Chase Adds Free Reservations To Its Phoenix Sapphire Lounge—The Most Overcrowded In The Network
Chase’s Phoenix airport lounge will begin taking reservations starting June 23. This is their smallest club at 3,500 square feet and regularly has 30 – 60 minute waits to get in, even with many cardmembers not bothering to try given the crowding and the wait.
Sapphire Reserve cardmembers flying out of Phoenix will soon be able to reserve their visit to the Sapphire Lounge by The Club at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Terminal 4. Reservations will be complimentary and open on June 23, 2025, for eligible Chase customers with up to two free guests and additional guests for the regular fee of $27. Children under two are not included in your party size. Reservations may be required and can be made on the Chase Mobile® app between 14 days and 24 hours prior to your visit. Reservations can be for up to three hours prior to scheduled flight departure.
Currently Sapphire lounges offer digital queues, where you can join the wait list and get a text when it’s your turn to enter. But Chase and Airport Dimensions haven’t implemented a system where you can join the wait list via app any time in advance (and then have 15 minutes to enter the lounge once it’s your turn) like Capital One did and American Express copied.
Here Chase is copying the approach Capital One has taken with its chef-driven in-airport complimentary restaurant, Capital One Landing, which first opened at DC’s National airport in November and comes next to New York LaGuardia (although they allow a much longer reservations window in the app).
It will be interesting to see whether reservations – which should be great for those who have them – will make the lines even longer for those who don’t, and whether reservations spread to other lounges. Locations of The Club sell reservations and guests pay $9 to guarantee themselves a spot.
These reservations will be free, and there’s not a penalty for missing one, so you should presumably make one if you know you’ll potentially need one. Of course you’ll need to guess the time in advance that you will want to enter.
Credit card issuer lounges have struggled with capacity for several reasons.
- Customers use them more than they used to. Premium leisure has grown in importance relative to business travel and these customers show up at the airport earlier, and banks have marketed to them.
- It’s difficult to get sufficient spaces inside airports. While airports learned they could lease less desirable space for use as club lounges (since travelers would walk farther to them, while they need to be walking past retail spots anyway to make those stores useful), new airport terminals are being designed with club spaces in mind.
- Better lounges attract customers. Passengers will arrive earlier (and eat more!) than you expect, even factoring that you know they will arrive earlier and eat more, when the lounge is nice and the food and beverage program better than what airlines traditionally offered in their lounges.
U.S. airlines have upped their gave gradually in their own lounges, in large measure spurred on by bank lounges. American Express Centurion lounges changed the game a dozen years ago, though those have largely been in decline with seeming cutbacks to food budgets somehow not offset by fewer passengers. They also need a design refresh. Chase has done a remarkable job growing their lounge network, though Phoenix has been the least pleasant one. Meanwhile Capital One’s food program is probably best of the three, but they’ve grown their footprint more slowly.
(HT: Ryan Smith)
