Plaza Premium Lounges added additional sees for a few select lounges. DFW First e.g.
I have noticed this has spread to Priority Pass as well. I noticed this in LAX (other thread) at the VS Clubhouse. I now see this in other lounges as well.
AS Alaska Lounge @ SFO
Clubrooms Heathrow T3 @LHR
The move by PP strikes me as putting the core product (airport experiences) at risk. I am not a fan of the co-pay prospect. Granted, I have a PP from credit cards - heck I probably have several available to me - and I rarely use PP, it comes in most handy at smaller international airports across the globe.
The co-pay approach could help expand the offerings at locations that have limited PP benefits. I wonder how much of that additional $35 in extra revenue is passed to the provider.
Do others have examples of PP collecting an additional fee?
As I was saying in your other Question, I agree that these fees are a farce. For instance, some lounges on the PP network have been adding a lame $7 pre-booking fee. You can still do a walk-in or join the digital waitlist, but during peak hours, you risk not getting in before your flight boards. The reality is that banks completely oversold lounge access, so now they’re introducing new fees and tiers just to artificially suppress demand. I was at CHS earlier this year and experienced this at The Club. I just joined the waitlist, which took about 20 minutes. Honestly? It wasn't that special anyway. Better than sitting at the gate, but pretty meh.
@1990_ I was not aware of the pre-booking fee at some lounges. I have seen the badge on the experience detail page for pre-booking and just assumed they were advertising the electronic waitlist.
Clearly PP is trying to change their model. They have to. Thankfully I have other lounge options when traveling and do not need to rely on PP.
SFO is my home airport. I head straight to the Alaska Lounge waking past The Club@SFO where there is almost always a line. I have popped in a couple of times in a lull of passengers. Good PP lounge, but I will not wait in line to access, not pay any additional fees.
@hnl We are very fortunate that at both SFO (and JFK T4 at least) there are decent lounges, PP and otherwise. Was sad when Alaska closed its T7 lounge here (for now, at least there are oneworld options in at T8, but it's not the same, and it requires Alaska Lounge+ membership).
@1990_ The Alaska Lounge at JFK T7 was great and I really enjoyed that lounge when it was open. Use to do the SFO-JFK-SFO route frequently before the pandemic. The problem with T8 is the Admirals Club needs an update.
@hnl, AFAIK, aside from the reservation fee, the extra fees are paid directly to the lounge. Maybe PP gets a cut on a portion of that, but I'm guessing the lounge retains most of the copay.
At some lounges, the walk-up waitlists can easily be 30-45 minutes (or more). For $7-35pp, it's cheaper than getting equivalent F&B at a restaurant. I can see why some people would opt for the reservation fee or extra fee instead of waiting or skipping. It might be their only way to use a lounge before their flight. For many, the PP membership is already paid for in CC AFs, so they might not factor that into the cost.
Remember, AS lounge at SFO has a 15 dollar surcharge and you can ONLY access it when flying AS or its partner airlines (i.e. PD, JL, BA, AA, etc.). We learned this the hard way when my partner was flying SK back to europe and i was flying to LAX with AS for work.
I think the surcharge is reasonable and enough to keep the riffraff of the club at SFO crowd out. I refuse to go to the club at SFO and wait in a hollywood style queue just to get some free cocktail mix or prepackaged pasta salad.....its obscene at the people there waiting like savages....even saw one guy yelling at the front desk on why he has to wait.....PP is a victim of its own success and the airline cards that give everyone access....
I am limiting my lounge time these days as i just dont want to sit in an airport.
@isaacc, yeah, I agree. The AS Lounge was smart to add the AS/OW/AS Partner requirement. And the fee gives you pause, but it's low enough to get people to pay up. Given the alternatives, it's not a bad deal. You can wait for the Club at SFO, wait or get denied at the A terminal PP lounges, buy a pricey one-time pass, pay for an expensive meal elsewhere, or skip lounges altogether.
As far as I know, the additional fee is always collected by the lounge (pre-booking fees are collected by Priority Pass). I've only had one experience paying a required additional fee to access—that was for The Hidden Gate at MEX which simply charged me using their own credit card reader.
Other examples I can think of off the top of my head are all of the Clubrooms lounges in the UK and The Lomond Lounge at GLA which requires paid pre-booked reservations for access.
One sneaky place there is now a fee are the minute suites. Amex and Chase PP still get access to these but minute suites now charge a $5-10 "cleaning fee" which is not displayed anywhere on the priority pass app ahead of time. At least for the lounges mentioned they make sure you know there is an additional charge beforehand. Very disappointing cash grab by Minute suites, do they not get paid enough by PP already? Sorry but that should already include the cleaning cost IMO.
@juicyjay You're joking! Frankly, I don't value access to one for an hour at even $5.
I'm a huge fan of the co-pay concept in its current form, but I really worry about scope creep on this. If the option of adding a co-pay requirement for Priority Pass use encourages more lounges (for whom the economics of PP otherwise didn't make sense) to join the PP network, this is a treat. In theory, it opens the door to higher-quality lounges joining the network on the margin, and potentially alleviating crowding a bit in the existing network.
BUT! It seems inevitable to me that as (if?) people become desensitized to the concept of a co-pay as part of a Priority Pass visit, we'll see a rapid unbundling of the experience. Even though it's not as if there are so many luxuries included in a standard PP visit that could even be disaggregated (the way showers are in some PP lounges now), I could easily see an increasing number existing (gratis) PP lounges deciding to consider themselves "premium" and charge a co-pay, esp. in the US.