After a recent trip, I am more convinced than ever that the necessity of airport lounge access, especially domestically, is a fallacy.

I have been an airport lounge user for years; For a time I was flying weekly to New York and would utilize the lounge on my return to get a bit more work done, maybe have a glass of wine with coworkers, and charge my different devices. Then around 2018 I noticed it becoming busier and busier in the lounges I frequented and some of this could be attributed to credit cards giving access to different lounges. The airlines had figured out a formula to get more people to sign up for their credit cards and different bloggers, travel content producers, and others were pushing those cards. New lounges even opened specifically for credit card customers (AMEX Centurion, Chase Sapphire Reserve lounges, and CapitalOne lounges).

Then Covid hit and lounge numbers fell along with the overall travel numbers. But that is definitely no longer the case. On my last trip, the United Club at PDX, which is usually fairly quiet, was completely full, not a seat to be found. Delta implemented rules to limit access to their lounges and other airlines have followed suit. They are responding to a problem that they created, giving more people access to the lounge via credit card products.

For me, it has become an airport feature that isn’t really worth it anymore. The lounges are too loud to get work done, there is food but it isn’t always the highest quality, and the overcrowding has made it difficult to find a seat or even get in. The lounges have become less of a place of quiet or somewhere to get work done and more of a bar/socializing area.

A lot of business class tickets come with lounge access and I still find value in that access because some of the lounges have dedicated restaurants, so I can grab a meal and skip it on the plane, and they have shower facilities so on arrival or connection I can take a shower. There is definitely some value in those items, I just struggle with the cost/benefit proposition domestically. In most airports I can get something to eat or drink and find a quiet gate for less than the per visit cost to the lounge and I would bet the same is true for most people.

What do you think, are U.S. domestic lounges still worth the cost?