If you have membership with Priority Pass or Priority Pass Select, starting from May 15th you’ll no longer be able to access United Club Lounges. You should have received the following announcing this negative change:
We regret to inform you that United Club lounges, one of our partners, have unfortunately chosen to no longer participate in the Priority Pass lounge access program, effective May 15th 2015. While this does mean that our Members will no longer have access to United Club’s 49 lounges (41 located in 26 airports in the US and 8 at international locations) we are pleased to advise that alternative lounges are immediately available at 17 of the 34 airports affected (10 in the US and 7 at international airports) meaning minimal disruption for Priority Pass Members traveling through these locations.
The way that the announcement is worded makes it seem like you will have access to 17 new lounges, but this isn’t the case. These 17 lounges you already had access to, it just so happens that operate in airports that United Clubs also operate in.
If you had a priority pass select membership, you already didn’t have access to United lounges so for most people this wont’ be a huge loss. The timing is interesting, given that United is a Chase partner and Chase recently removed lounge club access on their Ink cards (and Fairmont).
As the number of fliers increase, so does the demand for these lounges. There has been a lot of overcrowding in United lounges recently which goes someway to explaining this change.
Hat tip to View From The Wing
