One of the better American Express Platinum benefits is that cardholders have access to Centurion Lounges in select airports worldwide. While Centurion Lounges are not in EVERY airport, the network is consistently expanding. Over the past few months, we’ve seen announcements that Centurion Lounges are coming to Denver, Los Angeles and New York JFK.
(SEE ALSO: American Express Centurion lounge Las Vegas review)
The Centurion Lounges are by far the nicest domestic lounges that I’ve ever been to.
American Express changing lounge access policy?
I first saw this on Miles to Memories (though he credited the Amex Platinum Aficionados Facebook group, of which I am not a member), recently at the SEA Centurion lounge the following rules were posted on the door
- Access is limited to 2 hours prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight
- Inbound boarding passes are not accepted for entry
It’s not clear to me if this will become the new standard, though there are reports on Twitter that the Miami lounge has also implemented some or all of these rules
Wait, wait… I thought kids were the problem?
A few months ago, American Express changed the guesting policy for Platinum card holders. Previously you could bring in 2 guests OR your immediate family, but back in March 2017 they removed the ability to bring in your immediate family
As a father of a big family, this change hit us particularly hard, but even families with “only” 2 kids are priced out of the Centurion Lounge.
I think he was joking (?) but Richard Kerr over at Award Travel 101 offered 5000 Hyatt points for the first person to send him a video of kids running around a Centurion Lounge disrupting everyone. The point being that typically it is NOT families and children that are causing overcrowding
But why do they have kids’ rooms in the lounge then?
I get it – there is certainly an overcrowding problem at Centurion lounges. But I said then and I continue to say that it is not families and kids that are causing it.
So there’s a reduction in the annual fee then, right?
Hahahahahahaha of course not! I mean of course you’d EXPECT that if you signed up for a card with given benefits in exchange for paying an annual fee, then if your benefits were reduced you’d see a reduction in the annual fee. But of course that is not the case.
Over on The Points Guy, there is a quote from an Amex VP of Corporate Affairs stating “There is no new rule or policy that restricts time within the lounge. Occasionally, we have to limit access and waitlist people when we hit capacity, but there are no changes to our terms and conditions. In Seattle, we reached capacity over the holiday weekend, and in Miami, we also reached capacity due to the tropical storm”. I assume that’s how they are getting around the changing benefits without changing the annual fee laws.
I haven’t heard of anyone getting any reduction in annual fee or additional bonus Membership Rewards because of this change, but feel free to try 🙂
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Every single time without fail I come across a ridiculous sounding title on your blog…. I know exactly who the author is… every time. It’s Dan.
The last time you were outraged you couldn’t bring more than 4 people into a lounge, you came across entitled and arrogant. Now… well, the same.
Also you don’t really know what you’re writing about most of the time, do you?
Such great posts as I would surely take bags off during an emergency evacuation, that kind of rubbish. Ok that was a while ago but cmon dude you have no real idea about world travel do you?. Stay/ move back to Utah and carry on supporting Trump as the ‘murican you are?
the guy’s a loser. zero original content. I dont care whether he supports the donald or not, but this blog needs to get shut down. its crap
Two hours… I wouldn’t think that many people are in there much before 2 hours before their flight. Maybe that will reduce the lounge by 1 person… Great solution. This is more of an inconvenience then anything else.
Probably depends on whether it’s an originating flight or a connection. The other thing to remember is that it’s 2 hours till your flight is SCHEDULED to depart, meaning that you have to account for the time it takes you to get to your gate, how early you want to be at the boarding area, etc.