Canter Bridge

Whether traveling for business or pleasure, you don’t want to waste your time in loud, sweaty departure lounge when for a modest fee the true value of climate control, internet access, healthy nibbling, and comfortable seats are just down the concourse at an airline lounge.

For travel in the US, you’ll want to snag a membership in one of the airline lounges in an airline belonging to at least one of the major airline alliances: SkyTeam, OneWorld, or Star Alliance. This will get you into the lounges of the other US airlines belonging to that alliance. Now this will set you back $450-500 dollars the first time, less as you accumulate miles and move up the elite tier ladder. Trust me, this is worth it.

When you travel outside the US, however, you’re in for one of the industry’s dirty little secrets. That airline lounge card ain’t worth diddly-squat when it comes to getting past the stern gatekeeper in the non-US partners of the worldwide alliance you thought to you’d found the key too.

And you can put away that Gold or Platinum American Express card you love to wave around, too. You thought it would get you in, did you? Yeah, right. It won’t, and you’ll begin to notice the small print about ‘Gold or Platinum AmEx issued in this country’.

You’re out in the cold.

Unless, that is, you sport a membership in Priority Pass, one of the things in life that really does compete with sliced bread. Priority Pass is a bolt-on lounge membership that will get you into more than four hundred nameplated lounges around the world. There are currently three membership tiers, and you pay an entrance fee at the lower tiers each time you and a guest use a lounge’s services. Don’t worry, this is your key to international happiness. Check it out at www.prioritypass.com.