Originally Posted by
ChurnieEls
Conclusion: Growth in (1) above is coming from increased numbers of either elites, memberships or Amex cardholders. I think its pretty easy to speculate on which it is.
Originally Posted by
Adelphos
Clearly, there are more Amex cardholders (crucially, both Amex Platinum and Delta Reserve - I see A LOT of Purple around these days), which is contributing to more crowded lounges.
It seems to me the point of contention is the characterization of Amex cardmember visits as a
problem, when Amex is, in fact, the primary access path
by design.
Originally Posted by
Adelphos
A higher mix of travelers with a bit more time to sit for hours in a lounge (leisure customers, people traveling for work but not necessarily going to traditional meetings, etc) relative to the “road warrior” consultant type. The WSJ article for example referenced a 25 year old “commercial drone operator” who travels frequently for business. I could imagine that kind of person isn’t someone who arrives at 6:15 AM for his 7 AM flight every Monday morning and returns every Thursday evening.
Indeed, reading the
WSJ comment section, the 3 hour rule certainly seems to be much less controversial than it is here...