In yesterday’s recap we shared a story from Miles to Memories about American Express limiting entry to the SEA centurion lounge over memorial day:
- Access is limited to 2 hours prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight
- Inbound boarding passes are not accepted for entry
OMaaT then shared a similar notice went up in Miami as well. American Express then clarified that this was a pre-existing rule and is only put in place when a lounge reaches capacity. I’m not saying American Express is lying, but I do find it hard to believe there are precisely zero reports of such a notice even being put up before at any centurion lounge and then two lounges hit capacity and the same sign was put up on the same day. American Express has tried to put other measures in place to reduce lounge congestion, day passes were eliminated for non premium cardholders & guests were limited to two (previously immediate family members were also allowed) but obviously this hasn’t done enough to curb lounge use especially in locations with smaller lounges.
The easiest way for American Express to deal with lounge overcrowding would be to simply limit the number of guaranteed entries you have per year. For example somebody using the lounge twice weekly is obviously more of a overcrowding issue than a family of four using it twice per year (104 visits vs 8). You’ll notice I said guaranteed entries, rather than entries. The way I see it is that most users know when their flight is and what time they are likely to leave, there is nothing stopping American Express from allowing you to prebook that entry and be guaranteed access. If there is still room when somebody arrives, of course they should be allowed entry as well. If you’re given a certain amount of these entries annually (e.g 10 or 20 or whatever number you like) then it stands to reason immediate family should be allowed as well.
I know some readers will hate this suggestion, but the alternative is being able to access the lounge for two hours before your flight meaning you’ll likely be accessing the actual lounge for one hour to one and half hours total and that assumes that this will fix the overcrowding issue as well. I’d be interested to hear other readers suggestions on how to fix this problem as well, because it certainly is going away anytime soon.
I was at the Miami Centurion lounge about about a month ago. No sign.
What about if they just gave you 2 free hours (anytime not just before flight). After 2 hours your card on file that you checked in with would automatically get charged some fee… 5$? $20?
Limit Platinum cardmember access to cardmembers only. Even in this case, a family of four can all have Centurion access. One immediate child under the minimum cardmember age may attend per cardmember. No boarding pass nor departure time requirement.
Another idea:
Every year a certain number of priority tickets are deposited to the account, say 10 tickets (I am making up numbers, you get the idea). If the lounge is not over crowded, you get in there anyways. If it is crowded, you can use the tickets to get in there. If you run out of tickets, sorry dude, find a restaurant instead, please.
This way for those really need to use the lounge, there’s a way to get in. For those just want to use the lounge for free, they’d probably save the tickets. It’s sort of the “not-so-free” idea, but still free from strictly $ perspective.
My Suggestion: CardMember – ALWAYS Gets into the Lounge (space available etc.). That CardMember gets +15 (or +20) – GUEST PASSES. They can use say a Max of 4 at any one time. Something that covers 98% of use cases – Amex has the Data. This structure allows the primary Cardholder access along with some incremental value to bring in others but they it is not an unlimited resource. Wonder if Amex IT Dept. could handle it.
This is a capitalist society. If the family of four paid me $30 cash I would gladly vacate my spot in the line else we all stand in line, fist come first served.
Father, put a rubber on your dipstick before you insert in mom’s oil reservoir and everyone would be happy. Don’t pull the guilt BS because you have kids.
No guests over 1. Families is why we can’t have nice things…just say no.
Ultimately, I would agree the 2 hour rule probably won’t work to reduce crowding, and personally, I hate the idea. However, I can’t fault Amex for trying strategies that don’t actually cost any investment money.
The idea of a reservation system is interesting, but the moment they did it, I think people would complain about how it’s stupid to need to make a rez and it takes to much time, etc. etc. etc. Also, there’s the cost of designing and implementing the actual system to do that, and link to a card account to track the necessary components. That’s at least many hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement for no real apparent return for them.
I have a feeling they’ll keep testing the waters with other rules before spending significant monies on the problem.
Your idea is impractical. You expect them to SCHEDULE time slots and manage those? Good god, what a nightmare that would be. They are NOT going to want that overhead and that headache, it would increase their cost substantially.
Too many people crowding the lounges? Solution: Piss off enough card members, they cancel the cards, problem solved. Looks like they’re on their way to that solution
I think AMEX just needs to build more and bigger Centurion Lounges (long term solution).
I disagree Their should be no usage limit. The more often you fly, amex shoudl be catering to you even more. You are likely putting those flights on an amex (especially at 5x miles). The lounge rep would likely let you even stay longer than the 2 hours if you are a regular.
A lot of ‘maybe’ here: people put the spend on the card that earns the best rate. There is no correlation between getting access and putting the spend on an Amex or any other card: you get access by holding the card, not by paying for the flight.
Following your argument: people earn already a lot of points — then make that a currency to buy access to the lounges.