mia

All of which is available with Chase Sapphire Preferred or Citi Premier for a lower fee, aside from the Priority Pass membership.

Enthusiasm for Priority Pass is an odd phenomenon. It's no coincidence that it is owned by an insurance company. They are good at profiting from the spread between the amount that people expect to use it, and the amount they actually do. The membership was quite valuable before the USA airline industry consolidated because DL, UA and US accepted it at most locations, and AA at some, but after consolidation those lounges had no surplus capacity and AA, DL and UA have all departed entirely, leaving Priority Pass with an uneven assortment of domestic USA lounges.

To their credit they have started opening their own lounges. These eight are actually operated by Collinson Group:

http://www.theclubairportlounges.com/

...the rest are lounges with surplus capacity.

Emotionally, I like having Priority Pass membership, but intellectually I cannot assign it any monetary value because I use it very infrequently. However, this might be different for economy class fliers if they are fortunate enough to find a Priority Pass lounge in the same concourse as their flight, which is the primary challenge facing any independent lounge network.