An Alaska Lounge has just (re)joined Priority Pass, which is exciting, though it comes with a major catch.
Continue reading: Alaska Lounge SFO Joins Priority Pass… With A $15 Co-Pay, And Other Rules
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
This is one of the nicest domestic lounges at SFO and is never crowded. In T1, there’s a pretty good PP lounge, but it almost always requires a wait, so I can see Alaska looking to capitalize on this opportunity. Also AA occupies this terminal and most AA club members come here too because it’s just a better spot. It has a great bar selection, those amazing pancakes and barista made espresso drinks.
All in all it’s my go to lounge! Let’s just just hope the copay doesn’t make it crowded and prevent me from using it
Bummer. I imagine most people won’t know unless they put a PP sign out front. Might be back to the Admiral's club for me.
I would avoid it just based on principle. We have to stop this nickel and diming of clients under various pretexts.
Given there is a limit on summit passes every quarter...this is a great option to "buy" more access to SFO lounge. This is a great pairing to the Summit card where you have PP...but need more passes to the AS lounge (at least for us SFO based flyers).
Its great i can use it for the parnter airlines like Porter with this....i love the AS SFO lounge.
I would never pay extra unless I had a very long delay or something. This is silly.
If Alaska wants a bigger presence, maybe they should stop cutting destinations from SFO and actually make the airport competitive. Or just focus on San Diego and give up SFO.
This actually isn't as crazy as it sounds. The partner airline restriction means mostly Oneworld + a few others. You can usually already access with status when flying internationally.
And given Alaska already sold day passes, I'm not sure how much capacity will really change. This is effectively cheaper day passes.
It's not a "copay," it's a fee. It is a cash grab. Sure, they can do what they want, but let's be honest in our framing.
You said it yourself...the airport is not competitive. It's a fortress hub for UA. AS has about 10% of the market, UA almost 50%. Why not deploy resources where you can make more money and avoid a financial bloodbath? To do otherwise would constitute mismanagement.
I really hope it didn’t crowd the space. It’s quite empty no matter when you go and it’s an oasis. Barista made drinks is always such a nice touch. Their food choices sometimes are questionable. But it’s a peaceful place to wait for your flight. I always use it with my Citi executive card.
Was just at SFO two days ago. The Club had a huge wait, so went to Terminal A and tried the Golden Gate PP lounge. Not bad - small, but good breakfast food, etc. Kind of hidden away, but didn't have to wait around.
I surely would NOT pay an extra $15 for a PP lounge.
@Steve - I agree that UA dominates it, but AS tactics in particular at SFO has been pretty crazy. They sold tickets for fire sale prices from SFO to socal from 2021-2024, built a very nice lounge, 2-3x the prices for 2025, were surprised they didn't sell like hotcakes, and so they dramatically cut routes.
Tickets from UA were less, so from an economics perspective, it's like they just handed UA the business before rolling over and urinating on themselves.
Esp because they're right next to the club which is a Priority Pass lounge sans fee.
It will not surprise me one bit to see the same approach taken at LAX. AS is losing the battle there as well and is continuing to cut direct flights. Who really wants to fly up to SFO to get to LAS from LAX? Or worse yet fly all the way up to SEA or PDX to get to BOS or the east coast. You can’t compete if you don’t try. AS have given up on SFO and LAX, time to start pimping out the lounges again. Just sad for everyone who remembers how good they used to be.
What Alaska could have done more smartly is offer it for free to PP card holder flying Alaska and other airline passengers has to pay $15
Not sure if they'll be accepting PP in the late evening but Starlux (midnight-ish departure) uses it for their business class passengers, and the food spread was pretty good 🙂
Its been my experience that lounges that accept priority pass are usually way over crowded. And over crowded with a non business like clientele. The SFO lounge is beautiful (although I wish it faced the runways). Initially I thought i hope accepting priority pass won't make it over crowded but then again would people want to pay 15 bucks each person each time?
I pay close to 800 dollars a year for access to one world lounges (admirals clubs and alaska lounges) i dont want it to be become a loud and over crowded environment. I wouldn't want it to become like the Aspire lounge in san diego which accepts priority pass. Aspire lounge used to be the admirals club. It went from a small and quiet business lounge to overcrowded half hr lines to get in and a loud people going on vacation to a party destination atmosphere. Gosh I sound old
This behavior will be normalized and soon most clubs will start charging a nominal fee…
This is inevitable as everyone and their grandma has a PP in America.
At least it's nice to see them break the 3-hr trend and allow 4 hours. If this crap gets lots of takers, next stop $20.
Sure but Alaska lounges are generally way nicer, and it sounds like the club is often full. I'll probably use this to augment my summit card lounge passes when I know I'll use my two a quarter at SEA. I do wish it was like half off for summit or loyalty members with Alaska of some tier. That'd be a nice extra perk.
Given that my Priority Pass card is declined more often than accepted, I don’t see this as making a difference. I am not sure why AMEX even bothers with it. At this point AMEX club access is just false advertising.
Steve, you’re right (according to the SF Chronicle), Alaska accounts for approximately 10 percent of passenger traffic at SFO, and United around 50 percent. But at 10 percent, Alaska is bigger than AA or DL.
@Ben —> As someone else has mentioned, a two-minute walk back towards Security is “The Club,” a 12,000 square foot Priority Pass lounge that — yes — always seems to have a line to sign in, and sometimes a line to get in as (despite its 12k sq. ft. size) it’s overcrowded. Five minutes further down the concourse and one comes to the Admirals Club, which is another 11,000 square foot lounge.
Originally, when AA and AS were both in T2, the Alaska Lounge became an Admirals Club and Alaska was to build a new club with an outdoor seating area and more…but then they both moved into T1 along with (seemingly) eavery other airline at SFO save United and the more geographically distant foreign carriers. T1 is now home to Aer Lingus, Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, Hawaiian, jetBlue, Porter, and Sun Country. Delta members don’t have a lounge, neither do Frontier or Sun Country (but their pax don’t expect them either, whereas DL pax do.)
I am *hoping* this doesn’t **** up the Alaska Lounge, but — I suppose — there’s always the Admirals Club…(sigh).
The Club (a PP lounge) is located at Terminal 1 at SFO and is free to PP members.
It fits the need for a place to sit, charge a device and grab some coffee or snacks while waiting for your flight.
It is not deluxe in any way and it can get crowded, but usually you can find a seat.
My guess for the charge: to avoid overcrowding from AA flyers, which is located in the same terminal.
Thus, unless the Alaska Lounge is on the scale of a Delta One lounge, paying $15 to enter would be a hard pass.
@Jason While there might be lines at times to get into The Club, you usually are allowed in and the process goes quickly.
Compare that to the SFO AMEX Centurion lounge (or practically any Centurion lounge in the US) where it seems you almost are in a lottery to get in, having to put yourself on a waitlist and hope that a gazillion other travelers aren't ahead of you on the list, then once called, you have 10 minutes to show up or lose your spot.
@Richard The only time I was denied entry to a PP lounge was at the Golden Gate lounge at SFO in Terminal A of the International Terminal, which is a crap lounge anyway, so nothing to get upset about. I have use my PP card extensively in the USA and abroad and has always worked well for me, except in this one instance.
It's only a matter of time before other lounge operators "join the party" and do the same... or worse.
I would say the same about the Club at SFO. Unless you arrive very early in the morning, you're going to wait. If you arrive after 6pm when all the International A Priority Pass lounges become inaccessible to PP holders without premium tickets, then you're going to wait - a while. It's not quick. The Centurion SFO is a temporary location (that was ironically an Alaska Air lounge), so yeah it's crowded, but I recall the agent assisting people to find available seating - that never happened in the previous location.
I can see solo travelers and couples would be willing to pay the $15 each to enter Alaska's lounge, but less likely a family.
I would say the same about the Club at SFO. Unless you arrive very early in the morning, you're going to wait. If you arrive after 6pm when all the International A Priority Pass lounges become inaccessible to PP holders without premium tickets, then you're going to wait - a while. It's not quick. The Centurion SFO is a temporary location (that was ironically an Alaska Air lounge), so yeah it's crowded, but I recall the agent assisting people to find available seating - that never happened in the previous location.
I can see solo travelers and couples would be willing to pay the $15 each to enter Alaska's lounge, but less likely a family.
It starts at $15 but will without doubt go much higher.
It doesn't address people who had access to Alaska previously and thankful to not have the pp crowds. This devalues their membership.
Co-pays are a slippery slope. If we support it, all PP lounges will try it. Since Co-pays could completely eviscerate the credibility and appeal of PP, I'm astounded that PP allows member lounges to charge them.
Co-pays are a slippery slope. If we support it, all PP lounges will try it. Since Co-pays could completely eviscerate the credibility and appeal of PP, I'm astounded that PP allows member lounges to charge them.
Facility wise, it’s a very nice lounge. Much nicer than the Delta Skyclub lounge ant SFO and a step below Delta One. Food wise, super mid. (Better than LAX Alaska lounge but below a regular Delta lounge.)
The nicest thing is the fresh coffee station where they make you custom orders. Not worth $15 IMO.
i was just there in SFO earlier this week as i have the alaska summit card. there’s a sign on the desk that says “no priority pass”. amex portal doesn’t show alaska in lounges yet, just the priority pass app.
Here we go. PP will become very complicated soon. It all started when it depended on which credit card you got the card (Chase or Amex etc) and now we are seeing the next level where some lounges (probably just airport lounges) have no co-pay while others don't have all of their lounges participating and they want to maximize both the usage and revenue so there is a co-pay (probably mostly airline lounges).
Why am I spending $600 on a credit card that gets me "access" to *checks notes* buy entrance to a lounge?
No thanks. With $65 (the $50 per month this costs me plus $15) I could buy a pretty nice meal in the terminal instead.
Copay seems legit: PP pays them a higher amount, probably around $27, and you pay a smaller copay.
I just asked the front desk agents about it. They said it wasn’t as popular as they thought - the OneWorld-only restriction blocks a lot of the JetBlue pax and many are repelled by the $15 charge. It’s 8am Monday and pretty quiet, so I’m happy to say this money-grab doesn’t seem to be working.
And now it’s Tuesday at 5:30pm and it’s pretty peaceful. I come here a lot. Will be here again on Saturday.