Question re: lounges
 

Which airlines have the best lounges? Which have food (or is that hit and miss per airport)?

Thanks!

That's a broad and subjective question. For example, the American Airlines Admiral Club in Chicago charges you for alcoholic drinks and has slim pickings when it comes to free food. The Admirals Club at Heathrow has an open bar and much wider selection of free food.

To get better answers, why don't you share with us the routes you frequently fly or the airlines you'd consider flying.

Actually, I just purchased Priority Pass, so I have a lot to choose from. I just want to know which are the nicest, cleanest, have the best food, etc. I fly pretty much everywhere in the US. Main airports would be PHL, CLT, DCA, PIT, MPL, MIA, DFW, DTW, SAN, LAX, JFK. Thanks.

I just signed up for Delta CRC. Since I haven't used any airline club before, I didn't know what to expect. I first used the CRC in SLC and what I enjoyed the most about the lounge was the toilets. Yes they had a fully stocked bar and comfortable seats and work areas, but being able to place my bear behind on what appeared to be a clean toilet seat was very refreshing. On the down side, all they had for snacks were the Delta ginger cookies and corn nuts.

Almost none of those will have food in the lounges. Domestic US lounges are split between open bar (CO/DL/NW) and not, free wifi (CO/NW) and not, and generally just for having a slightly quieter place to wait.

Once you get overseas (or in the local lounge for a foreign carrier) you'll start to see real food offerings.

It's also going to depend on which airport you are in. The LH lounges in FRA are great, as are the OS lounges in VIE. Both of these are hub airports for these airlines.

Ultimately, for me, these lounges are great way to sit in a quite environment. In the U.S., however, they don't have a lot of food and often don't allow you to bring food in from other places in the airport.

Those two statements unfortunately contradict themselves. The domestic lounges in the US are worlds behind lounges around the world, especially when it comes to hot food.

But like others said, I would stick with the ones with free booze :D

I disagree. Of the last 15 European lounges I have visited, I'm positive that only ONE had some hot food, and that hot food was some kind of soup in the brand new lounge of the home airline of a massive airport (KL@AMS). Usually hubs have some half-decent cold snacks available...most spokes make do with peanuts, crackers, peanut crackers, some cheese if you're really lucky, and copious amounts of booze.
So the US is hardly alone!!

I've used Priority Pass for the last year. ^^^ This is the best, virtually unknown program that I've seen.

Outside of that, I tend to prefer the Continental clubs. Red Carpet Club kinda sucks. Sorry UA.