoy going to lounges

10:25

because they're always there. Sometimes they're not the best,

10:27

but they're predictable. Yeah. And I think the

10:29

one thing that's nice is if you're flying a

10:31

lot in the US, obviously first class business class

10:33

isn't going to get you into the lounges.

10:35

Status isn't going to get you to the lounges.

10:37

So you do need a membership. But

10:39

a lot of times, especially like SFO.

10:42

You might have a priority pass membership, but

10:44

depending on the terminal you're flying out

10:46

of, it might be a significant hike to

10:48

go find that lounge. When you're traveling

10:50

internationally, usually if you're changing

10:52

planes, there is a priority pass or

10:54

lounge you can access with status or something

10:57

else pretty nearby. But domestically, I

10:59

think it's hard to always find a lounge

11:01

that's easy to get to. Now, some airports

11:03

are different than others. If you're flying out

11:05

of terminal one in SFO, there's a great

11:07

priority pass lounge. You don't need to have

11:09

any of this. Almost every premium credit card

11:11

will get you into it. But if you're

11:13

flying United, when you're in terminal

11:15

three, the United Club is the most

11:17

convenient place to go. So there's

11:19

those. And then some of the smaller

11:21

airlines still have a footprint. So Alaska

11:24

has like nine lounges. Air Canada has

11:26

a handful of cross North America. I

11:28

was looking up. Most of the

11:30

other lounges operate in their home

11:32

base. So like KLM has a

11:34

flagship lounge. And then what

11:36

ends up happening with a lot of these

11:38

airlines is if they have a flight out

11:41

of an international destination, they might not have

11:43

their own lounge. They might contract with some

11:45

lounge at the airport. That leaves

11:47

a lot of independent lounges. So

11:49

the networks I found were

11:51

Plaza Premium was probably one of

11:54

the biggest and then Escape

11:56

and the Club. Are

11:58

there other big networks of lounges

12:00

outside of airlines? that actually

12:02

operate the lounge as opposed to priority pass or

12:04

those things, which is kind of more of a

12:06

group of access. I think

12:08

you'll find that there are a few

12:10

companies that tend to operate lounges on

12:12

behalf of airlines, but they won't put

12:14

their branding on it. So, for example, Plaza

12:17

Premium operates lounges for a

12:19

number of airlines and things like

12:21

that around the world. The

12:24

club operates the Chase Sapphire lounges,

12:26

for example. But a lot

12:28

of times they won't make that really well known.

12:30

the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse, a lot of them are

12:32

operated by Plaza Premium. And you can

12:34

actually get into those with Plaza Premium.

12:36

If you have a car that offers Plaza

12:38

Premium access, you can get into a

12:40

Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse. But they don't

12:42

really do a lot of advertising. It's not

12:44

very common to buy access to it directly or

12:46

something like that. So it's not the same

12:48

as like a priority pass. But there are definitely

12:51

networks of companies out there that will operate

12:53

lounges on behalf of airlines. Yeah.

12:55

And for the most part, I found that.

12:57

There's no reason you would buy a

12:59

membership to a lounge group of operators, not

13:01

priority pass, which we're about to get

13:03

to. You're not going to buy a air

13:05

pass lounge or something like that. Unless

13:07

you live in a city where I guess

13:09

there's one lounge that's completely unaffiliated and

13:11

you're going there all the time, maybe that

13:13

could make sense. Beyond that, we talked

13:15

about credit cards briefly. There are credit card

13:17

company lounges. I think AmEx has the

13:19

biggest footprint. They have close to 25, 15

13:22

in the US, and 10 international. Tried to

13:24

write down all these numbers in advance, but... of

13:26

my numbers were self -checked and some of them

13:28

were chat GPT check So I had to

13:30

do some revising when I asked how many Capital

13:32

One lounges are there and they said there's

13:34

one open and I was like that's wrong because

13:37

Capital One I think has like six open

13:39

and they're opening them in all the kind of

13:41

places you'd expect the hubs and the major

13:43

cities that you'd fly in and out of around

13:45

the country and then like you said Chase

13:47

has at launched some lounges with the club Which

13:49

is actually interesting when we think about how

13:51

to access them because if you have priority pass

13:54

you can go to all the chase lounges

13:56

One's per year. Okay, so one per year. That's

13:58

interesting. I didn't know that. I was just looking it up

14:00

and I went into the Capital One app and I was like,

14:02

can I go to the Chase Lounge in Boston? And I

14:04

was like, yes, you can. Once. Only once. That's

14:06

actually a good way to, you know,

14:08

if you have a lot of cars that

14:10

offer priority pass, before I would just

14:12

request one and that's the one I use.

14:14

I don't even bother requesting the other

14:16

ones. But for this one specific use case,

14:19

you can use your multiple priority passes

14:21

to get multiple entries into the Chase FI

14:23

Lounge. I like that. Okay. Let's see,

14:25

other groups of lounges before we talk about

14:27

how to get into them. I

14:29

know that all the alliances, they're a

14:31

handful of lounges in major cities. I don't

14:33

think I've ever been to a Star

14:35

Alliance sky team lounge, but I know they

14:37

exist. I've been to some. Okay. And

14:39

then there's some airports that just operate their

14:41

own lounges. There's so many lounges out

14:43

there that are just like VIP salon. They

14:45

might be operated by the airport. They

14:47

might not be. And then there's USO lounges.

14:49

So if you're an active duty military,

14:51

there's 250 lounges around. the world

14:53

that you can access. I am not

14:55

active duty military. I've never been in a

14:58

USO lounge. I feel like for the bucket

15:00

list, like it would be fun to just

15:02

see one one time, but that's another really

15:04

big network of lounges if you have access

15:06

to that. And sometimes pre -security. I

15:08

guess we didn't talk about it, but most

15:10

of the lounges that I've been to are

15:12

after going through security. I feel like there

15:14

used to be some pre -security, but I

15:16

haven't seen that many recently. There are some,

15:18

but I think as airports renovate and they

15:21

add more space post -security, more and more lounges

15:23

are moving there. It's easier for people. They

15:25

don't have to plan time to go through

15:27

security and things like that. But there are

15:29

still some pre -security ones, just not as

15:31

many these days. Okay. So when

15:33

you think about all these lounges and

15:35

the categories, the independent ones, the credit card

15:37

ones, the airline ones, how

15:39

do you stack rank them? Is it consistent

15:42

that certain groupings of lounge types are better

15:44

than others? I'll start from the bottom. How

15:46

about that? I think on

15:48

average, the airport run ones tend to

15:50

be a little bit worse. You

15:52

know what? I'll skip the niceties. They're a lot worse. They

15:55

tend to be pretty basic. They tend

15:57

to be just a little room sometimes. Even

16:00

domestically, there are some airports that run

16:02

their own lounges and they're nothing special. But

16:04

if you think about it, it makes

16:06

sense because airports tend to

16:08

just take whatever extra space they have

16:10

and say, hey, how do I

16:12

generate revenue from this? And in those

16:14

cases, you as a traveler are

16:16

not the customer, right? The airlines that

16:18

might pay a little bit for

16:20

their premium passengers to use that lounge,

16:22

they're the customer. It's

16:24

usually airports that aren't big enough

16:26

where airlines will want to

16:29

operate their own lounges. So obviously

16:31

if an airport is trying

16:33

to lease out space, the

16:35

best way is to lease it out to

16:37

an airline or even to a restaurant, things like

16:39

that. But if it's not big enough to

16:41

support that, they'll just run their own really

16:43

basic lounge, offer some soft drinks, and that's about

16:45

it, right? And then try to pressure the

16:47

airlines that say, hey, you don't have a lounge

16:50

here. If your travelers are traveling in business

16:52

class, you really need to give them access to

16:54

a lounge. So you should just pay us. And

16:57

they end up doing it, even

16:59

though the lounge isn't all that great.

17:01

That's the first tier, right? And

17:03

then... think a lot of the airline

17:05

run lounges, I would say

17:07

there's two types of airline

17:09

run lounges. One is the top

17:11

tier carrier that actually cares

17:13

about the product and cares about

17:15

the customer experience a lot.

17:17

Think about airlines like Qatar or

17:19

Cathay Pacific, right? Those lounges

17:21

tend to be pretty good. But then

17:24

there's another tier of airline lounges where the

17:26

airline maybe doesn't care about the customer

17:28

experience quite so much. And, you know, they

17:30

offer it as an amenity just because

17:32

they feel like they have to or something

17:34

like that, or they might even operate

17:36

it as a revenue driver. So, for example,

17:38

there are some places where airlines operate

17:40

lounges that they don't even fly out of,

17:42

but they do it because they want

17:44

the revenue from priority pass or from other

17:46

airlines paying them. One example that I

17:48

just thought of top of my head is

17:50

Turkish Airlines has two lounges in Miami. One

17:53

of them makes sense. It's where the Turkish flights

17:55

fly from. One of them is in a terminal

17:57

that Turkish does not fly from at all. And

17:59

the only purpose of it is to be priority

18:01

pass lounge. Now, Turkish lounges tend

18:03

to be pretty decent, but, you know,

18:06

there's a lot of other airlines that don't

18:08

care as much. China Air Lounge at

18:10

SMO sucks. Exactly. Like those, right? China Airlines,

18:12

China Southern has a lot of lounges.

18:14

Even Air France, which is generally a pretty

18:16

decent airline, they're older, they're really built

18:18

for priority pass. And they're

18:20

just not fantastic lounges, right? That's the

18:22

tier I would put next. The

18:24

airlines that maybe don't care quite as

18:27

much. And then above that, I

18:29

would say are the airline membership clubs,

18:31

United Club, Admirals Club, Delta Sky

18:33

Club. We talked about that a little

18:35

bit earlier. I think it's kind

18:37

of the middle tier there. They're not

18:39

usually fantastic, but they're predictable. But

18:42

the reason I rank that above the

18:44

other tier is that there's one thing special

18:46

about these lounges, and that is their

18:48

agents tend to be pretty fantastic. So if

18:50

something goes wrong with your flight, something

18:53

happens, there's erupts, there's weather, there's mechanical issue

18:55

with the plane or something like that. That is

18:57

the first place I will go. I don't

18:59

bother calling on the phone. I will go straight

19:01

to the Airlines lounge. I don't line up

19:03

at the gate agent or anything like that. They're

19:05

usually very friendly, very able to help you

19:07

out, even bend the rules a little bit sometimes.

19:09

So I think that's a huge, huge benefit

19:11

of those lounges, and that's why I put them

19:13

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21:36

one thing they can do, which you

21:38

won't get if you call, is they

21:40

can call every individual gate. So if

21:43

there's something about your flight, your seat

21:45

assignment, something that can only be done

21:47

by a gate agent, in

21:49

the lounge, they can call that gate agent and

21:51

get it done with much quicker ability than waiting

21:53

in the line of that gate. I would argue

21:55

that if you're at the gate and there's a

21:57

line of 10 people and the thing you need

21:59

can only be done by the gate agent. If

22:01

you went into the United Club, they could call

22:03

that gate agent. Who's going to say, hold on,

22:05

pick up the phone and probably take care of

22:08

that problem. And they all know each other, of

22:10

course, right? They'll be like, oh, let me call

22:12

my buddy Susan at the gate or something like

22:14

that. And they'll get it done. Yeah. So I

22:16

think that's a great benefit. I also think because

22:18

these lounges have memberships that people pay an annual

22:20

fee for, there's like a minimum bar. Like we

22:22

have to be at least good enough. Predictable, right?

22:24

Yeah. Okay. And what's above that? The

22:26

credit card lounges. that you mentioned are

22:28

this AmEx Centurion Lounge, the Sapphire

22:31

Lounge and the Capital One Lounge. Those

22:33

tend to be a little bit more

22:35

premium. They usually have a little bit better

22:38

food, better bar, a little bit

22:40

nicer amenities and fixtures and things like that.

22:42

AmEx really revolutionized the game. Oh, it's probably been

22:44

10 years now or something like that. When

22:46

they came out with the first Centurion Lounge, it

22:49

blew everyone's mind. It was so much better

22:51

than every other lounge. That started to change a

22:53

little bit. It's not quite as nice as

22:55

it used to be 10 years ago. But there's

22:57

a lot more of them. And I think

22:59

that's a benefit. And they've inspired a lot of

23:01

competition. Oh, yeah. So if they didn't do

23:03

that, Chase and Capital One would have doing what

23:05

they're doing. And probably those domestic lounges from

23:07

United and American and Delta, they probably wouldn't be

23:09

competing either. Absolutely. 100%. So

23:11

thank you, Amix. I

23:13

think between those three, I would put

23:15

Chase Sapphire as the best and then

23:17

followed by Capital One and then Amix

23:20

and Trurian Lounge. Haven't been to an

23:22

official chase lounge. It needs to happen.

23:24

Yeah. I think they're nice. They tend

23:26

to have pretty good food. They have

23:28

pretty nice fixtures. The wait time can

23:30

be a problem sometimes, but that's true

23:32

for all of the loungers. A

23:34

great hack for this. I do

23:36

know for Capital One, there's often a wait list and

23:38

the same thing is true for Centurion. You see

23:40

all these people lined up, then you're like, oh, finally

23:42

I'm next. And they're like, no, we're not letting

23:44

you in. We're just taking your name to put you

23:46

on a wait list and we'll text you later

23:48

when you can come in. I don't know about Chase.

23:51

Amex had something that makes me think maybe you can, but

23:53

in some of these cases, you can put yourself on

23:55

the wait list before you get there. So

23:57

we were flying through Denver the other day. I opened up

23:59

the Capital One app the second we touched down on

24:01

the ground and it said we have 15 minute wait and

24:03

I could add myself to the wait list now. So

24:05

that by the time we actually got there, we'd already cleared

24:07

the wait list and you've got a 10 minute buffer

24:09

to show up. Yeah, I think Chase, you can't do it.

24:12

You have to be there in person. Capital

24:14

One, as you mentioned, you can do it. I do that all the

24:16

time, by the way. It's great. Amex, they

24:18

have... indication of how busy it is in the

24:20

app, and you can do mobile check -in, but that

24:22

actually does not get you on the wait list.

24:24

That's just to get you access to the lounge.

24:27

So they'll give you a QR code, you scan that

24:29

QR code to get in, it expedites a little bit,

24:31

you don't have to show your card, but that doesn't

24:33

save you a spot, unfortunately. I have

24:35

not tested this, nor am I going to

24:37

approve it, but when you get on the

24:39

wait list for a centering lounge, they send

24:41

you a text that says, you're off the

24:43

wait list, come over. And when you get

24:45

to the desk, every time I've gone, The

24:47

person who's checking if you're off the waitlist

24:49

isn't the person checking you into the lounge. Every

24:52

time I've been, they just say, can

24:54

you show that you got the text?

24:56

Their confirmation wasn't confirming me and my

24:58

name. It was me showing them the

25:00

text. So I'm half convinced if you

25:02

just keep that text in your text

25:04

and go up to the lounge and

25:06

say, hey, I got my text, I

25:08

think it would work at least some

25:10

percentage of the time. But if it

25:12

doesn't work, I don't know how much

25:14

they're going to be excited to put

25:16

you on the waitlist again. I've never

25:18

tried that. It might work. Who knows?

25:20

I do know that for Capital One,

25:22

at least when I've tried it in

25:24

the past, that does not work because

25:26

once you get to the front, they'll

25:28

ask you your name and check that

25:30

you're on the list, at least at

25:32

Denver and Dallas. Both of those will

25:34

do the same thing. Okay. Is there

25:36

anything higher than those lounges? So I

25:38

think above that. Then we get to

25:40

the premium airline lounges. Like you're talking

25:42

about the Cathay Pacific first class lounge

25:44

in Hong Kong. You're talking about Qatar

25:46

in Doha. You're talking about Emirates in

25:48

Dubai. Like those lounges are the next

25:50

level experiences, right? They'll have like spas.

25:52

They have sit down restaurants. They have

25:55

really premium offerings that none of the

25:57

other lounges really offer. So those are

25:59

the lounges where if I have access

26:01

to it, I will go to the

26:03

airport early. I've had really good meals.

26:05

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. This is not like

26:07

airport takeout level food. This is caviar

26:09

and steak and made to order stuff.

26:11

One thing we didn't mention was I

26:13

think a new trend in the

26:15

last few years is all of the

26:17

domestic lounges started building these fancier

26:19

lounges. American has the flagship first lounge,

26:21

United has the Polaris lounge, Delta

26:23

has a Delta one lounge. And so

26:26

those we'll talk about access, but

26:28

they are, I would say on par.

26:30

with not the world -class best lounges,

26:32

but they're way better than all

26:34

the others. I think they're better than

26:36

a Centurion Lounge, better than Capital

26:38

One Lounge. But when we talk about

26:40

access, your United

26:42

Club membership doesn't get you in to the

26:44

United Player Lounge. And your American Admirals

26:46

Club membership does not get you in to

26:48

the flagship first lounge. Above all of

26:50

those lounges. There are a few edge cases

26:53

like the Lufthansa first -class terminal, which

26:55

the experience as I call them. I don't

26:57

even know if you call it a lounge

26:59

because it's a whole private terminal if you're

27:01

flying first -class on Lufthansa in Frankfurt known

27:03

for rubber ducks. If someone has collected Lufthansa

27:05

ducks, they've spent a lot of time in

27:07

the first -class terminal. I have not done that.

27:09

I'm guessing you maybe have. I have pro

27:12

tip, though. The same rubber ducks can be

27:14

found in the regular first -class lenders in

27:16

the main terminal. So if you don't have

27:18

time to go to the first -class terminal, You

27:20

can go there. But the First Class Terminal

27:22

is pretty cool. It's really meant for people

27:24

departing Frankfurt, but you can

27:26

still go even if you're on a connecting. You

27:28

just have to exit the airport, walk to the

27:30

First Class Terminal yourself, which kind of sucks, but

27:32

it's worth it for the experience because then they'll

27:34

drive you straight to your plane. And at least

27:36

in my case, they were like, oh, would

27:39

you like the board first or last? Yeah,

27:41

I said last. So they waited until everyone boarded,

27:43

put me on the car and I drove

27:45

there and I was the last one aboard and

27:47

they closed the door and we left. It's

27:49

such a great experience. They've got

27:52

sleeping rooms there. They've got showers. They've

27:54

had the famous corporate ducks. They've sit down restaurant

27:56

with pretty good food. You don't feel like you're an

27:58

airport. Premium suites at LAX is similar,

28:00

but it's going to cost you thousands of dollars.

28:03

We talked about this a little with Lee

28:05

Rowan, who introduced us actually when we

28:07

talked about getting through airport security, because these

28:09

first class terminals are a great way

28:11

to get through airport security. They're an expensive

28:13

way. They're an expensive way. Yeah, great,

28:15

but expensive. So that's lounges. Let's talk

28:17

about how to get into these lounges. We talked

28:19

about having a membership. For

28:21

most of the domestic carriers, probably

28:23

a few international, I know, Qantas

28:25

and Air Canada sell memberships. But

28:28

outside of that, most of these are

28:30

not memberships through the lounge, as much as

28:32

they are memberships either through priority pass,

28:34

which is probably one of the biggest. So

28:36

let's talk about that. Priority pass. It's

28:39

the membership that everyone seems to have. the

28:42

quality of priority pass lounges is so

28:44

variable. So priority pass is

28:46

essentially a network of lounges

28:49

independently owned. So priority pass itself

28:51

doesn't tend to run them.

28:53

There isn't like a priority pass

28:55

branded lounge. But they'll work

28:57

with local lounge partners, sometimes even airline

28:59

lounges, and you can show your membership

29:01

card and get access to it. Now,

29:03

priority pass has actually changed quite a

29:05

lot over the years. It used to

29:07

be back in the day that any

29:10

priority pass issued through a credit card.

29:12

could get you to basically any priority

29:14

pass lounge. And then they started adding

29:16

restaurants and spas and other experiences. And

29:19

then over time credit card companies started

29:21

taking away those experiences. So AmEx was

29:23

the first one to remove it. So

29:25

you can't use AmEx cards priority pass

29:27

for restaurants anymore. Chase removed it

29:29

recently too. Capital One removed it on most

29:31

of their cards recently. There's very few cards

29:33

now that will get you into priority press

29:35

restaurants and spas. But sometimes those are my

29:38

favorite ones to go to. Yeah, there was

29:40

a heyday where two or three of the

29:42

restaurants at SFO were totally covered, and some

29:44

of the cards had unlimited guests, and you'd

29:46

take four friends to a restaurant, spend $100,

29:48

and it'd be totally free. Yeah, there's still

29:50

four. There's four restaurants at SFO. I go

29:52

there all the time. I'm lucky enough to

29:55

still have a card that offers it, but

29:57

most of my friends don't anymore, so I'll

29:59

be like guessing them and things like that.

30:01

But my favorite example back in the day

30:03

was Portland. It's called Capers, if

30:05

you guys remember that from back

30:07

in the day. Capers Market is basically

30:09

a supermarket in an airport. So

30:12

every time somebody would leave or come back

30:14

from Portland, they would just do their grocery shopping

30:16

in the airport and get it covered with

30:18

priority pass. It was incredible. At the very beginning

30:20

of it, they were allowing some crazy things.

30:22

They would let you buy alcohol so people would

30:24

bring back bottles of wine. They

30:26

would let you guess each other. So like I

30:28

would guess you and you would guess me and

30:30

we'd both get $54 or whatever it is in

30:32

credit. Most of that's come to an end now.

30:34

I think priority pass probably cracked down on it

30:36

a little bit and sent out a memo to

30:38

the line just saying, Hey, don't do this. But

30:40

it's interesting at the core, it actually makes sense

30:42

because what they do is that every time you

30:44

swipe into a priority pass lounge, they just pay

30:46

the lounge a certain amount, the credit card company

30:48

through priority pass. So they thought, Hey, if you're

30:50

going to pay the lounge, why don't we just

30:52

pay a restaurant and do the exact same thing? So

30:55

the way it works is that you just

30:57

get a bill credit of 20 to $30, depending.

30:59

It depends a little bit on the country

31:01

for an exchange and things like that. It'll be

31:03

a little bit different, but you get a

31:05

credit and you can use that for whatever you

31:07

want at the restaurant. And

31:09

it makes a lot of sense

31:11

on the surface because they still

31:13

get paid, right? And if you're

31:15

going to pay a lounge, what's the difference with paying

31:18

a restaurant? I think what

31:20

people... abusing and why they started walking it

31:22

back a little bit is that if you

31:24

go to a lounge you normally swipe in

31:26

once to a lounge right and you'll stay

31:28

there before your flight unless you do some

31:30

crazy lounge hopping or something like that. But

31:32

for restaurants people are going to like four

31:34

restaurants in one trip just getting takeout food

31:36

from each one and walking onto the plane

31:38

with them having a feast and I've done

31:40

that a lot too so I'm part of

31:42

the problem but it just wasn't sustainable. Or

31:44

they'd go to a restaurant have a meal

31:47

and then go to the lounge to relax.

31:49

Yeah that too. And the lounge loved it

31:51

because they're like, oh, we're getting all these

31:53

people that aren't even eating. True. But yeah.

31:55

And so you could go to Priority Pass

31:57

and actually buy a membership. You can. I

31:59

would not recommend it at all. I think

32:01

it's like 350 bucks gets you 10 access

32:03

visits and then 475 bucks or something gets

32:05

you a year unlimited. But we'll

32:07

go through the list when we talk about

32:09

credit cards. Probably most people listening have at least

32:12

one that includes unlimited or some limited number

32:14

of visits to Priority Pass. And so. Unfortunately, most

32:16

people don't activate it. I meet tons of

32:18

friends who are like, oh, I want to go

32:20

to this lounge. I'm like, oh, do you

32:22

have one of these cards? Yeah, I have one

32:24

of these cards. Well, did you activate your

32:26

priority pass? No. I don't know

32:28

if they've changed because I haven't done it

32:30

in a while. But it used to be like,

32:32

you had to wait for the card to

32:35

come in the mail. But some of them you

32:37

might be able to activate online in the

32:39

moment and get in. But the number of people

32:41

I've seen arguing at a priority pass lounge,

32:43

like, I have a card. This should get me

32:45

in. Can you call them? And they're like,

32:47

if you don't have your priority pass, you can't

32:49

commit. So priority pass is probably the biggest

32:51

network. They've got something like 1700 lounges in the

32:53

network, 1400 lounges worldwide. Most

32:55

airports have something. And

32:57

so that's probably the biggest way to get in

32:59

is to have a priority pass membership. And

33:01

that'll come from credit cards, which we'll talk about.

33:03

I don't know if you know the difference

33:05

because there is priority pass and then there's lounge

33:07

key. And then there's a dragon

33:09

pass. They're kind of all the same thing.

33:11

Very similar. And I actually think. At least

33:13

two or three of them are owned by

33:15

the same company, Collinson. I think lounge tea

33:17

and priority pass are definitely the same company.

33:20

The US is very priority pass centric. In

33:22

Asia, Dragon Pass tends to be a little

33:24

bit more prevalent. So there's

33:26

not really a downside in being

33:28

a member of more than one

33:30

alliance or group. So a

33:32

lot of them just tend to accept both

33:34

priority pass, dragon pass, whatever, but

33:36

they're technically different networks. Okay.

33:38

So. Another big way

33:41

to get in that we haven't talked

33:43

about and probably the oldest way and

33:45

the way that all these were intended

33:47

was just if you're flying on a

33:49

business class or first -class ticket you get

33:51

to get into the lounge And you

33:53

mentioned that the domestic airlines kind of

33:55

ruined that for Americans. And you're like,

33:57

I just bought this expensive first class

33:59

ticket. Why can't I go into the

34:01

lounge? And they say, well, sorry, like

34:03

it's only for international flights. Or in

34:05

some cases, the transcon flights LA and

34:07

SF to New York are often excluded

34:09

from that list as they competed for

34:11

that route. But if you're flying internationally

34:13

in business class or first class, is

34:15

there a circumstance where you don't get

34:17

access to the lounge if there is

34:19

one? There's a few, generally you would,

34:22

but some airlines have started selling these

34:24

almost like basic economy business class

34:26

fairs that exclude lounge access, which is

34:28

crazy to me, right? Because that's

34:30

probably the cheapest part of the experience.

34:32

You know, if you think about

34:34

how much space a business class seat

34:36

takes up on the plane, that's

34:38

expensive to provide. But yeah, some airlines

34:40

have started selling unbundled business class

34:42

fairs that don't include lounge access. I'm

34:45

guessing if you're on a super discount

34:47

business class airline like Zip Air, you're

34:49

definitely not getting free lounge access either.

34:51

But if you're on a major carrier

34:53

buying a normal priced business class ticket,

34:55

Lufthansa, Air France, United, flying

34:57

internationally, you don't need to

34:59

worry about whether you have a membership, whether

35:01

you have your priority pass. Almost every time

35:04

I've been in that circumstance, I'm getting access

35:06

to a lounge. Now, is it the nicest

35:08

lounge? Not always. There have been cases where

35:10

I have access to a lounge from a

35:12

business class flight, almost always a miles flight.

35:14

You don't have to pay with dollars for

35:16

your flight in business to get access to

35:18

the lounge. But that doesn't mean you might

35:20

not prefer going to a lounge in Priority

35:23

Pass or link to a credit card. That's

35:25

the thing. They will usually tell you which

35:27

lounge to go to. They'll either give you

35:29

an invitation or they might write it on

35:31

your boarding pass. But that's the

35:33

lounge they want you to go to. That's

35:35

not necessarily the lounge you want to go

35:37

to. And the thing with all these alliances

35:39

is that usually you can go across the

35:41

lines. If you're flying. United, they might send

35:43

you to the United Club. But there might

35:46

be another lounge at the same airport from

35:48

the same alliance that you could go to

35:50

instead. Swiss Air, Lufthansa. Or even

35:52

a Star Alliance. You talked about the alliance lounges

35:54

themselves. Star Alliance has a lounge, right? You could

35:56

go there. But a lot of

35:58

times I've even seen cases where the

36:00

airline will contract with a third

36:02

party lounge, either a priority pass lounge

36:04

or an airport lounge. And it

36:06

is far inferior to the lounges you

36:08

could actually get to. if you

36:10

just went to a lounge operated by

36:12

an alliance carrier. Meaning your

36:14

boarding pass gives you access to better lounges

36:16

than the one they suggest. You don't need

36:18

another membership. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. But they don't

36:20

want you to know about it. I don't

36:22

know why. Maybe because the gate that they

36:24

operate from is a little bit further, or

36:26

maybe they have to pay a little bit

36:28

less money to send you to that lounge.

36:30

But for whatever reason, they don't actually tell

36:32

you about the good lounges. Yeah,

36:35

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39:09

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39:13

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discounts from our partners, you can

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go to allthehacks.com slash deals. So

39:20

please consider supporting those who

39:22

support us. Elite status because

39:24

I think we're gonna spend a little

39:26

bit of time here is the other

39:28

one and traveling internationally Even with some

39:31

of the more basic not the best

39:33

status on every airline you get access

39:35

to lounges even when you're flying economy

39:37

Yep, I think elite status is really

39:39

powerful as a general rule one world.

39:41

I think does it the best their

39:43

role is pretty simple if you're flying

39:46

any cabin and You are one world

39:48

emerald you get access to the first

39:50

class lounges for people who aren't familiar

39:52

Most of the airlines in the US

39:54

have four tiers of status and they

39:56

all have different names, but we'll

39:58

call them like Silver, Gold, Platinum and

40:01

Elite. At what level do

40:03

you need status usually to get into

40:05

these lounges? It usually tends to

40:07

be the second tier for a basic

40:09

business class lounge. One world goes

40:11

above and beyond this and they let

40:13

their top tier or second to top tier.

40:15

They get first class lounges. Okay, because

40:17

I'm not a one -world, so there's Sapphire

40:19

and Emerald. Yeah, Sapphire and Emerald. And so

40:21

if I were like gold, maybe gold's

40:23

the lowest. Platinum on American, that's the second

40:25

tier. That's Sapphire, yep. And I could

40:27

still go to a lounge in an economy

40:29

ticket. You can go to business class

40:31

lounges. That actually includes the flagship lounges, which

40:33

is pretty major. So American Airlines flagship

40:35

lounges, they're their business class lounge, but it's

40:37

their most premium lounge. And you can

40:39

go there with just platinum status, which is

40:41

not that hard to get actually. We've

40:43

talked a lot about fast -tracking status and

40:45

spending money and earning loyalty points and all

40:47

that. Okay, so that's if

40:49

you have status on these alliances. I've

40:52

done this flying international in Star Alliance.

40:54

When I had United status, we could

40:56

go to the lounges, flying economy. Obviously,

40:58

most of this doesn't matter if you're using

41:00

your points of miles to fly business because

41:02

you would have already had status. I just

41:04

did this episode on rethinking elite status. And

41:06

the reason I had stopped caring about status

41:08

was that I just often am using points

41:10

of miles to fly in business class. So

41:12

if you're flying in business, status doesn't do

41:14

a lot for you. Where

41:17

it gets real fun is if you can

41:19

get status on an airline that isn't

41:21

in the US, right? Because the

41:23

way I understand it, if I have

41:25

status on Star Alliance or One World based

41:27

in an airline that's not in the

41:29

US, well, then my flight in the US

41:31

is an international flight. And therefore,

41:33

I should be able to go

41:35

to the Admirals Club or the United

41:37

Club when I'm flying domestic economy

41:39

within the US. Yeah. And this is

41:41

where the alliances have slight differences

41:44

in their rules. But usually all of

41:46

these exclusions that we're talking about

41:48

are only for US domestic flights using

41:50

US domestic status. So if

41:52

I have British Airways gold status,

41:54

which is their Emerald tier, I

41:56

can use any lounge I want, any Admiral's

41:58

Club, any flagship lounge I want in the

42:00

US. I had British Airways gold

42:02

for a while. It's a pretty popular one

42:05

to get. And it was great because You

42:07

were treated super well and it

42:09

was basically like you're flying first class,

42:11

even in economy. Now I have

42:13

Japan Airlines Global Club, which is essentially

42:15

lifetime sapphire status. So I can

42:17

use any Admiral's Club or flagship lounge I

42:19

want there as well. And Star

42:21

Alliance does a very similar thing, but

42:23

there's actually a little bit different because

42:26

if you have Star Alliance from another

42:28

carrier, let's say Lufthansa, you

42:30

can use any United Club. But their exclusion

42:32

only applies not just to lounges in

42:34

the US, but only to United clubs in

42:36

the US. So that means if you

42:38

are a United elite, gold or above, you

42:40

can actually go to any lounge in

42:42

the US that's not branded a United club.

42:44

So that includes Air Canada, which is

42:46

a big plus in San Francisco here because

42:48

we have a great Air Canada Maple

42:50

Leaf Lounge. Any United gold or above, even

42:52

on a domestic ticket, can go there. Interesting.

42:55

So let's assume I had United gold.

42:57

And I was flying economy. I could

42:59

still go to a Star Alliance lounge

43:02

as long as it's not the United

43:04

Club. Correct. Interesting. But there was one

43:06

crazy promotion one year where it was

43:08

credit one international flight to a GN

43:10

Air, which is a Greek airline in

43:12

Star Alliance. And you would get their

43:14

status for like three years. So I

43:17

did this. And so for three years,

43:19

I had Star Alliance gold through a

43:21

GN Air. So all my domestic flights,

43:23

I could go into the lounge. Now,

43:26

I don't know how this has evolved. Back

43:28

then, I remember, and history's a

43:30

little blurry, I think I put my Aegean

43:32

number on the flight so that I could

43:34

get into the lounge. So I would no

43:36

longer be earning United miles. And

43:38

then at the gate, I'd be like, hey, could

43:40

I change my number from Aegean to United?

43:42

Do you still have to go through all those

43:44

hoops, or could you just show your Aegean

43:47

membership? By policy, actually for a lot of them,

43:49

specifically for United Clubs and Admiral's Clubs, you

43:51

can actually just show your car and give them

43:53

membership number. They'll manually type it in. But

43:55

I think it's starting to change a little bit.

43:57

More and more agents are starting to just

43:59

want you to scan it. And if it lets

44:01

you in, they let you in. And if

44:03

it doesn't. Meaning, and we'll talk about status matching,

44:06

but if you had status on an international

44:08

carrier that let you go to all the lounges

44:10

domestically, you're probably not, though maybe

44:12

we could make a case you should. Like

44:14

if you're an American flyer, you probably credit

44:16

your miles to American. Now, if

44:18

you go do some status match and get

44:20

British Airways status, so you can go to

44:22

the Admirals Club for free when you're flying

44:24

on economy, great, but you'd have to potentially

44:26

put in your British Airways number and earn

44:28

British Airways points instead of American. Yeah, it

44:31

used to be a lot easier not to

44:33

have to do that. As you noted, you

44:35

could change it later if you can find

44:37

someone willing to do it. But I will

44:39

say the one airline that has never made

44:41

an exception for me for this is Alaska.

44:44

Alaska will want to see your freaking

44:46

flyer number on the reservation before

44:48

they let you in. So I've never

44:50

had success getting Alaska just typing

44:52

a freaking flyer number for me. And

44:54

the reason is because Alaska lounges

44:56

have the pancake machine and they're trying

44:58

to keep the pancake machine safeguarded.

45:00

Yeah, that must be it. But one

45:02

trick I've learned from people is

45:04

if you're trying to employ this strategy

45:06

at every website that you have

45:08

in a mileage account, you've got your

45:11

profile. A lot of people

45:13

I know create a profile for

45:15

themselves as a travel companion. So,

45:17

you know, I've got my Chris profile

45:19

and United. I have my wife's profile and

45:21

then I create another Chris profile. And

45:23

that other Chris profile isn't required to book

45:25

a flight with my United number. So

45:27

if I had status in another airline, I'd

45:29

be able to do that. And it's

45:32

most come up as I've been trying to

45:34

think about the I'm flying Alaska a

45:36

lot. Earning American status is a lot easier

45:38

than earning Alaska status. What route do

45:40

I want to play? further complicated

45:42

by the fact that most of my flights

45:44

were in January and February, where American status

45:46

cycle is from March 1st on. Even if

45:48

I credit those flights to American, it wouldn't

45:50

have helped. So it's a little bit of

45:52

a sticky situation. But I would say one

45:54

thing someone mentioned was like on the website,

45:56

you can't do it. And I don't remember

45:58

it was American or Alaska, but in the

46:00

mobile app, you could. So they were like,

46:02

if you want to change your freaking flyer

46:04

number on Alaska, you could do it in

46:06

the mobile app. So you got to play

46:08

around. But if you have status on un -airline,

46:10

And especially an international one, you might be

46:12

able to game some of these systems. What

46:14

you said about creating another profile, I do

46:16

that all the time. I highly recommend everyone

46:19

do that. Essentially, you're just booking a flight

46:21

for somebody else who happens to be named

46:23

Kevin Song, right? I'm just booking it for

46:25

my twin brother who happens have the same

46:27

name, right? There's nothing wrong with that, but

46:29

it does let you leave the freaking flyer

46:31

number blank. And that's the key part. And

46:33

then you can add it in yourself later.

46:35

Otherwise, you have to find someone to try

46:37

and change the number. And then usually you

46:39

have to contact them to do that. And

46:41

it's a huge mess. So it's just a

46:43

lot cleaner, a lot nicer if you just

46:46

leave a blank. That does mean,

46:48

though, you will have to manually enter

46:50

your known traveler number to get a

46:52

TSA pre -check. And I do

46:54

it so often that I added it as

46:56

one of those text replacements in Mac OS. So

46:58

if I type that, it just auto fills

47:00

my global entry number in there for me.

47:03

And you will have to make sure that

47:05

you remember to put a number in there.

47:07

Now, yes, you can claim miles after flying,

47:09

but if you don't put your United number

47:11

in, you're never going to earn any points

47:13

for flying. So keep that in mind. Talk

47:15

about status matching because I

47:17

have not thought about this in

47:20

years, but. There are a

47:22

lot of times where it's pretty easy. Yeah,

47:24

I feel like status matching. It was

47:26

a big thing 10 years ago, but

47:28

it's just become such a large thing

47:30

now. Every few months, we see a

47:32

great status match offer from one of

47:34

the airlines. Every time a new

47:36

airline revamps a loyalty program. Or they'd mess

47:38

one up. Or they mess one up.

47:40

Recently, Southwest messes theirs up and then American

47:42

says, hey. Yeah, that's right. I just

47:44

status matched to American, but I haven't done

47:46

it internationally for years. Yeah. When British

47:48

Airways changed the way they do status qualification,

47:51

I think a lot of the European carriers were like, Hey, here's

47:54

a status match. Come join us instead.

47:56

And that's gotten pretty popular. Usually it's something

47:58

like you have to show proof that

48:00

you had status somewhere else. You may or

48:02

may not have to pay a fee,

48:04

a small fee to do that status match.

48:06

And then usually it's a challenge where

48:08

they'll say, Hey, fly once with us in

48:10

the next X number of months and

48:12

we'll extend your status for a year. Or

48:14

sometimes it's a lot more like United.

48:16

has pretty robust status challenges that are available

48:18

year round, but you have to

48:20

fly a decent amount for them. When I

48:22

moved from Chicago to San Francisco, I took

48:24

advantage of the United status match. And

48:26

at the time it wasn't published, it's still not published.

48:29

And I know they're still doing it, but they're

48:31

matching all the way to one K. So I came

48:33

from executive platinum on American Airlines when I lived in

48:35

Chicago. I matched a one K and I've

48:37

been a one K ever since. But you've

48:39

renewed it through flying or credit cards.

48:41

So it worked. That's the target demographic that

48:43

they want. They want people who are

48:45

going to move over and stay with them,

48:47

credit a lot of flights, spend a

48:49

lot of money. And I've unfortunately done that.

48:51

Being an SFO, United has the best

48:53

schedule of any airline, being a hub. So

48:55

unfortunately, I've spent much more than I

48:57

care to admit, flying United. Yes.

48:59

So one of the strategies I've used in the

49:01

past is if you're going on a big international

49:03

trip. And I would say this is probably earlier

49:05

in your Miles & Points journey, right? Earlier in

49:07

the journey. I wasn't even thinking about business class.

49:09

I was like, I just got enough points to

49:11

take a trip internationally. Why would I use twice

49:13

as many points to go in business class? Who

49:15

cares? Like I want to take two trips. It

49:18

didn't matter. So I was like, how do I get into

49:20

lounges? How do I get this better experience? How do I

49:22

pick the seats, get the free bags, all that. And

49:24

there's a lot of international airlines where

49:26

you can status match. And maybe they'll only

49:28

give you status for three months until

49:30

you fly on them. But if you're going

49:32

to take one trip and you're going

49:35

to Greece, Well, if you have a GN

49:37

status for three months, that's all you

49:39

need. And so there are a couple

49:41

of times where I would status match to an airline

49:43

and they immediately give you the status for three months. And

49:45

I would use it in those three months to get a

49:48

lot of benefits. And then I would never

49:50

take that flight. I would never credit it. I

49:52

would never get any perks, never get any benefits beyond

49:54

that, but it made that one trip a lot

49:56

more enjoyable. So I know this is not international, but

49:58

I did that with Alaska Airlines. Back in the

50:00

day, I wanted to go to Hawaii for my honeymoon.

50:02

So I status matched to Alaska MVP, 75K,

50:04

whatever they call it. At least back in

50:07

the day, I don't know if they still

50:09

do. They gave you the upgrades I came

50:11

with it. So I applied those upgrades.

50:13

I flew to Hawaii in first class. I

50:15

combined it with the credit card companion fare. So

50:17

I got two tickets to Hawaii for

50:20

my honeymoon for dirt cheap in first class.

50:22

It was great. So they still do

50:24

that. because I did the built status match

50:26

to Alaska last year. And

50:28

they gave me four upgrade certificates. And

50:30

I've used all four of them. And in

50:33

fact, I found them so easy to use

50:35

that I've started realizing there are a lot

50:37

of people that don't use them because they

50:39

get upgraded on their own. And so if

50:41

you find the right parts of the internet,

50:43

there are places to get Alaska upgrade certificates

50:45

for a price that is very reasonable, like

50:47

50 bucks at upgrade certificate kind of thing.

50:49

But the funny thing is I did that

50:51

last year, but I didn't fly Alaska that

50:53

much. This year, I realized we're going to

50:55

basically only places. The whole year, every trip

50:57

we're taking is to a place Alaska flies

50:59

for less than United is charging. And so

51:02

I think I might even get status on

51:04

my own on Alaska. And then I got

51:06

the Alaska card to kind of help boost

51:08

it to that next level where you get

51:10

a lot more of the benefits in the

51:12

perk. So I'm going for MVP gold, which

51:14

I just think is funny because last year

51:16

I had MVP gold. I didn't use it

51:18

at all. Now I'm trying to get it

51:20

because I want to use it. What

51:22

will probably happen is I'll get it and just as I

51:24

get it, it'll be the end of the year. And then

51:27

next year I'll be like, oh, we're only flying Delta. So

51:29

we'll see how that goes. But I do think

51:31

one other important thing is There's some rule for every

51:33

airline about how often you can do this. And

51:35

for some airlines, it's, oh, you can only do this

51:37

every two years. I don't remember which airline, but

51:40

there's one airline that you can only do it once

51:42

in your life. And that one I've

51:44

always been, whatever airline it is, I just, every time

51:46

I see the terms, it's like, you can only status

51:48

match one time in your life. And I'm like, ah,

51:50

I'm not going to do it this time. A lot

51:52

of airlines actually say that, but it's not always enforced.

51:54

I can't remember how many years you can do it.

51:56

I really wish I knew that at the beginning of

51:58

this year when I had all these flights that would

52:00

have helped me get through that challenge. I will say

52:02

the one airline that is more generous with it is

52:04

Southwest. So Southwest lets you do it

52:07

every year. And in fact,

52:09

I just did my match a few weeks

52:11

ago. I'm flying Southwest to Austin. And

52:13

I actually think Southwest ALIS is pretty nice

52:15

because it means that no matter what, you can

52:17

board either during A if you have an

52:19

A boarding pass or right after A. So,

52:21

you know, I did a same day

52:23

change today to get onto a later flight.

52:26

And it meant that I paid less, did

52:28

the same day change, and I still get

52:30

to maintain my A boarding group. Now, obviously,

52:33

all that is changing pretty soon with Southwest

52:35

crazy program changes and everything. At least with

52:37

A -list, I'll get a free bag and I

52:39

can choose my seat and things like

52:41

that. But they're big things that you can

52:43

do it every single year, which is crazy,

52:45

unheard of. But it does have a challenge

52:47

component, right? It does. Yeah, you have to

52:49

do six one -ways. plan

52:51

on flying Southwest enough in the next 12 months

52:54

that I am going to fly and mileage run

52:56

to get those six. I have a few organic

52:58

ones sprinkled in, so I think I'm doing four

53:00

already organically, and I'm just going to do a

53:02

round trip to Vegas for fun to get the

53:04

last two to meet that. Since this is all

53:06

the hacks, some of them it's

53:08

per segment, some of them it's per flight.

53:11

One fun trick is if you are

53:13

trying to do any of these things

53:15

and you must have three segments or

53:17

six segments, we've probably both been in

53:19

a circumstance. We were like, oh, so

53:22

I can qualify with segments? Great. I'm

53:24

going to fly from SF to Vegas,

53:26

but I'm going to do it via

53:28

LA and Seattle and Portland and take

53:30

this ridiculous five flight trip that saves

53:32

me having to do five different trips.

53:34

Unfortunately, Southwest is by flight. So if

53:36

you have a connecting flight, it counts

53:38

as one. No help there. No, but

53:41

United, I often do that because

53:43

their elite qualification is you can spend a

53:45

certain amount of money, but if you fly

53:47

a certain number of flights, the amount

53:49

of money they have to spend is lower. So

53:51

United lets you do a same day change and

53:53

add a connection and things like that. You don't

53:55

have to maintain the same routing. So

53:57

at the end of last year, I was trying to

53:59

re -qualify for status and I was like, I

54:02

have the dollars, so it would be a

54:04

huge shame if I didn't make it just because

54:06

I didn't have enough flights. So I just

54:08

booked a bunch of SFO LAX and started changing

54:10

them all over the place. I went to

54:12

Fresno a bunch connected through Fresno. I connected through

54:14

San Diego. There's ways you can

54:16

change it. United used to be very

54:18

generous. You used to be able to keep

54:20

on adding segments, more and more segments.

54:22

Like you start with the SFO LAX and

54:25

then you end up with a SFO

54:27

San Diego, Las Vegas, Chicago, some

54:29

other city. Like just keep on adding segments

54:31

because as you would finish one segment. It would

54:33

give you same day change options for the

54:35

next segment. I haven't been able

54:37

to do that recently. I think they'd crack down

54:39

on it a little bit, but it used to

54:41

be really fun to try and add as many

54:43

as you could into one reservation. The

54:46

only other thing we didn't talk. So

54:48

status matching is great for international, especially

54:50

when your economy. We didn't talk about

54:52

day passes, which I feel like deserve

54:54

a little bit of a mention, which

54:56

is just that day passes are something

54:58

that I think you get with some

55:00

United cards. Some people sell them. Honestly,

55:03

I've never bought a day pass for a lounge. And

55:06

just this past weekend, we were going to the

55:08

United Club and there was a sign that said, day

55:10

pass is not accepted today. And the other United

55:12

Club at Denver was under construction. So it was like,

55:14

if you had a day pass and you're hoping

55:16

to use it, today's not your day. Our

55:18

day pass is something that you pretty much

55:21

always encourage people to avoid. I think it's one

55:23

of those cases where if you have it

55:25

and you can use it, that's great, but don't

55:27

rely on it. More and more

55:29

airlines are restricting the usage of day passes.

55:31

United, for example, just announced that day

55:33

passes can only be used during three hours

55:35

before your flight. And you have to

55:37

be with the card holder that the day

55:39

passes issued to. You can't transfer them

55:41

and you can't give it to a friend.

55:43

None of that anymore. But if

55:45

you can use it, sure, why not? It

55:47

gets you in. I remember using one back

55:49

when I was first getting started in Miles

55:51

and Points. I actually was

55:54

on a flight that got diverted to

55:56

Cleveland from Newark to Chicago. This

55:58

is if you remember many years ago,

56:00

somebody set fire to the ATC

56:02

facility in Chicago. It turns out

56:04

it was a disgruntled employee. So the

56:06

FAA shut down all the airspace around Chicago. So

56:08

I got diverted to Cleveland. I was at

56:10

midair at the time. And I was

56:12

like, hey, I have this day pass for my

56:14

Explorer card. So I went to the United Club

56:16

in Cleveland. They got me rebooked. And that was

56:18

actually a pretty good use of it. But it

56:20

is getting harder and harder to use for sure.

56:23

It's just you can't rely on it. Sometimes you

56:25

can go. Sometimes you can't. I will say

56:27

though, at least with United, because

56:30

I find them the most that I happen

56:32

to know, if you go online and you

56:34

add a day pass to your reservation ahead

56:36

of time, they actually don't count that as

56:38

using a day pass. And what I mean

56:40

by that is if you do that, it

56:43

bypasses that capacity restriction. You can still get

56:45

in as if you have a membership. That's

56:48

great, especially in Denver, it was all automated.

56:50

You go through the. Lounge if there was no

56:52

people you just scan it and when we

56:54

went up an elevator and it was just a

56:56

room with an automated gate They also have

56:58

an interesting lounge, which I've seen a few pop

57:00

-up Capital one has this in the front of

57:02

the Denver Lounge United has this grab -and -go

57:04

lounge I think Delta has one where it's like

57:07

if you're really just using this for food

57:09

Why don't you go to this lounge and United

57:11

has a lounge you walk in and it's

57:13

just bridges and counters and you just take all

57:15

the snacks and food and drinks you want

57:17

a little barista and then you leave and there's

57:19

no place to really sit or do anything.

57:21

And it was kind of nice. The

57:23

United Club Fly is what they call

57:25

it. I actually love that. If I pass

57:27

by one, I always make sure and

57:29

go because you can just like grab some

57:31

snacks for your next flight. They do

57:33

have one staff in there and it's the

57:35

barista. So they'll make coffee to order

57:37

there. They have one in Denver and one

57:39

in Houston now. And it's a pretty

57:41

great perk, honestly. But two days ago. They

57:43

announced that one day passes will no

57:45

longer get you into the United Club fly.

57:47

Oh, wow. So you need a membership

57:49

now. So these day passes are the worst.

57:51

We got to talk about how to

57:53

get these memberships. And I think almost every

57:55

lounge membership I've had or ever will

57:57

have comes from a credit card. Is that

57:59

kind of where your lounge admission comes?

58:01

Other than I know you get in through

58:03

the Japan Airlines status. So we'll

58:05

shelve that. But most of the time you're getting

58:08

into a lounge from a credit card. Yeah,

58:10

it tends to be the best way. because airlines

58:12

want to incentivize you to hold the credit

58:14

card. So they'll price the annual fees for the

58:16

credit cards actually lower than if you were

58:18

to just straight up buy a lounge membership directly

58:20

from the airline. And plus you get all

58:22

the other perks of the card as well. I

58:24

tried to write all the credit cards you

58:26

could have that will get you into a lounge.

58:29

I'm sure I'm missing some. The main three

58:31

are the Marquis premium cards from AmEx Chase and

58:33

Capital One. So I think if

58:35

your goal is to have the widest

58:37

network of lounges to get into. It's

58:39

hard to say that there is a

58:41

card better than AmEx Platinum or Business

58:43

Platinum. I think it depends on what

58:45

airports you tend to frequent. If

58:47

you're at an airport that has a

58:49

Centurion lounge, by all means, yes, absolutely. Do

58:51

that. But I would say the flip

58:53

side of that is that you don't get

58:55

priority pass restaurants and things like that.

58:57

Then again, most of the other premium cards

58:59

don't offer that anymore. Anyway, it's

59:01

a nice solid card. If you're going to have

59:04

one card to get lounge access, it's a pretty

59:06

decent option. Yeah. So I was going through all the

59:08

options. AmEx, obviously, you get into

59:10

the AmEx lounge. One of the things

59:12

that they've changed, we haven't talked about

59:14

guest policies, but the biggest annoyance to

59:16

the AmEx centering lounge is that a

59:18

couple years ago, they started saying no

59:20

guests unless you spend $75 ,000 on

59:23

your card, which is a lot of

59:25

money to spend on a card that

59:27

earns one point per dollar on everything

59:29

except flights. And I imagine

59:31

most people listening aren't spending $75 ,000

59:33

a year on flights. So that

59:35

is a tough one to stomach

59:37

and used to be three authorized

59:39

users for 325 or 375 a

59:41

year. I can't remember. And now

59:44

it's 175 per authorized user. So

59:46

it's quite expensive. But the perk

59:48

there and why I think the

59:50

Platinum card is the best lounge

59:52

card is that in addition to

59:54

AmEx's own lounges, in addition to

59:56

a priority pass membership that includes

59:58

guests and unlimited visits, you also

1:00:00

get access to the Delta Sky

1:00:03

Club flying Delta. It is 10

1:00:05

visits a year unless you spend

1:00:07

$75 ,000. You also

1:00:09

get escape lounges, which

1:00:11

are not actually part of priority pass

1:00:13

always. And then some of

1:00:15

the Plaza premium lounges are not in

1:00:17

priority pass, but they are in

1:00:19

MX Platinum. And then there's this weird

1:00:21

edge case of Lufthansa lounges where

1:00:23

you can get access with MX Platinum

1:00:25

card. I didn't read all the

1:00:27

terms and conditions. But from a partnership

1:00:30

standpoint, on Capital One and

1:00:32

on Chase, you usually get

1:00:34

their branded lounges and priority pass, and

1:00:36

then Capital One, you get these extras.

1:00:38

And so I think the only thing

1:00:41

you're really missing from an AMEX

1:00:43

membership for lounges is you're not getting

1:00:45

into Capital One, you're not getting

1:00:47

into Chase more than once a year.

1:00:49

And then of course, none of

1:00:52

them are going to get you

1:00:54

into the lounge of American, Alaska, Delta

1:00:56

or United. So you missed that. Capital

1:00:58

One, similar, you get priority pass, you

1:01:01

get Capital One lounges. The upside though,

1:01:03

of all the three main premium cards.

1:01:05

The Capital One Venture X card is

1:01:07

the only one that has free authorized

1:01:09

users and those authorized users get into

1:01:11

the Capital One Lounge. So

1:01:13

if you want your spouse or your family

1:01:15

member or your friend to be able to go

1:01:17

to Capital One Lounge, you could just add

1:01:19

them as an authorized user to your Venture X

1:01:21

card. You could either set a low limit

1:01:23

or not even give them the card. I

1:01:25

wonder if you could do it through the app.

1:01:27

The app will give you a QR code. You can

1:01:29

use that to get in. Okay. I'm all for

1:01:31

giving someone access to Free thing but

1:01:33

if I can avoid giving them the actual

1:01:35

physical credit card, that's always better I actually

1:01:38

don't know if author's users get the wrong

1:01:40

login though that I'm not sure okay, so

1:01:42

maybe it won't work But I do know

1:01:44

that I got our au pair a couple

1:01:46

years ago Was trying to rent a car

1:01:48

and I wanted to get her hurt status

1:01:50

and so I got her a venture X

1:01:52

card I never gave her the venture X

1:01:54

card, but we were able to activate her

1:01:56

hurt status so that was one and then

1:01:58

on Chase The only change there is Chase's

1:02:00

priority pass, Chase lounges, and then you also

1:02:02

do get Air Canada lounges. Some Air Canada

1:02:04

lounges, not even all of them. If you're

1:02:06

flying on Star Alliance, and then if you

1:02:08

have the Centurion card, which is the Black

1:02:10

Amix, you get unlimited guests for the $1

1:02:12

,000 a year fee. And if you have

1:02:15

the JP Morgan Reserve card, in addition to

1:02:17

being the same as the Chase Sapphire Reserve,

1:02:19

you also get a United Club member. That's

1:02:21

right. TBD, United changed

1:02:23

this week, last week, where

1:02:25

United Club is now Three tiers of

1:02:27

membership i guess yeah you've got the base

1:02:29

tier for six or seven hundred bucks

1:02:31

that gets you in you've got this expensive

1:02:33

tier for over a thousand dollars that

1:02:36

gets you and guests in which they kind

1:02:38

of copied from delta and then there's

1:02:40

this if you have the credit card that

1:02:42

gets the lounge access you get one

1:02:44

guest but not two or your immediate family

1:02:46

and so. TBD, what the JPMorgan Reserve

1:02:48

card, which tier of membership you'll get. They

1:02:51

didn't call out that card specifically, so

1:02:53

we'll see. I know. But yeah,

1:02:55

the other way to get access to these

1:02:57

lounges for the United American Delta is

1:02:59

all three of them have a premium card.

1:03:01

They're all in the five to $700

1:03:03

price range. I think with the exception

1:03:05

of City and American, there's a business and a personal

1:03:07

one, I know, on Delta and United now. And

1:03:10

that gives you your membership to the

1:03:12

club. For the most part, they're pretty

1:03:14

generous with guests. You get a couple

1:03:16

of guests with your membership, United and

1:03:18

American on Delta. I don't think

1:03:20

you get guests with the credit card membership. There's a

1:03:22

limit on how many times you can use it, actually. Yes.

1:03:26

Just like 15 a year, no

1:03:28

guests. And the only perk is

1:03:30

if you use it in multiple airports within

1:03:32

a 24 hour period, it only counts as

1:03:34

one. But I think that

1:03:36

if you fly with multiple people, the

1:03:38

Delta. lounge membership is very prohibitive. You

1:03:40

can't even buy a membership to Delta unless

1:03:42

you have status with Delta. They make it

1:03:44

hard. A lot of the skyclubs I've been

1:03:46

to historically before all these changes were very

1:03:48

busy. I get why they do it. Now,

1:03:50

if you don't want any of those, you

1:03:52

don't want a super high annual fee card.

1:03:55

There are some other cards, some that are

1:03:57

high annual fee, some that aren't, that include some

1:03:59

version of priority pass. So you

1:04:01

could tell me if I missed any. And I guess

1:04:03

I shouldn't have said no high annual fee because

1:04:05

the first few on my list, the Bon Voy Brilliant

1:04:07

card 650. Includes platinum status with

1:04:09

Marriott and a bunch of other perks, but

1:04:11

it also includes priority pass. The

1:04:13

Ritz card, I think, includes priority pass,

1:04:15

which if you can't get it, but

1:04:17

you can get a Marriott card with

1:04:19

Chase and then upgrade to it. I

1:04:21

think have to wait a year, though.

1:04:23

You do have to wait a year,

1:04:26

yep. Then Bank of America has the

1:04:28

Premium Rewards Elite card, which is one

1:04:30

of my favorite cards out there. It's

1:04:32

our, like, default card now it is.

1:04:34

And that not only has priority pass

1:04:36

restaurant access, but also... card includes four

1:04:38

priority pass memberships that do not need

1:04:40

to be linked to authorized users. So

1:04:42

if you have a family member and you want to

1:04:45

give them a priority pass membership, you don't have to

1:04:47

even give them a credit card. And so I love

1:04:49

that card. I think if you can get to Platinum

1:04:51

Honor status with Bank of America, that

1:04:53

card is the best cashback card out

1:04:55

there. Yeah, the Platinum Honor's bonus is

1:04:57

actually pretty fantastic. So we talked

1:04:59

about best cashback cards a lot, so I

1:05:01

won't beat that down. The Mastercard Black card.

1:05:03

also includes priority pass restaurants and a priority

1:05:06

pass membership, but the card sucks. So I

1:05:08

wouldn't recommend anyone get that card. I've never

1:05:10

actually seen it in the wild. You know

1:05:12

what? I haven't either. I see people confusing

1:05:14

it with the Amex and Truron card all

1:05:16

the time. I know they picked that name

1:05:18

on purpose. A couple

1:05:20

other random ones. The UBS visa includes

1:05:23

priority pass with restaurants. I don't

1:05:25

think it's that compelling of a card. I

1:05:27

only know anything about it because there was a

1:05:29

short window when I worked at Wealthfront that

1:05:31

UBS was acquiring Wealthfront. I did a deep dive

1:05:33

on UBS and then they pulled out of

1:05:35

the deal. So that didn't happen. The US Bank

1:05:37

Altitude Connect and Connect Business. This

1:05:39

is your priority pass option with

1:05:42

no fee. So $0 annual

1:05:44

fee on the personal card. You only get four

1:05:46

visits, but you can use them at restaurants. And

1:05:48

if you still have the Altitude Reserve, which is not

1:05:50

available anymore, I think you get 10 visits on that

1:05:53

one and you can use it at restaurants. And

1:05:55

then a city prestige, which I don't have.

1:05:57

I do have that one. And that one's

1:05:59

pretty great because you get restaurant access and it's

1:06:01

unlimited. Unlimited guests or unlimited visits? Unlimited visits.

1:06:03

Terms say two guests, but I've guessed it more

1:06:05

than they haven't charged me. But

1:06:08

the problem with that is you can't get it

1:06:10

anymore, unfortunately. Yeah. And I don't even think you

1:06:12

can product change it. No, you can't. Yeah. So

1:06:14

unless you currently have one, you can't get one.

1:06:16

There used to be priority pass from the Hilton

1:06:18

Aspire card. That's gone. There are probably

1:06:20

cards I'm missing that have priority pass, but for

1:06:22

the most part, I would say if you have

1:06:24

a card that's marketed in any way, shape, or

1:06:26

form about travel and the annual fee is over

1:06:28

$400, I would think you

1:06:30

probably get lounge access through the

1:06:33

airline that the card is or

1:06:35

priority pass. Probably a good bet.

1:06:37

There's also a couple really random

1:06:39

priority pass partnerships. For example, I

1:06:41

can't remember the name, but there's a company out

1:06:43

there where they sell essentially travel

1:06:45

insurance and if your flight is delayed

1:06:47

by more than like four hours, they'll

1:06:49

give you access to priority pass. Oh,

1:06:51

interesting. It's really bizarre. Simple, which

1:06:53

is like the wealth front in Canada,

1:06:56

they have like a black tier of their

1:06:58

wealth management platform. If you have a

1:07:00

certain number of assets and that I think

1:07:02

included lounge key because I was looking

1:07:04

up who has lounge key and it was

1:07:06

like, how do I activate my lounge

1:07:08

key membership with well simple that came up

1:07:10

in a Reddit thread. Do you know

1:07:12

how many priority pass memberships you have access

1:07:14

to? Between you and your P2. Oh,

1:07:16

okay. Let me see. And for whoever out

1:07:18

there in the comments always says, I

1:07:20

hate this show because you refer to your

1:07:22

partner as a P2. I just say,

1:07:25

okay, you don't need to listen, but it's

1:07:27

not because that's what I refer to

1:07:29

her as. It's just common language in this

1:07:31

industry, but. I've pared it down

1:07:33

a little bit. I think the answer right now

1:07:35

is 11. Okay. Between me and

1:07:37

Amy, we have 12 cards that

1:07:39

include priority pass. one of which

1:07:41

is the BOA elite. So technically

1:07:43

there are three other memberships that

1:07:45

I could assign. So we actually

1:07:47

have 15 priority past memberships, which

1:07:49

prior to this conversation, I've never

1:07:51

even considered activating in any way,

1:07:53

shape, or form because why would

1:07:55

I need them? Now I'm

1:07:57

thinking, well, I guess if

1:07:59

I have Chase Sapphire Reserve, I don't, then

1:08:01

it doesn't matter. So there used

1:08:03

to be better guesting rules with Chase

1:08:05

or Amex. That's not the case anymore.

1:08:07

Pretty much. Across the board priority pass

1:08:09

almost every card is two guests So

1:08:11

I haven't activated them all except Bank

1:08:13

of America because of the restaurant access

1:08:15

So there is a cool website that

1:08:17

I will send a link to from

1:08:19

one mile at a time That tells

1:08:21

you based on the numbers on your

1:08:23

priority pass how to identify which one

1:08:25

is which Because once you get that

1:08:28

card you're like, oh, I want to

1:08:30

use my chase one How do

1:08:32

I know which one is the chase one? How do

1:08:34

I know which one's active? There's not an easy

1:08:36

way, but the numbers can actually be decoded. My trick

1:08:38

for that one is when I get the card

1:08:40

and I activate it online and create the account, I

1:08:42

save all my accounts into a password manager. And

1:08:45

in the username, I add the card

1:08:47

that it was associated with. So I

1:08:49

started doing that. My latest priority

1:08:51

pass login is like something BOA. So I

1:08:53

know it. And now that you can do

1:08:55

digital priority pass memberships, this is probably less

1:08:57

relevant because you can log in. But it

1:08:59

blows my mind that when you log into

1:09:01

your priority pass account, at least the last

1:09:03

time I did it, it doesn't say like,

1:09:05

this is your AmEx platform. Yeah, they really

1:09:07

should. It would be great. The only thing

1:09:10

that's helped me for that one is whatever

1:09:12

reason, if you have a MasterCard or at

1:09:14

least with the city of prestige, it

1:09:16

shows the MasterCard logo in the priority pass

1:09:18

app. I don't know why, but it does. So

1:09:20

that's how I know which card that is. I

1:09:23

don't know if I have any

1:09:25

MasterCard linked priority pass. So the MasterCard

1:09:27

ones are the ones that allow

1:09:30

restaurants now. So my city prestige and

1:09:32

my old grandfathered Capital One Ventrix

1:09:34

business card, those two are master cards

1:09:36

and they've retained the unlimited restaurant

1:09:38

visits. OK. Or like Bank

1:09:40

of America, mine's a visa, but it

1:09:42

still has. Yeah. OK. And

1:09:44

then real quick, the three airline

1:09:47

cards, we already mentioned them, United Club

1:09:49

Business, City Executive, Delta Reserve

1:09:51

and Delta Reserve Business. The fees are

1:09:53

all five to seven hundred dollars. Authorized

1:09:55

users on the city executive card

1:09:57

are free. and get access. They

1:10:00

do get guests as well. OK, they

1:10:02

do. Yeah. Yeah, they can't use the Alaska.

1:10:04

Correct. Yeah. So it's because the primary

1:10:06

card holder gets a full Admirals Club membership.

1:10:08

And with that membership, you can access Alaska

1:10:11

lounges. But the AU's, they don't get a

1:10:13

full membership. They just get access so they

1:10:15

cannot go to the Alaska Lounge or any

1:10:17

other printer lounge. And there actually is a

1:10:19

difference on the back of the card of

1:10:21

the primary is printed the words Admirals Club.

1:10:23

The AU's don't have that word printed on

1:10:25

it. So if you show up in Alaska

1:10:27

Lounge, they'll ask us to see those words

1:10:30

printed on the back of your card. Wow.

1:10:32

Okay. Another thing I want to

1:10:34

call out about the airline cards is that

1:10:36

the United Explorer card, which is actually

1:10:38

a cheap card with a low annual fee,

1:10:40

has two one -time passes to the United

1:10:42

Club per year. Yeah. So if

1:10:44

you're not traveling that much and you just want

1:10:46

to go to the lounge a couple of times,

1:10:48

United Card's rate, just load it to your card.

1:10:50

Don't try to show the day pass, right? Yes.

1:10:52

Unfortunately, if you have the day pass from the

1:10:55

Explorer card, you are just subject to whatever restrictions

1:10:57

they have. Yeah. Okay. So we

1:10:59

talked about all these lounges. We talked about all

1:11:01

the different ways to get into them. How

1:11:03

do you manage this? How do you keep

1:11:05

them in your head? I know that years

1:11:07

ago, we all used a website called lounge

1:11:09

buddy and you could go find them all

1:11:11

and then AmEx bought it, shut it down

1:11:13

and lounge buddy just redirects to AmEx. You

1:11:16

went out and built a site because you

1:11:18

didn't find what you wanted out there. What

1:11:20

was missing and how do you go about

1:11:22

finding lounges and rating them and everything in

1:11:24

between? Yeah, so I created this website called

1:11:26

this lounge with a friend of mine and

1:11:28

I used to use lounge buddy all the

1:11:30

time. It was like one of my most

1:11:32

used apps on my phone. I would use

1:11:34

it all the time and try and forget

1:11:36

what lounges were at the airport. I was

1:11:38

visiting and things like that. But when that

1:11:40

disappeared, I couldn't really find a good resource

1:11:42

for which lounge was good to go to.

1:11:44

Right. I mentioned earlier, like a lot of

1:11:46

times airlines will send it to a lounge

1:11:48

and you might have access to a better

1:11:50

lounge at the same airport that they won't

1:11:52

tell you about. So I created that resource

1:11:54

and it lists all the lounges. But I

1:11:56

think the special part is that we rate

1:11:58

as many lounges as we can. So we'll

1:12:00

go from a scale from either we haven't

1:12:02

rated it yet to actively, this is bad.

1:12:05

Don't go to a one, two and three

1:12:07

plane system, kind of like a Michelin star

1:12:09

system. One is like average lounge, two is

1:12:11

like a pretty good lounge. Three is like,

1:12:13

you should go here. And then we have

1:12:15

a secret unpublished fourth tier that's like, this

1:12:17

is a bucket list experience that you should

1:12:19

definitely go to. I found that people really

1:12:21

resonate with that sort of ranking. And

1:12:23

people are always asking me, Hey. I

1:12:26

have access to like six lounges at

1:12:28

this airport. I have like two hours. Where

1:12:30

should I go? And that is what

1:12:32

we're trying to answer with this site. Yeah.

1:12:34

Cause I found lounge review before I

1:12:37

found your site. And I think they do

1:12:39

a fine job of let me find

1:12:41

the lounges at this airport. But what you're

1:12:43

trying to do is let me tell

1:12:45

you where to go, not just give you

1:12:47

the directory. And I think it's

1:12:49

mobile optimized. It is. Yeah. So you could

1:12:51

just pin the bookmark to your home screen

1:12:53

and it'll function like an app. But it

1:12:56

won't work offline in those rare cases you

1:12:58

have no data. But yeah,

1:13:00

I think super helpful when you're going to an

1:13:02

airport like Heathrow and you're like, oh, 30 -something

1:13:04

lounges? Which one do I go to? So I'm

1:13:06

really glad you built that. The only

1:13:08

other thing I'll say is if

1:13:10

you're flying on a particular carrier

1:13:12

and you're relying on status, the

1:13:15

Alliance websites often have a thing where you're

1:13:17

like, I am united gold. I'm flying on

1:13:19

this airline on this day in this cabin.

1:13:21

And it'll say, here's what you're eligible for.

1:13:23

That was something I remember. Lounge Buddy did

1:13:25

a decent job back in the day where

1:13:27

you were like, here's my status. Here's the

1:13:29

class of service. Here's the cards I hold.

1:13:31

And they kind of really built a profile

1:13:33

out. I'll say the One World website is

1:13:35

actually surprisingly good. They do a good job

1:13:37

of cataloging all the lounges that One World

1:13:39

Airlines partner with. But the one thing you

1:13:41

have to watch out for is that if

1:13:43

you read the description under each one, it'll

1:13:45

say this lounge is only accessible

1:13:47

to Cathay Pacific passengers or something

1:13:49

like that. And that's because Cathay

1:13:52

Pacific outside of the One World

1:13:54

Alliance has specifically partnered with that

1:13:56

particular lounge. So you might find,

1:13:58

for example, the Emirates lounge

1:14:00

or something on there because they happen to use

1:14:02

the Emirates lounge at one particular airport. But

1:14:04

that doesn't mean all one world carriers can use

1:14:06

it, just get the Pacific. And you might

1:14:08

be thinking, how many Alliance lounges are there if

1:14:10

I play this elite status game? I looked

1:14:12

it up. It was a large number. And I

1:14:14

don't know where on this piece of paper

1:14:17

it is. But I think it's about a thousand

1:14:19

lounges you have access to with Star Alliance, 750

1:14:21

with Sky Team and 650 ish with One

1:14:24

World. So it's a very hot. So yeah,

1:14:26

it's a lot of lounges. So a lot

1:14:28

of ways to, you said 3 ,000 lounges.

1:14:30

Love that you have a rating system. If

1:14:32

I see a lounge that's unrated, can I

1:14:34

rate it? So you can log in and

1:14:36

mark it as you visited and give it

1:14:38

a thumbs up or thumbs down. Our plan

1:14:40

is to take that and make it into

1:14:42

like a rotten tomatoes type rating system where

1:14:44

we have both like a critic review as

1:14:47

well as a travel review. And

1:14:49

the reason for that is we want to

1:14:51

make sure that our main rating system, like

1:14:53

the one, two, three planes is all based

1:14:55

on the same scale. So we only let

1:14:57

certain trusted reviewers rate those, but everyone is

1:14:59

welcome to thumbs up or thumbs down a

1:15:01

lounge and we'll turn that into a round

1:15:03

tomato style score. Yeah. The only other thing

1:15:06

I'll say is if you're flying, you know,

1:15:08

your main trip and you're like, I really

1:15:10

want to go to this place, you can

1:15:12

often search online and also find like really

1:15:14

detailed blog post reviews, but for the kind

1:15:16

of casual trip, oh, I landed in this

1:15:18

airport. What can I do here? Can I

1:15:21

get in? I assume you'll tell me. You

1:15:23

can't get into this lounge. It's priority pass.

1:15:25

It's this and all those rules are all

1:15:27

part of the page. Yeah, we've got lists

1:15:29

of all the priority pass lounges. We have

1:15:31

some basic filters on the side. You can

1:15:33

choose what ways of access you have and

1:15:35

things like that. I will say that the

1:15:38

access rules are so complicated that I don't

1:15:40

think anybody can get it 100 percent perfect. There

1:15:42

are so many small exclusions. So you

1:15:45

really got to read the terms and

1:15:47

conditions for the specific access method you're

1:15:49

using. But we try our best. The

1:15:52

last thing, I had this list of like hacks,

1:15:54

workarounds, insider tricks, all these great things. I think

1:15:56

we hit all of them. Two

1:15:58

things we didn't mention. One, there are a

1:16:00

lot of places where you can use some of these

1:16:02

lounges on arrival. And so we didn't talk

1:16:04

about all the amenities. One of the amenities I don't think

1:16:06

we mentioned is showers. A lot of

1:16:08

these higher end lounges and flagship lounges

1:16:11

have showers. And so on an international

1:16:13

trip, you land, go to the lounge,

1:16:15

take a shower, clean up, and

1:16:17

oftentimes you're landing it in the morning.

1:16:19

So that's one huge perk that I think

1:16:21

sometimes people overlook is using that lounge

1:16:23

on arrival. Honestly, we

1:16:25

have kids. We went to

1:16:27

Park City, land back at

1:16:29

SFO. We landed at five o 'clock. We've

1:16:31

got to wait 40 minutes for our bags. We

1:16:33

usually just pop in the lounge. have

1:16:35

dinner and then go get our bags

1:16:37

instead of just waiting at the carousel. So

1:16:40

using lounges on arrival, I think is something

1:16:42

that most people might not think to do, but

1:16:44

if you land at a time to eat

1:16:46

or you're waiting for bags or you need a

1:16:48

shower, I think the arrival experience

1:16:50

is good. If you're trying to get

1:16:53

somewhere, yeah, get out of the airport. Like

1:16:55

the SFO United Club dinner or breakfast

1:16:57

or lunch is not going to beat the

1:16:59

best restaurant you can go to in

1:17:01

the Bay Area at all. There are these

1:17:03

stories of people who buy a refundable

1:17:05

ticket and then just change it and eat

1:17:07

dinner at the lounge every single day.

1:17:09

And then they crack down on that. This

1:17:11

isn't sanctioned. But if you're flying domestically

1:17:13

and you booked a connecting refundable ticket on

1:17:15

an international flight, then your domestic status

1:17:17

would allow you into a lounge. And I

1:17:19

believe on some airlines Even if you

1:17:21

were flying like SF to Chicago and coach

1:17:23

and connecting international and business, you could

1:17:25

still use a lounge in SF sometimes. Sometimes.

1:17:28

It depends. So different alliances have

1:17:30

different policies on this. Star

1:17:32

Alliance, I think is one of the most restrictive. They

1:17:35

say that if you're flying a Star Alliance

1:17:37

partner, you only get access, even if it's

1:17:39

on the same itinerary, at the point of

1:17:41

departure for the international flight. OK. But if

1:17:43

you're flying United. not like Lufthansa or something

1:17:45

like that, you have access on your whole

1:17:47

journey. And the reason I bring that up

1:17:50

is a lot of times I'm booking award

1:17:52

flights. Yeah. And as crazy as it sounds,

1:17:54

and this just happened the other day, I

1:17:56

was looking at booking a flight to Europe

1:17:58

and the Long Hall International flight was available.

1:18:00

But the flight from SF to LA was

1:18:02

only in coach. And so there are times

1:18:04

where you're looking to book these awards and

1:18:06

because you're using miles and points. part of

1:18:08

the flight is in economy and you might

1:18:11

have a long layover on the way. And

1:18:13

so I was curious how that often works.

1:18:15

One world is actually the best policies for

1:18:17

that. They'll allow on a connecting flight, no

1:18:19

problem. Depends on the airline you're flying and

1:18:21

the policies. You mentioned arrival, right? United

1:18:24

will let you have Polaris launch access,

1:18:26

not even just a United Club access on

1:18:28

arrival from a business class flight, as

1:18:30

long as you can physically access the lounge,

1:18:32

meaning you have a connecting flight or

1:18:34

you came in from a pre -clearance airport. Or

1:18:37

even if you're on a different airline,

1:18:39

that works too, as long as you

1:18:41

can get to the lounge. So for example,

1:18:43

if you have a connecting flight on

1:18:45

Southwest and you landed at SFO from

1:18:47

Hong Kong, you can go to the United

1:18:49

Players Lounge. Southwest happens to have free

1:18:51

cancellation, I'm just saying. Yeah,

1:18:54

there's a lot of ways you can do

1:18:56

that. There's tons of little small rules and things

1:18:58

like that. If you're trying to go on

1:19:01

arrival, priority pass tends to be pretty lenient with

1:19:03

it. Generally for priority pass, they don't care

1:19:05

if you're arriving or departing. That may be different

1:19:07

in some international areas, but for the most

1:19:09

part, that's true. Even restaurants. I land all the

1:19:11

time at SFO, go to the restaurant, get

1:19:13

some to -go food, take it home and eat

1:19:15

it. So that tends to be a

1:19:17

pretty good option. Awesome. I think

1:19:19

we covered it all. Is there anything we missed?

1:19:21

I think we covered the gamut here. Yeah. This

1:19:24

has been great. Thank you so much for joining me.

1:19:26

Yeah, thanks so much, Chris. Such

1:19:29

a great episode. Thank you so much

1:19:31

for listening. I really hope you enjoyed

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