No More Waiting In Line? Digital Waitlists Are Finally Here for Amex Centurion Lounges – View from the Wing

It was 2018 when I wrote that Centurion lounges are so busy, nobody goes there anymore. I rarely stop in, even when I have the time. They’re too busy. The food isn’t as good as it used to be. And other lounges have improved.

Las Vegas Centurion Lounge Dining

This is what things looked like at 1:45 p.m. on a Monday in Las Vegas:

Credit: TravelZork

They’ve limited guest access and how much time you can spend in a Centurion lounge, but that hasn’t solved the crowding as they sign up more and more cardmembers with the promise of access. But now they’re doing something that could at least make the waits easier.

At the beginning of the year, Capital One started letting customers join the queue for their lounges through their mobile app.

• That made it possible to get in line earlier (before you reach the lounge)
• And you don’t have to physically be there standing in line.
• You get notified when it’s your turn to enter, and have 15 minutes to do so.

Now American Express has added a similar feature, based on cardmember reports. However it isn’t yet available at all of their lounges.

Was surprised when I checked the app that I could get added to a waitlist to enter the [DFW airport] lounge. Honestly kind of liked it since I refuse to stand in line outside the lounge but not against getting on a queue and walking over when its my turn. Asked the front desk and it seems they are rolling this out to all other lounges by Thanksgiving?

They’ve been testing this for some time but it appears there’s a broader roll out.

Charlotte Centurion Lounge Bar

The whole point of an airport lounge is not to wait in the terminal. There’s nothing luxury about queueing. I have a Platinum card. It pays for itself with credits against spending I would do anyway. And sometimes it’s useful for lounge access I wouldn’t have otherwise.

However, Delta for years has promoted the idea that ‘when everyone’s elite, nobody is.’ When there are so many cardmembers traveling through airports that there are lines to get into their lounges, the lounges cannot in any way be considered ‘elite’.

When American Express first opened Centurion lounges, the food was fantastic and lounges weren’t overrun. Not everyone had discovered them yet. There weren’t as many cardmembers. Those managing the budgets hadn’t quite anticipated that when you open a nice lounge, more people will show up, stay longer, and eat more. They were producing food at a smaller scale and with what seemed like a bigger budget per head.

Centurion Lounge Hong Kong Dining

Back then there were no limits on how far in advance you could arrive at a Centurion lounge, and no lines to get in. I’d love to see cardmembers offered a couple of ‘skip line line’ priorities per year, though, but digital queueing is at least a start.

Credit card premium lounges are a victim of their own success, attracting more customers (which detracts from the experience) and driving up costs (which lead to cutbacks in the experience). And a decade on even the design feels dated.