Yesterday’s discussion on children in lounges spiraled into a territory I was hoping it would not go. Exchanges became nasty and comments incendiary.
So let’s try to reset today with a more even-balanced discussion. Here’s what I want to focus on: should all dependent minors be counted as one guest or each one counted separately? This gets to the crux of the issue. As an aside, hopefully this will be my last post on the issue but I feel our previous discussions have left us without any sort of collegiality.
Indeed, yesterday’s post was a deliberately triumphant rebuke to those who appear to be hostile to children in lounges. I am no stranger to airport lounges, having been in one close to 100 times last year. It is true that I routinely observe poor behavior from adults, not from children. In fact, I did not witness a single incident of loud children last year. On many occasions I witnessed drunkness and poor social etiquette from adults, almost always males between 25-50. Thus, when I witnessed exactly that in my first visit to an American Express lounge since my original article, I could not help but to gloat just a bit.
But I’m just one person reporting my own observations. I hope that those who feel so strongly on the other side base their opinion on actual observations and not just unfounded antipathy toward children. I don’t doubt that children can behave horribly and that there are many poor parents are out there.
The moment my son acts out in a lounge is the moment we leave. My wife and I are in agreement on this point and we will not tolerate his acting out in public. But we will see if we have the resolve to actually follow through on our agreed-upon plan. For every screaming toddler or rambunctious child, I do have to wonder how many parents avert this by taking their child out. I have to imagine there are many.
Augustine acted up in a restaurant while we were in Germany. Rather than let him cry and disturb others, we took him out to the car, turned on two-way FaceTime, and returned to enjoy our meal.
Should All Guests Be Considered Equal?
Now we come to the point of the post: should all guests be considered equal?
One side reasonably argues that yes, American Express’ limit of two guests per cardholder should be blindly applied. This will reduce crowding and preserve the integrity of lounges by not turning them into family reunions.
The other side argues that children are different than colleagues, friends or even other relatives. Most pointedly, because young children cannot be left outside. Thus, lounge access becomes a Hobson’s Choice. One option is to pay an exorbitant fee for junior to have a glass of orange juice and some bread. The other is for the entire family to miss out on the lounge benefits you pay $550/year for. One cannot realistically stay outside while the others enjoy the lounge.
Reader Greg pointed out that American, Delta, and United all allow in immediate family members or up to two guests. This is a logical policy, to me. By not separating families, lounges think on a long-term loyalty basis rather than a transactional basis. Keeping families together encourages loyalty and acclimates children to the benefits of lounges from an early age, building future customers.
But is it fair when a family of nine pays the same for membership as a solo business traveler? In the case of single transaction, I understand those who say no. But think about how logistically difficult it is for large families to travel together. Realistically, it does not happen more than few times per year. We are not talking about a family of road warriors hogging lounge space on a weekly basis. It may be that lounge membership is justified just for a few special occasions per year.
Limit Uses Per Year?
Imagine if American Express structured its lounge access policy differently. What if instead of allowing in the member plus two guests, it provided each member 25 lounge passes per year. Would this be more amenable to those who believe they are being cheated by large families?
A road warrior could visit up to 25 times for “free” or a family of five up to five times.
That would not work out to my advantage because I already visit the lounge more than 25 times per year, almost always alone. If my family does grow from three to four, I cannot imagine us visiting a lounge together more than four times per year.
CONCLUSION
American Express’s new guest rules (up to two guests, regardless of familial relation) is fair in the sense that it can be evenly and non-discriminately applied. But the disparate impact of this policy will fall on the back of families who logically cannot justify $50/child for lounge access even if they can afford it. For all the arguments that this is fair, it still strikes me as quite unfair to those couples traveling with two or more children.
Let’s hope we can talk about this today without resorting to name-calling. Is there anything left to talk about it or are there simply two camps that will never see eye-to-eye on this?
Reader Greg is kind enough to point out 4 other lounge programs that people can turn to if they don’t like Amex’s policy. I don’t know of any airline lounge program that offers membership (through a card or purchasing it) for the net $150-$350/year annual fee (after airline reimbursements and/or Uber that the Amex has) to use their lounges (that are arguably much more mediocre than Amex’s), so there is that.
I highly doubt Amex would go to a limited pass program in the future; that doesn’t work well with premium cards. The actual target market of the AmEx Plat don’t care about the financial value of the benefits, just that the benefits are there and require minimal thinking when needed. Their target high-spender, high-income client doesn’t want to count out how many passes they’ve used this year, they would rather just know that they can bring in X number of guests. Note that I would likely benefit from limited passes as I’ve had more than 2 guests travel with me on several occasions but I would have never hit the number of passes given to Amex lounges.
I bet they will see a reduction in number of lounge users over the next year as the number of Platinums fall off from last year’s multiple 100k/75k promos.
“Is there anything left to talk about it or are there simply two camps that will never see eye-to-eye on this?”
Unfortunately, this is true – as I said in your last post, children in lounges/premium cabins has become a third rail, and any discussion will degenerate into unpleasantries quickly. You’re tilting at windmills, my friend, though I give you credit for trying…
Anyway, I think the idea of a fixed number of passes would work, though I’d suggest a fixed number of “guest passes”. Say, 15. The actual cardholder paying the annual fee can use the lounge as much as he or she wants. I come from a family of 6, though even when we all lived at home, we traveled MAYBE once or twice a year together, so it’s not like we’d all have use for the lounge very much anyway. This strikes me as a compromise that wouldn’t penalize business travelers who need the lounge frequently, or want to treat the family to a vacation once in a while, but will stamp out the abuse with cardholders inviting 12 business acquaintances, nieces, nephews, 3rd cousins twice removed, etc.
For good measure, add in a zero tolerance policy for bad behavior, which applies both to drunk/disorderly adults and parents who fail to control disruptive children. You get one warning, then get booted, and if you get the boot a second time, your lounge privileges are revoked for a year.
Perhaps you weren’t hanging out at the “right” lounges, OP. Just because you haven’t experienced it in your last “100 lounges visits” doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Just last week, if you happened to have been at the HNL Hawaiian lounge, you would’ve witnesses 2 kinders running amok early in the morning. They were mine. I was mindful, but FML there’s no way to tell 5YOs to netflix and chill when they spot bottomless OJ and fruit snacks that early in the morning. Then I started drinking, so my section was filled with both annoying kids and drunken adult.
In other instances, they were perfectly behaved at other lounges, across multiple continents.
My DP, just like your quiet, very young baby (and anecdotes), is literally meaningless when it comes to discussions on card ROI and premium card privileges. It is what it is when it comes to actual babies and adult acting like babies. Also, you might want to kill this thread, just in case you become a dad to a rowdy 3YO. Cause, you know, karma.
Well Said!
It’s a tough call. If Amex is seeking to avoid people gaming the system, a family of 8 is an awful lot of people, while a family of 4 is about the norm. One option might be to allow up to 2 adult guests, with the possibility to trade out 2-3 children per adult spot if less than the 2 adult guests.
“we took him out to the car, turned on two-way FaceTime, and returned to our enjoy our meal.”
Hmm, what?
Haha, that was exactly my reaction. What?
Lol. New business idea…..carry on with a Facetime enabled tablet built in so if your little tike cries before your CX first class flight…you can just gate check em! 🙂
Yes on FIXED NUMBER of passes!
If I can’t use it when I need it, like during a long layover with my whole family along, the value of the benefit is ZERO for me. There’s only a few times a year I need it, but when I do, it’s SO weleome. Especially with the higher fee, I’ll probably cancel unless they do something.
Give this a rest, you aren’t in charge of the policy.
Or rather than a fixed number of passes for the primary, have a set number of passes for guests. Cardholder gets unlimited access, while also gets a set number of guest passes to admit those traveling with the cardmember. It accomplishes two things, first the overcrowding since if the cardmember is traveling with others they will have to ration guesting and may decide to skip it that time along with their guests. Second, it allows for the cardmember to bring in his or her 6 kids (hypothetical) for the annual big family vacation when they need/want access most. That way there is not this disproportionate use by large families with a bunch of kids using the lounges for every trip ‘just because they can.’
FWIW, I’m with the ‘kids don’t belong in lounges’ camp but there is room to compromise.
I think the issue of guest passes is it could actually increase traffic. Let’s say every member gets 20 guest passes, can you image the number of times a guy like me, who is single, goes to Vegas for a bachelor party and then on the flight home guests all 15 guys in the party into the lounge? Or how about the work conference in Dallas were I guest in all 10 of my co-workers who are traveling with me. While the family of 8 only flys twice a year….there’s a new family of 8 every day.
It would be different if the Centurion lounges had membership fees of $500 or more per year to access them. They could cover the expenses of immediate families better. But only a percentage of the card’s AF goes towards lounge expenses. 2 guest per card is a fair policy that treats every cardholder equally. I do feel bad for the family of four, but honestly, t=for teh quality of food and drink provided…i still see value in paying.
Good luck trying to keep things civil – it seems there is nothing that gets the traveling populace more riled up than talking about kids and travel 🙂
I have a fairly rare perspective as the father of 6. I agree with what you said about the pros and cons about the road warrior lounge usage vs. the more occasional usage by a large family.
In the past 2-3 years that I have had access to Amex Centurion Lounge, our entire family of 8 has used a Centurion lounge once. This was in SEA, and given the relatively small footprint of that lounge, the attendant’s jaw definitely dropped when I told her we had 8 people coming in :-). We would have used it a 2nd time in SFO this past weekend, but we missed the change in guest policy by 1 week to the bad.
I totally agree that all lounge misbehavior that I personally have seen has come from the demographic you mentioned (males 25-50)
Besides the fact that children can’t be simply “left outside” a lounge like an adult could, there is one other thing I’d add. Many lounges actually have a specific area set aside for kids! When we were briefly in the AS Board room @ LAX last week, our family just spent the time in there and the kids ate their food, read the books in there and watched the movie showing on the screen.
The fact that additional children are charged the same $50 fee as an adult I find puzzling. Let’s face it – most adults use the lounge for the free booze and the $50 fee helps to offset that cost. But a child? Even a baby (who’s not going to use any of the amenities)? Still $50? Just doesn’t make sense to me, other than Amex being greedy.
On the same point, I have a friend who doesn’t drink alcohol and has the tiniest appetite I’ve ever seen. If she was my 3rd guest she would probably consume less than most 10 year olds. For every situation we can probably show a reason why that 3rd guest doesn’t justify a $50 fee. That is why the blanket policy of 2 guests total is the fairest and easiest to manage.
“One option is to pay an exorbitant fee for junior to have a glass of orange juice and some bread. The other is for the entire family to miss out on the lounge benefits you pay $550/year for. One cannot realistically stay outside while the others enjoy the lounge.”
You pointedly ignore the third choice: Don’t pay the $550 fee if it doesn’t meet your family’s needs. Millions of parents manage to travel with their kids every year without ever setting foot in a Centurion Lounge.