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Priority Pass is an unbelievable money-saver when it comes to airport food and drink.
Thomas Pallini/Insider
The Platinum Card® from American Express comes with an otherwise (very) expensive membership to Priority Pass** airport lounges.
You can visit over 1,300 lounges worldwide as often as you want — and even bring two guests for free.
I deliberately refrain from using this super valuable benefit for one simple reason.
You probably know that it's possible to achieve many thousands of dollars from the benefits of The Platinum Card® from American Express each year. It's hard to believe the amount of perks Amex has managed to jam into a millimeter-thin slab of stainless steel.
Quite a few of these goodies are incredibly niche and far from useful to the average cardholder. Even still, it's relatively easy to extract $1,200 in value from the card with a small bit of strategy.
One of the card's best benefits — worth well over $400 per year to even the occasional traveler — is its Priority Pass airport lounge benefit. This gives you the magic admission ticket to 1,300+ lounges worldwide. You can enter as often as you want, and you'll (usually) have access to unlimited free alcohol and food, free Wi-Fi, comfy chairs, and sometimes even showers.
To use this benefit, you must enroll your card in Priority Pass. But get this: I immediately feed the Priority Pass membership card through the paper shredder when I receive it. Here's why.
Why I throw my Amex Platinum Priority Pass membership away
The absolute best Priority Pass lounge membership money can buy costs $429 per year. For that price tag, you'll get:
Unlimited free visits
Visitors cost $32 each per visit
The Priority Pass membership that comes with the The Platinum Card® from American Express gives you:
Unlimited free visits
Up to two guests for free per visit
In other words, the The Platinum Card® from American Express's version of Priority Pass can be worth significantly more than the highest-tier option available to paying Priority Pass customers. If you regularly travel with a partner and child, the The Platinum Card® from American Express is effectively worth $64 per lounge visit.
It really is a great membership. The reason I throw it in the trash bin is that I have other credit cards that offer evenbetter Priority Pass benefits.
Different credit cards offer varying Priority Pass benefits
Quite a few credit cards offer Priority Pass lounge membership. But the exact terms of your membership differ depending on which card you have. For example:
The Chase Sapphire Reserve® and Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card offer unlimited visits and two free guests. You'll also get access to Priority Pass-participating restaurants, which can mean up to $30 per person in free food and drinks (capped at one guest).
The The Platinum Card® from American Express** and Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant™ American Express® Card** come with unlimited access for primary cardholders and two free guests. You will not have access to Priority Pass-participating restaurants.
The Ritz-Carlton Rewards Credit Card (not available to new applicants) offers unlimited visits and does not specify a limit to the number of guests you can bring into the lounge with you. You'll also get Priority Pass-participating restaurant privileges.
The Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card** and The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card** both provide 10 free visits per year (then $32 per visit) and no access to participating Priority Pass restaurants.
I currently hold five credit cards that come with some form of Priority Pass lounge access. With each membership, I receive a unique Priority Pass membership card. These cards do not specify the credit card from which I received them — so I adopted the habit of simply writing "Amex Platinum" or "Bonvoy Brilliant" on the back to help myself remember.
I now just throw all but my favorite membership away — the one issued by my Ritz-Carlton credit card. There's no reason to have more than one Priority Pass membership card. For example, if I accidentally grab a membership card other than the one associated with my Ritz-Carlton Card, a few things could happen:
My Priority Pass card could be rejected when I traipse into a Priority Pass-participating restaurant (if I picked up an Amex-issued membership card).
The check-in desk will charge me when traveling with more than two friends.
The lounge will turn me away because I hadn't even enrolled that particular card.
Better to shred all the ones I don't use and not even worry about something going wrong.
If you've got multiple Priority Pass lounge memberships, I recommend disposing of all but your favorite one. It can eliminate confusion and even embarrassment at the airport.
The The Platinum Card® from American Express doesn't offer the absolute best Priority Pass benefits. Other cards like the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card and Chase Sapphire Reserve® are slightly better. But the The Platinum Card® from American Express is still extremely useful for accessing airport lounges that other cards cannot, such as:
You can access these lounges by simply showing your The Platinum Card® from American Express at the door — freeing you up to dispose of your Priority Pass card.
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