For domestic travel, we’re beyond the point where we plan our trips around airport lounges. While visiting a lounge is nice, I’m not going to book a specific airline or fly out of a certain airport just so we can visit a lounge. If we fly through Minneapolis on Delta, I’ll stop at the new SkyClub (actually, we did), but that’s not the reason for the trip.
I no longer spend time researching lounge options. Instead, I’ll bring our AMEX Platinum Cards for access to the Centurion Lounges and Delta SkyClubs. I’ll also bring a Priority Pass card for access to other lounges and the Capital One Venture X card, as that’s usually in my wallet anyway.
But I realized that I made a mistake on a trip to New York when we were flying home through JFK Terminal 4. This was my first chance to visit the recently opened Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club.
JFK Sapphire Lounge
Unlike branded lounges from American Express or Capital One, Chase uses The Club to run their newly opened lounge network. In addition, there’s a quirk about entering the Sapphire Lounges where you need to show the Priority Pass card that’s linked to your Chase card for entrance.
On this trip, I wasn’t thinking about visiting the Sapphire Lounge, but since we had the opportunity, I wanted to check it out. There was just one problem: the Priority Pass card I had with us wasn’t linked to my Sapphire Reserve. The only other way we’d have access was with the Priority Pass from Sharon’s Ritz Carlton card, but since she already has two other Priority Pass cards, including the one from the Citi Prestige, which provides the best benefits of any Priority Pass Select, we hadn’t bothered to ask for a card for that account.
Mobile Passes To The Rescue!
At some point, I added Sharon’s and my Priority Pass cards to my Apple Wallet. One unique perk of having the Sapphire Lounges run by The Club is that any Priority Pass Select member gets one entry per year. My first hope was that I had added the Priority Pass from my Sapphire Reserve to my wallet.
We walked into the club, and I explained that I wasn’t sure if the Priority Pass card was the one linked to my Chase card. The front desk associate was understanding, so we tried my mobile card first. Upon scanning, she said it was not the account linked to my Sapphire card, but I could use the one entry on that account to enter the lounge.
After processing my card, we then scanned Sharon’s mobile card, which was probably from her Citi Prestige. The rep again asked if we wanted to use the one entry on her card to enter the club.
While I’ve used the single entry from our cards to enter the lounge, I’m not worried. In the future, I’ll make sure to bring the card linked to my Sapphire Reserve or the one linked to the Ritz Carlton card with us when traveling.
Final Thought
Even if I hadn’t been able to get us into the Sapphire Lounge, not all would have been lost. We could have easily entered the American Express Centurion Lounge, which is right next door. Or we could have visited one of the Delta SkyClubs located in Terminal 4.
Until now, I wasn’t worried about which Priority Pass card to bring to the airport, as I usually brought the one from our Citi card. This is one of our only Priority Pass Select cards that still includes the restaurant credit. But now, I also have to consider that I’ll need a card linked to our Chase accounts when traveling through an airport with a Sapphire Lounge.
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3 comments
If you download the Priority Pass mobile card from within the Chase app (instead of from within the PP app) you get a blue Priority Pass app with the Chase logo that says Sapphire Priority Pass. Makes it a breeze to differentiate it. At least that’s how it works with the iOS version.
This must be a recent change (sounds great!). I downloaded mine in April and it’s still black.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to just add all of your Priority Pass cards to your Apple/Google Wallet instead of bringing the physical cards (which you should absolutely label as well)?
Step 1: Log in to the PP app and add each card to your Mobile Wallet. Log out and repeat with each PP account.
Step 2: Remember/record each number so you know which PP card belongs to which CC. (Ex: ending in 1234 is for CC 1, ending in 5678 is for CC 2, etc.)
Step 3: Show the relevant card at the Sapphire Lounges.
I forgot who wrote this tip, but it’s good to create unique PP usernames so that you know which PP account is for which CC. For example, “usernamesapphire” for the Sapphire Reserve, “usernameamexplat” for the Amex Platinum, “usernameventurex” for the Venture X, etc.