Withdrawal of Priority Pass restaurant access via American Express

American Express withdraws access to Priority Pass restaurants

The news literally went around the world yesterday: American Express Hong Kong was the first to fire when it announced these changes. Followed by American Express USA… and finally American Express Canada has confirmed that this will also affect Canadian cardholders.

Technically, this mainly concerns holders of:

• the American Express Platinum Card^®.
• the Business Platinum Card^MD from American Express

… with unlimited access to Priority Pass airport lounges for the cardholder and one guest.

This was a practical advantage to have, especially when dealing with Priority Pass lounges which can be particularly busy.

I use it regularly, especially on connections to Boston at Jerry Remy’s restaurant:

And since last year, many more restaurants have joined Priority Pass:

Are other credit cards offering Priority Pass affected?

For now, only Priority Pass memberships obtained through American Express are affected.

This means that if you have obtained a Priority Pass card through other issuers such as Scotiabank, you are not affected by this measure.

For example, if you have subscribed to the Scotiabank Passport™ Visa Infinite* Card – and registered for Priority Pass via the link provided in your welcome kit – you can continue to enjoy your 6 free annual Priority Pass airport lounge AND restaurant accesses.

Which is a good reminder of the importance of diversifying your credit card portfolio with different issuers! If one takes away your benefits… you can always switch to another to continue enjoying them!

In our couple, we always have between 4 and 6 Priority Pass accounts per year, depending on our credit card subscriptions!

My opinion on the matter

Some will see this as a further withdrawal of benefits, particularly for holders of the American Express Platinum Card^®.

However, I’m one of those people who think there’s something going on between American Express and Priority Pass. It was becoming illogical and uneconomical for American Express to offer unlimited annual access:

• at Priority Pass restaurants
• at Priority Pass bars
• Priority Pass lounges
• in the Centurion lounges

Each time a cardholder accesses one of these Priority Pass lounges/restaurants, American Express pays around US$20-25 to Priority Pass.

And some were taking unfair advantage of the system by making “lounge rounds” at the same airport:

• 2 drinks in a Priority Pass bar
• meal in a Priority Pass restaurant
• relax / work at lounge Priority Pass
• and why not take a nap in a lounge Centurion!

I don’t accuse anyone… since I already did it 😉

Rather than remove the “unlimited annual” character, American Express preferred to cut ties with restaurants. But I think in the future, American Express wants to go further with the lounges.

The purchase of LoungeBuddy by American Express

American Express already has a network of lounges it operates itself: the Centurion lounges.

There are some in the biggest American airports like San Francisco, Miami, New York or Las Vegas.

And even internationally like Hong Kong.

But American Express recently decided to go one step further with lounges. Indeed, in March-April 2019, it acquired the platform
LoungeBuddy
.

LoungeBuddy is a digital platform for discovering different airport lounges and finding out how to get there… but it can also be used to book admission.

This is a very useful application as it allows you to immediately identify, based on your credit card portfolio / Priority Pass / LoungeKey subscriptions…

…which lounge is/are available at the airports visited….

… and which card(s) to use from your portfolio:

As of April 01, 2019, only American Express cardholders can book lounge access at airports doing business with LoungeBuddy, as mentioned in the frequently asked questions related to the acquisition.

Bottom Line

In the short term, the withdrawal of restaurants for holders of Priority Pass subscriptions via American Express is a further loss of benefits. However, I think we need to look at the longer term.

It would not be surprising if, in the future, LoungeBuddy were to become a competitor to Priority Pass / LoungeKey by dealing directly with each lounge… which would allow American Express to detach itself from Priority Pass by directly offering ITS lounge network.

This is all supposition… but the acquisition of LoungeBuddy in April 2019… then the withdrawal from Priority Pass restaurants announced in May 2019 for August 2019 seem to be good indications of how things will turn out!