Whatever is going to happen, I’m counting on it being part of a trend of increasing the American consumers’ costs for lounge access at airports. Fees for lounge access-providing bank cards have been rising as of late, Priority Pass guest fees and other lounge guest fees are rising, and even the fees Mastercard and Visa are charging the card issuers seem slated to rise in the US. Delta is on trend in this regard, and we will end up paying for it as consumers who want lounge access or be among those consumers who don’t and therefore forego lounge access to some extent or another.

I remember when I thought it was awesome that DL would provide me complimentary crown room club membership for my frequent flying business, and that was back when the DL lounges were actually worse in various ways than they are nowadays — the exception being that now they are often too crowded to get 2/3/4/5/6 seats together than in the less busy gate areas and that the lounge attendants’ service attitude/capability for dealing with schedule changes and other ticketing/booking matters isn’t as good as it used to be.

The value I get out of the SkyClubs does come in the form of food, showers and perhaps a more comfortable seat to use while plugged in, but my tolerance for price increases to get those goodies is limited since alternatives aren’t entirely non-existent.