FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Centurion Lounge crowding (2015-2019)
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Old Apr 14, 2018, 7:04 am
  #1213  
krazykanuck
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Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: IAH
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Originally Posted by TravelStar
I still think the solution is to limit free visits to maybe 3 to 5 per year. After that, paid visits.
While this probably is the solution needed, they'd have to draw the line carefully, because at 3-5 per year, it'd nuke the value of the card. If that were the limit I'd almost certainly cancel my Platinum card. IMO the limit would have to be set at a level that it impacted the right tail of the distribution that are taking up their disproportionate share of lounge person visits, while leaving it high enough that your average Platinum cardholder isn't impacted and doesn't feel the need/desire to close their card. I don't know where that level is but off the top of my head maybe start with 25 visits a year? I mean that's 2x a month for a single person, monthly with a spouse or kid, etc. While it would force your weekly or multiple time per week road warrior to pick and choose when they really want to use it.

Originally Posted by Gasolin
The answer is simply to build bigger lounges if they want to cope with the crowd.
True, but that's far easier said than done. I mean Amex is late to the game trying to secure square footage in older facilities that are mostly already full and in some cases that means taking sub-optimal locations, or square footage thinking that something is better than nothing. Looking at you LGA and SEA. I'll be curious to see how the expansions at DFW and MIA impact the crowdedness, or perceived crowdedness.

There's also the unknown that as Amex adds lounges at JFK and DEN, how many people that currently don't have Platinum cards will enter the ecosystem because of these new lounges, for instance maybe DEN is their home airport, or most traveled destination, so they get it for that reason and then start visiting the other lounges in the system as well.
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