cgtechuk

Hi All a new guy here,

I am from the UK and will be doing a fair amount of travel to the USA over the next 6 months - 1year so looking to invest in perhaps getting a lounge membership card such as Priority Pass as most of my connections have a fe whours wait at each airport,

I dont own any credit cards / platinum cards etc and getting them is not an option so looking to see if someone can suggest the best type of membership for lounge access is Priorty Pass the only one that would be good for me or are there other ones I cant find?

I am from UK and will be travelling internationally to USA and then a few domestic and international flights from USA alao

All help greatly appreciated

thanks

LondonElite

Welcome to FT.

PP is probably the best programme, though you may wish to check on the website for coverage at the airports in the US you expect to transit through most. You have no credit cards? How do you plan to pay for hotels, for example. Are your flights prepaid?

cgtechuk

Hi there thanks for your reply . I paid for my hotels and flights using my.debit card it has never really been a problem but the down side is not having benefits such as this that I would get with a credit card.

Is the conclusion that priority pass is probably the best?

Thanks

LondonElite

It's probably the only one with any significant coverage that is available to you in your situation. You could buy a UA/AA/DL club membership, but that would limit you to that airline's lounges, when flying on those airlines. This may not be cost effective or possible.

cgtechuk

Thanks for your reply.

I think I will get the PP unless anyone else can suggest one. I can get one as an addon to my bank account but seems a bit useless as I can only get 6 free visits a year and when you add up the monthly cost extra it makes no sense and the PP is better value.

Is there limitations to the PP ? Is coverage pretty poor in the USA? That is where I do the majority of my travel, (Travel is all with BA/AA and Virgin Atlantic if that helps)

Thanks

Oformula

That's not entirely true. Although a Club membership would limit OP to a specific airline (or Alaska's if AA/DL), there's no requirement that OP be flying on those airlines. If flying to/from smaller domestic airports, a UA/AA/DL lounge might be all that's available.

That being said from a value perspective, these club memberships still tend to be a bad deal.

JDiver

Options include:

Diners (MasterCard)

Airport Angel (available through various credit cards)

Priority Pass (through various credit cards or on own); three membership levels:Prices for Priority Pass (Standard via some credit cards is free):Prices comparable in GBP.

Most of these schemes use many of the same lounges worldwide.

Yoshi212

Adding onto the no credit card issue. Almost all US hotels place a hold on your account for an amount they determine to cover possible incidentals. This can range from 20$ to a full night's charge and sometimes more if the room rate is low. For credit cards that isn't much of an issue as it just decreases your credit limit until the hold is removed. But with a debit card this removes your actual cash temporarily from the card and can take up to 10 days to appear back in your account. I'd suggest getting a credit card if possible just for this purpose unless you have a large amount of cash and deem this unnecessary.

Also remember to check if you can access the location of the lounge that PP or the membership provide. Just because there is a lounge at JFK doesn't mean you can get to it. Not all airports allow you to access any terminal you wish or have connecting airside terminals.

LondonElite

Good point. And car rental without a cc is pretty nearly impossible.

Hairbus380

Depends which airports you are flying through. I have priority pass through amex plat, and I typically use it when in Europe, and rarely here in the US.

An admiral's club membership might be better for you? Worth looking into. Really matter's which airports. If you are like me and fly in/out of DEN a lot, the PP membership would be pointless.

Hairbus380

This. And no rental agency will accept a prepaid card. There are a *few* that accept cash, but they are god awful expensive and require a huge deposit(don't ask me how I found that out).

At a minimum, get a debit card, and make sure to have the funds available to cover deposits.

farbster

I've seen Loungebuddy available on groupon for $20. Maybe just go that route for a few lounges.

cgtechuk

Thanks for all the replies folks, It is appreciated.

Regarding Car Hire I am afraid you are wrong, I have been using my debit card for over 5 years in the states , Thailand etc for hiring cars with Alamo, Avis, Sixt No problem, My card is a debit card but not prepaid, Yes I agree with hotels and car hire companies they put a holding transaction on the card but I have an overdraft that takes care of the hold for me.

Unfortunately a Credit Card is out of reach not through want of trying due to a run of bad luck years back. (Should be easy to work out what I mean)

In regards to having a PriorityPass that has access to lounges I need looking at my bookings GLA=>LHR => LAX => HNL and then the reverse followed later on the year with GLA => LGW => MIA => DFW => SEA out of all of them only 2 or 3 airports on each trip have a lounge I can use due to terminal combination. I looked into the admiral club but the fact that the terms and conditions say that its not valid if the start and end of the trip is in the USA which all mine would be then I thought it was hopeless. Unless I have that wrong?

zkzkz

You need to check the lounge coverage yourself using the web sites. The reason I say this is because the lounges included actually vary depending on what country your membership is in.

Many of the other readers on the thread may not be aware of this. American PP memberships typically do not include many airline lounges, only third party contract lounges. However European PP memberships include all UA lounges including the LHR T2 lounge which is excellent. That alone makes it considerably better value.

Also, you should have realistic expectations. If you've seen photos of LHR and JFK premium lounges and expect that in every US airport you'll be disappointed. Most US lounges have power and comfy chairs and not much else to distinguish them from the rest of the airport. Food is often just crackers and cheese and they usually don't have showers (or free drinks if that's your thing).

IMHO the only time when lounges are really worth shelling out significant amounts of money for are connections at a major hub after an overnight flight. Ie, in London on a JFK-LHR-xxx flight you get a shower and light meal and show up looking mostly human instead of a disheveled half-asleep zombie.

The rest of the time they're a nice-to-have but not really worth paying for. And I've been in airports when the rest of the terminal was frankly nicer.

Hairbus380

If you purchase admirals club membership, you can use it on any flight.

If you earned access through status, you can only use it on certain flights.


And a debit card is fine. Some banks have debit cards with rewards, but nothing with lounge access.