Everything You Need To Know About Airport Lounges... Are They Really Worth It?

[Music] did you know above the craziness of every airport is a relaxing retreat with free food free drinks and really cool views that's right i'm talking about the ever exclusive airport lounges for quite some time i was curious about these how do you get in what is it really like inside and of course is it worth it today we're going to be answering that question [Music] so there's three main different types of lounges the first type is airline branded lounges these are your delta sky clubs american admirals lounge and united clubs then a little bit harder to get into you have the american express centurion lounges and lastly we have the priority pass lounges so the first thing everybody always wants to know is how to get into them there's a few ways to access a lounge and the most common way is to get a credit card that comes with complimentary lounge access so the card i got to get access is the american express delta reserve card the other card most people get to get lounge access is the amex platinum these types of credit cards generally have an annual fee of 500 to 700 they can be worth it if you pay attention and make use of all the benefits but if you don't travel that frequently and you're not paying attention it's really not that worth it the second way is by flying first class internationally typically with most airlines you get free lounge access when you're flying first class internationally but unfortunately domestic flights do not give you access if you're a medallion vip whatever that doesn't automatically get you lounge access either the credit card i think is the best way because if you're utilizing the other things on the credit card it can pay for itself but you have to be smart about it and pay attention or else you're going to be paying that yearly fee for nothing and then the third way is to buy a single visit pass which are typically around 60 one thing to note though is you can't buy day passes to the centurion lounges so which lounge is the best let's take a look first we'll take a look at the delta sky club there are over 50 sky clubs in the us so chances are either the airport you're flying out of or into is gonna have one the nice thing is these are generally really big so you don't have to wait to get in there's always somewhere to sit there's plenty of outlets the food is pretty good most of the sky clubs i've been to are around 20 000 square feet and they've never been too crowded when i'm there in my opinion the biggest factor in how good a lounge is is how good the food is the food in all the lounges is a buffet style and it's usually pretty good it can be hit or miss though depending on the location and time of day for example this is the delta sky club in seattle it had this delicious steak meal it was so good you guys it really it tasted gourmet this is another time i went it was a pasta and chicken meatball sort of dish this one really was not nearly as good as the other one so i've found that the food choices are kind of inconsistent the key is not getting to a lounge too early or too late in the day because they stop making the food at a certain time and only have the leftover snacks but if you get there between 10 a.m and 6 p.m they're constantly making and bringing out fresh food to the buffets here's a look at food i've gotten at various different delta sky clubs there's usually some really good hot options some kind of cheese plate some salads sandwiches that you can take to go in the mornings sometimes they'll have eggs and bagels different things like that i found the delta sky club in miami though had much less food options than all of the ones i've been to on the west coast so i would check just your local airport check the yelp reviews so for the most part the food is really good although i would say you probably can get better food at an airport restaurant but i don't know i think it's good enough another nice thing about lounges is that they have a variety of free drinks free water coffee iced tea juice there's usually an espresso machine a variety of milks and sweeteners that you can put in and they also have a list of free alcoholic drinks but in the delta sky lounge the fancier ones you have to pay for they range from six to twenty dollars but they always have free beer and wine and a few other cocktails overall for food and drink i give the delta sky lounge a six out of ten just because some drinks you have to pay for and the food is sometimes really good but sometimes it's not one of the best parts of airport lounges is they make it really easy to get work done so these main areas of the airport seem to never have working outlets and it's honestly an issue but in the lounges there's a ton and they all work i found in delta sky lounges nearly every seat probably actually every single seat has an outlet it's actually kind of incredible even these cafe seats that are mainly for eating have this stand-up outlet thing additionally they have these semi-private workspaces where they're kind of walled off with an outlet of course so it's like having your own desk in an office it's really nice and i found the delta sky clubs to have insanely fast wi-fi the one in seattle was 100 megabits per second for both download and upload and the one in atlanta was nearly 200 megabits to put that in perspective i mean it is like 20 times faster than my internet at home i uploaded a video that would normally take me 20 minutes and it only took like 60 seconds so no doubt you could download a bunch of tv shows and movies while you're here if you wanted and speaking of getting work done i wanted to thank dell in partnership with intel for sponsoring this video this is the dell latitude 9420 at just 14 inches it's really great for having a laptop to travel and get work done you can work at the speed of thaw with this laptop because it has an 11th gen intel v pro processor that can scale up to 20 watts of thermal design power the intel ipu6 technology on the 9420 improves image quality and difficult lighting and lighting can kind of be unpredictable when you're traveling so this is really nice to be able to see your screen and get work done this laptop has express sign in 2.0 the world's first business pc enabled by intel's visual sensing technology for a faster more reliable auto wake and lock so say you want to get up and grab more of that free lounge food but you forget to lock your laptop no worries because it will sense when you're gone lock it for you so no one can get in the dell latitude 9420 is also great for conference calls it has a clear webcam image with temporal noise reduction intelligent audio and express connect so it auto adjusts audio for better sound quality and conferencing with background noise and echo reduction i also love that it has plenty of ports two usbcs a usba hdmi and one of those small usd memory card readers so this is a great laptop if you like to plug into a lot of monitors and different extensions i'll have a link below in the description if you want to learn more about the latitude pcs but definitely consider it for your next work device you can talk to your it team and request it for workability i give the delta sky lounge a 9 out of 10. so if you're traveling for business or finding yourself having to get work done at airports a lot this is probably the lounge for you so something cool about the delta sky lounge is you can actually enter after your flight lands as well as before so this is a huge benefit of the delta sky lounge is as long as your flight is for that same day you can enter at any time before your flight during your layover and even after your flight other lounges restrict it to just a few hours before your flight so it's actually kind of unique that they do this and i totally forgot to get footage of this but there are showers at the delta sky lounges i very seldom actually use this amenity but it is nice if you have an international flight layover overall i give the delta sky lounges a seven out of ten and i would say these are the best ones for getting work done the next kind of lounge is the centerion lounge so these lounges are a little bit harder to get into like i said you can't buy a day pass the only way is with a valid credit card this lounge has much better food better drinks just like a cooler style but there are some cons as well that we'll get into but first let's talk about the food because this is truly the best part of this lounge consistently with every centurion lounge the food is really good you'll never see paper plates here they always have actual dishware it is buffet style but the quality is just better they actually partner with different celebrity chefs for each lounge rather than basic scrambled eggs they had this delicious quiche thing with goat cheese it was so good you guys and then there's also always a bunch of different sides cheese board type of things fruit croissants little things like that my flight got delayed so i was here a while and by lunchtime they served a bunch of different stuff they had this ravioli a bunch of different salads there was even some salmon i didn't get footage of there were also some soups and some dessert options as well the lighting in this particular area isn't the best so i don't know if my footage really does it justice but the food in this lounge really is the best of any lounge i've ever been to as far as drinks go they have all the coffee tea juice everything like that and all alcoholic drinks are free here and they also have a better selection of cocktails and in fact the lounge at jfk has a secret speak easy where you can get a nice espresso martini or other prohibition-themed cocktails all for free in terms of workability this one isn't the best lounge but it's still good it's still better than the normal airport there just aren't quite as many outlets and the wi-fi wasn't as fast it's also a smaller lounge in general so not as many desk spaces or anything like that but there is a printer alright so the major con of this lounge is that it's very crowded probably because they have the best food everyone with these cards that gets them access wants to go to this lounge so on occasion you actually have to wait 10 to 15 minutes to even get in and then after that there's not that many seating options they do make sure though once you're inside you do get a seat i give the centurion lounge a 9 out of 10. this is the best lounge for actually lounging not as much for doing work but that's fine this one simply has the best food a cooler feel to it a cozier design i could truly spend all day in one of these and be happy and i actually did my flight got delayed all day and i wasn't mad about it and then the third type are the priority pass lounges the priority pass lounge goes with the amex platinum you get free access but they're generally like not quite as good as the centurion lounges so pro so priority path lounges are there are tons of them so if you have a membership you get access to so many lounges it's also less expensive to get access to these lounges so if you're looking for the least expensive option this is it but it's important to note that on top of the yearly membership fee you have to pay each time you use a priority pass lounge unless you get the most expensive membership which at that point you might as well just get one of the credit cards cons are the quality is not as consistent a lot of these don't have the hot buffet style food they just have some grab-and-go sandwiches and snacks they typically do have free beer wine coffee tea all of that from what i've heard the priority pass lounges are better internationally so if you're in like amsterdam those might be nicer they are a bit less expensive for the membership so it's a better option if you still want to go to a lounge but you don't want to get the credit card alright so are airport lounges worth it i think if you travel frequently enough they are if you're traveling two times or more by air per month it's worth it because you're probably spending quite a bit on food at the airport anyway if you're somebody who likes to get to the airport and have a glass of wine and dinner and pay for it there then you'll probably save money by getting this but if you're somebody who eats before then you probably want one thing i've noticed for myself also is i don't care to go to the lounges if it's a really early flight so if you fly really early generally you might find yourself not using it as much because you probably just want to go to the airport right before your flight right but if you find a lot of your flights are in the evening you'll probably like it i find the time that i most use the lounges are when i'm on a trip and going back home and i have to check out of my hotel early but i don't really have anywhere to go until my flight at like 4 pm that's like the best time to go to the lounge you can get food work done they're really comfortable i do think the lounges are worth it in the sense that they're very relaxing it makes going to the airport like much more enjoyable in my opinion when you go into a lounge it's a totally different vibe from the rest of the airport they're actually much quieter everyone's more relaxed and you just don't have that hectic energy around you that you get in the main part of the airport i was here all day my flight got delayed like every hour and i honestly didn't mind because it was just very comfortable i don't think that the airport lounges are worth it though if you travel by air less than eight times per year at that number you could just buy a single visit pass when you go and you might find that half the time you don't even have time to go or maybe you go a few times and you're like that was cool but honestly it's whatever you could just go to a restaurant when you're at the airport right like you can yeah if you find yourself needing to get work done a lot they are pretty fantastic for that because they have reliable wi-fi outlets everywhere you'll have no problem finding an outlet and it just is i don't know it's just easier it is that's everything you need to know about airport lounges i feel like i am an expert now and i quite like them it makes the airport a nice experience so i hope you guys enjoyed this video be sure to subscribe to my channel if you aren't yet and want more videos about basically everything i'll give you the inside scoop on everything i know and yeah that's gonna be it i'll see you guys in my next video bye

Channel: Shelby Church

Views: 1,337,605

Keywords: shelby, church

Id: K1A6oW0zATE

Length: 14min 0sec (840 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 05 2022