American Express is expanding its Centurion Lounge network, with a new lounge at London Heathrow and major expansions planned for Houston and Philadelphia.
Impressive plans. If only the lounge experience actually matched the images.
No one cares. Cancel your card if you don't find value.
One less potential person in the lounge.
No one cares. Change your name if you don't find value.
One less person with name starting with a K.
The Amex lounge in Houston was the first airport lounge of any kind I ever visited. At the time I was blown away! I proceeded to visit it many times for a few years. It was so nice to get a "free" hot meal as I was primarily an economy traveler.
However, I soon discovered that it was actually really modest compared to the best lounges. The primary issue was that it was just so tiny, and as time went on it got more and more crowded as more people got the Platinum card. The crowding got so bad I eventually was forced to just ignore it whenever passing through.
Good to see it expanding so much. It desperately needs it.
When they open, the legacies were still serving celery dips with pretzels.
NW still had self serve bar.
in PHL they are taking over the BA lounge which is currently under the existing AMEX lounge. The BA lounge is already closed. Is BA going to open a new lounge? Currently there is just a sign saying BA customers can use the AA flagship lounge which is going to be bonkers crowded now. That lounge is tiny.
I believe when BA closed it they said it wasn't viable. The Old BA Lounge space is indeed a good bit bigger than the current Centurion which other than being tiny I quite like. Moving downstairs to the bigger space is a good move though.
None of the other airlines in Terminal A are likely to open a lounge in the old Centurion space. I suppose if Aeromexico ends up doing well with their flight it's a possibility, I can't imagine Aer Lingus will and BA already closed theirs. Qatar is also back, but I don't think they could do something up to their standards in the tiny old Centurion space.
The old Centurion in IAH had a nice bar and good breakfast food, but other than that good riddance. Hopefully the new one will be a big upgrade.
It wasn't viable because their hours made it useless to everyone else.
Would have been a good Priority Pass revenue outside those hours.
if you read it carefully it says the new lounge will be two floors so the old space + BA space...= new lounge.
IAH is the largest station in the US by number of Delta passengers without an existing or planned SkyClub (LAS and RSW are 1 and 2 largest without a current SkyClub but both have plans for one).
So, expansion of the IAH Centurion Club is very good news for Delta passengers especially as the current Amex lounge there is so small that it's borderline unusable.
Yeh, it's just ashamed they didn't move the whole thing to A concourse. That would be much more useful for more folks flying DL or another one of the cats and dogs on A. Crossing my fingers for a bank lounge or Skyclub coming to A. I doubt it's coming given the age of the terminal, though.
Actually Delta cited that IAH is next on the list for getting a Sky Club in a recent interview with Joe Esposito.
It's just not been made official via an announcement.
From what I saw, Esposito said Delta was looking for space in IAH but that was back in May. I wonder if that is still true given these Amex expansion plans.
Good luck getting into the LHR lounge, especially once BA closes its T5A lounges for renovations (maybe in 2029 once the T5C lounge is done?). 9k sq. ft - very small.
It is necessary but too late to get me back as a Amex customer. I enjoyed the lounges 12 or so years ago with the family. It was a good value for gett8ng the 3 or 4 hundred dollar Platinum card. Then about 5-6 years ago they all got too crowded so I rarely used them. Finally decided with the high anual fees and the need to coupon book that the card is not worth it.
Expnding a couple of lounges is not going to do it for me.
I understand creating this infrastructure is not easy or inexpensive. But the lines outside the lounges indicate they have not invested as much in the infrastructure compared to the amount of high AF cards they have issues with the promise of that lounge access.
I have never been inside the LHR lounge for the only reason when I have walked by there have been soup kitchen lines. So its great Amex is starting a new lounge in T5. But i do anticipate that lounge to have very long lines from opening day.
But at the very least Amex is doing something. Meanwhile Citi is hawking a high AF card with ZERO lounges of its own to boast of.
That may finally enable me to cancel my United Club card. I kept it primarily for EWR. The current Philly Centurion lounge is pretty sad. So was the old BA lounge they are apparently taking over. The combined lounge might end up okay when it opens, but I'm not holding my breath. The PHL Chase lounge, however, is excellent.
Phl Amex lounge increasingly felt like the MCO admirals club in the last couple years. Nice to hear they are making it much bigger. Might return once it’s opened. Though wish it wasn’t so far out of the way.