garykung

AMEX can't do much. You need Asian airlines.

Take SJC's the Club as an example. It is a lounge that is opened for NH's SJC-NRT by B787.

Although the food is not free, it has significantly upscaled from typical U.S. lounges (even the Club's own lounges). At the least - it has Perrier.

It is a dream when UC stops offering carrot sticks...

Xyzzy

Thankfully there were all new chairs at the EWR-C3 club when I was there a couple of days ago. The place was still cmpletely packed, but the ripped chairs were gone.

Bookexp

WSJ had an article on airport lounges earlier this month. It mentioned why U.S. airport lounges are not as polished as the foreign carriers.

Basically, most of these polished lounges do not offer "paid membership" and its main purpose is to serve business or first class passengers who have paid thousand of dollars to earn the privileges of the lounge access.

I renewed my United Club membership in October despite the "alcohol downgrades". I visit the clubs 30- 40 times a year. For about $10 per visit, I got a work station I can use, breakfast/snack I can eat, shower I can use, and the most important, a peace of mind in case of IROP.

Is it worth it? People in my office think I am crazy doing mileages run in December. To each its own, the United Club offers me great value. It is definitely worth it for me.

c502cid

I renewed in 2012 for 3 years using miles. The only reason I keep it is for newspapers to read on the flight when I go into the club in the morning and for irrops. I didn't have to use it all year for irrops thankfully because UA seems to be back in re-booking you proactively before you even arrive to the airport. I'm letting my AA club lapse though, they were equally bad to the UA clubs.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Sums up my view. Although the downgrade in hooch is annoying, the 40-60 hours I was able to spread my stuff out in a work area w/ snacks/coffee/wi-fi/etc justifies the $.

Jorgen

The Australian experience contradicts that, though. Both QF and VA offer paid lounge memberships for somewhere between three and six hundred bucks a year, depending on whether you can get a corporate rate. They also both give lounge access to gold-and-above frequent flyers, even on domestic trips. And both offer lounges which are outstanding compared to any US-based lounge -- proper food, decent selection of beer (no need to tip the bloody bartender either! ^^), regularly refurbished furniture, et cetera.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

? Grass is always greener? Report from a couple of days ago:

"Bit of a poor show in the SYD Dom QP tonight at 6-645pm for food. Gone are the olives crackers biscuits nice cheese etc. tonight it was iceburg lettuce, purple cabbage, sliced tomato, some bad ham, sliced cheddar cheese. Basically sandwich food. There was now toastie makers. Soup was still there, and comfort slop was shepherds pie. On top of that there was no forks and no one seemed to be cleaning up used utensils, dirty stuff everywhere.

People looked bemused, certainly not how it use to be. I guess either an ordering mishap or more likely this is the new Accor regime :-("

lensman

This is perhaps another part of the difference - the frequency of usage. How good of an experience can we expect if we are only paying $10 a visit unless we expect UA to operate the clubs at a loss?

We can argue about whether UA should operate the club at a loss, though!

LaserSailor

I haven't figured out how the Chase club card deal works out on P&L given

50% on my biz spend is something like 60,000 miles extra per annul...about 300-500 USD real value, conservatively.

Free UC

I used the club 60+ times in 2013

Plane-is-home

I didn't renew for 2013. I didn't miss it all year. Flying internationally (the only change I like: including Canada) you can still get in, and flying domestically I was as well of sitting down in a bar. And with LTE available pretty much everywhere don't need the slow wifi either.
Fortunately being GS in the irrops situations I encountered a boarding pass was hand delivered to me. Only exception was Nashville.

OrangeTiger1998

I have held a UC membership for the last two years in which my main airport of departure has been Charlotte. I have been loyal to United since 1998 when I first started traveling with the military, and transitioned to the private sector. I don't fly on business. Leisure only. I typically travel on a tight budget, with my spouse. We enjoy going to the club to relax, have a few drinks and fuel up before the flgiht. We fly around 65,000 miles per year. Although the last two years, we have flown approximately 100,000 due to some long-distance vacations. We are currently both 1K and only fly United or Copa.

With the upcoming merger between US Airways and American, I have noticed that there are six places that I visit (with my UC membership) which will no longer be valid.
Charlotte
Buffalo
Raleigh-Durham
Greensboro
Pittsburg
Tampa

Considering three of these Star Alliance markets:

1) For the Charlotte market, Lufthansa currently flies to Munich, Air Canada has a flight to Toronto and United flies to CLE, ORD, IAH, EWR, IAD. These customers will no longer have any lounge access. Charlotte is currently poised to (and local media reports that it will) be the 2nd largest American Airlines hub.

2) For Raleigh, Air Canada has a flight to Toronto and United flies to CLE, ORD, IAH, EWR, IAD and SFO.

3) For Tampa, Air Canada has a flight to Toronto (and seasonal service to others as well), Copa flights to Panama City, United Express (under Silver Airways) has flights multiple markets in Florida), and United flies to ORD,CLE, DEN, IAH, EWR, IAD.

I haven't received any communication from United regarding opening clubs in these (or any new) markets. Thus I am concerned about the future usefulness of the UC for me. Additionally, as so many others have stated, the club has been significantly downgraded in the last four months. Specifically, I am most unimpressed with the drastic change in complimentary beverages. Like many others, I don't want to seem like a high school kid or a fraternity dude, but going to the club and enjoying a decent glass of scotch is part of why I enjoy traveling. I can still do that, but now (in addition to the club fee) I have to pay a very high airport price to have that enjoyment.

The clubs are nicer in foreign markets and I have certainly enjoyed Turkish Airlines club in IST as well as others. But those benefits are under Star Alliance for being a gold member and according to the United website, the UC membership only grants access to *A clubs at London, LAX, Nagoya, Paris and Buenos Aires.

I hope that some of this information has been helpful to someone out there. In closing, I will not be maintaining my UC membership after this current period comes to close. It will be more cost effective for me to enjoy the normal airport bar when departing a domestic flight. I don't really want to join flock of seagulls, looking for a spare outlet to charge my phone, but the benefits are no longer there to remain a club member.

Xyzzy

UA gets some portion of the annual fee and gets paid by Chase for the miles given to cardholders. In exchange, they hope to pull those people closer to their brand so they'll consider UA flights before those on other carriers. The card itself costs $395 per year. That is less than the $500 standard membership fee and even less than the $400 annual fee for a 1K. Couple that with the $95 cost of a standard UA affinity card and it's really a pretty good deal. S, while UA ends up with less cash for an annual club card membership, it hopes to be making that up in other ways.

LaserSailor

Forgot about the extra 95 bucks for the Explorer card, Xyzzy!

So for another 300 bucks I get

UC access
Other club access

Even on a modest 3k per month house hold spend, I get another 18k RPM which if I use generally accepted value of 2cpm, is 360 USD back.

Which makes the Club Card a revenue positive upgrade from the Explorer on 3k month spend.

Ok, I'll stop schilling for this now,

Kacee

1Ks get a $60 statement credit against the Explorer annual fee. So cost is actually $35 per year. Don't know if they do something similar with the Club Card.

trekwars2000

The statement credit also applies to the Club Card.