I think that the blanket statement that it's worthless in the US is wrong (although it is worthless for you). I will admit that I just checked EWR and was surprised to find no lounges. I have been flying out of JFK recently and there are lounges there. And Bobby Van's steakhouse in AA/BA T8 offers $38 per person on my CSR card and the food is pretty good. We just got back from a trip to Europe, and we ate there and had an order of wings, onion soup and the hummus plate, and it was more than enough for us to share and totally free other than tip Even could have split a burger if we wanted and stayed under $56.

Then in Heathrow we got into a lounge during our layover and easily got into the lounge in Prague on the way home. So after my experience in February where I had to wait over an hour to get into the Buenos Aires PP lounge, they've done OK by me on my last couple of trips (prior trip involved ATL layovers in both directions). Of course, it all depends on where you're flying to.