Miami-Dade officials have just approved plans for new sleep pods at Miami International Airport (MIA)…
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Wait N’ Rest nap rooms coming to Miami Airport
Wait N’ Rest has just received approval to operate two sleep centers at Miami Airport. One sleep center will be located on the third floor of the south terminal, while the other will be located on the third floor of the north terminal.
It’s not entirely clear to me whether this would be landside or airside. I think it’s the latter, as it’s also mentioned that this will only be available to ticketed passengers.
Currently, Wait N’ Rest has facilities at Bogota Airport (BOG) and Lima Airport (LIM), so Miami seems like a logical third location. 😉
With the concept, each sleep center will have a mini-lobby, with rooms being roughly 34 square feet (just over three square meters). Each room will have beds or sofas (with linens changed between guests), soundproof walls, air conditioning, charging ports, and Wi-Fi.
The contract has a five-year term, which can be renewed for an additional five years. The county expects it will make $10 million from this contract, assuming it’s extended for the entire 10 years, as the county gets a 25% cut on revenue. That’s interesting — that’s $4 million in revenue per year for the concept, or ~$11K per day.
It’s claimed that this will cost $30 to $60 per hour, which sure is steep pricing, especially if staying for longer. For what it’s worth, the Wait N’ Save location in Bogota participates in Priority Pass, and members can get a two hour stay included with their membership. It remains to be seen if the same will apply here.
While this facility has now been fully approved, it’s not yet clear when it will open. It will take some amount of time to get this all set up, so I suspect it’ll be 2025 before this opens.
This is a great development for Miami Airport
Miami Airport is my home airport, so I’ll probably never use this facility, but I’m excited to see it nonetheless. Miami will be the first US location for Wait N’ Rest.
However, plenty of US airports have Minute Suites locations, which are a similar concept. They’re basically like small offices with daybeds. I’d say that the Wait N’ Save concept is a bit more conducive to actually sleeping rather than being productive, so personally I prefer that idea.
Currently Miami Airport has one landside hotel that’s connected directly to the airport, and that’s the Miami International Airport Hotel. It’s quite outdated, and isn’t affiliated with any major hotel group. In 2026, a new Westin Miami Airport is supposed to open, which will also be on airport premises, and connected to the terminal.
So I’m happy to see more options for resting coming to the airport. Obviously these airport hotels aren’t ideal if you’re looking to just rest by the hour, while the sleep pods will get mighty expensive if you’re looking to stay in them for a long time.
Bottom line
Wait N’ Rest is planning on opening two new resting facilities at Miami Airport. The airport doesn’t currently have any places where you can rest by the hour, so I’m sure this is something that some travelers will find value in. I look forward to learning more details about the timeline for this opening.
What do you make of the new sleep pods coming to Miami Airport?
It is interesting that apparently there is so much demand for multiple short term room rental places. Compare that to places in Asia, for example, many club lounges have FREE rooms for naps which are probably bigger than the ones in the infomercial here and landside they have reasonably priced simple rooms for rent. I would not go as far as calling them a hotel...
I'd be more impressed if they fixed the escalators, elevators and moving sidewalks, and added more in.
The number of people being stranded at Miami Airport in the summer time is significant. Walk into the airside around 4AM-4:30AM if you have an early morning flight and Concourse D has people sleeping at every gate. People book a one hour SA connection/last connection of the night and with thunderstorm activity the issue is the airport gets backed up. So that 772/788 is ready to go because it's been at a gate for hours...
The number of people being stranded at Miami Airport in the summer time is significant. Walk into the airside around 4AM-4:30AM if you have an early morning flight and Concourse D has people sleeping at every gate. People book a one hour SA connection/last connection of the night and with thunderstorm activity the issue is the airport gets backed up. So that 772/788 is ready to go because it's been at a gate for hours but your incoming flight is stranded out on the tarmac. So that 772/788 goes without you.
This would help but with a steep price many are still going to be sleeping at a gate.
Nailed it. And that’s why they’re charging insane rates. They know how bad things can get there and hope that people will be desperate enough to pay
Curious what overnight pricing will be... probably similar to MinuteSuites I would assume... being in the $160-ish range including a priority pass discount. You can get a pretty decent hotel offsite in Miami for less... but if I had only 8 hours on the ground for an overnight connection, to me it would be worth maybe $50 premium to not deal with the whole shuttle situation.
This’ll be useful for anyone on that 3:45 am TAP Portugal flight in particular LOL
> It’s not entirely clear to me whether this would be landside or airside. I think it’s the former, as it’s also mentioned that this will only be available to ticketed passengers.
I think you mean "latter" there?
@ Hillshum -- Fixed, thanks!