Le Chic Geek
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An app is out there that will keep track of exactly what lounges you can get into at different airports.
When you are the member of lots of airline programs, hold different memberships, and carry different credit cards, it becomes difficult to remember the rules for each card and what you can get into.
When I flew Business Class to Frankfurt, my 5am brain remembered I could get into the Senator’s Lounge, but I had to spread all my membership cards out to remember how.
Here’s a guide to how to find out if you can get into a Star Alliance Lounge. But how do I keep all my eligible lounge entries straight?!
I’ve started using LoungeBuddy and love it. Right now it is only available in the iTunes/Apple market, but they are releasing a Droid version soon.
LoungeBuddy allows you to keep all your memberships in the app, input your flight and class of service, and spits out what lounges you are allowed to access (and at what price).
It keeps track of these and uses them when you input your next flight.
Then you click on the specific airport to find out what exists there.
There are three listings–Accessible, Free, and All. Free are the lounges you can currently get into free given what you put into your settings and/or because of the flight you are taking.
Accessible are all the lounges you can get into, whether free or paying. There are some lounges you cannot get into, no matter how much you want to pay. For example, if there’s a USO lounge there, I cannot get in, but it will probably come up as Accessible for the Military Frequent Flyer.
Once you click on a lounge, it gives you a list of amenities so you can choose where you want to go and lets you know what terminal it is in. Here’s the United Lounge vs. the Centurion Lounge.
Premium food and spa services? Okay, the Centurion Club wins!
It also helps you find what amenities are in what airports. In the Denver Airport, Keri and I were trying to find out if any lounges had showers to recover from our redeye. We finally came up short. If we had LoungeBuddy back then, we could have just searched the Denver International Airport and found out the truth:
Since the app is on the newer side, it has all the major airports, but is lacking in some smaller ones.
For example, when I search this:
I get a notification that they need to research Cancun still. BUT the notification asked me if I’d like to help them out with Cancun. Which I find very proactive and cool. The geek in me would love to help out, and I like that the app asks that rather than just tell you “Sorry, no dice!”
I think this app can help a lot of people out. When I wrote about the Lufthansa Lounge, a reader didn’t know that you could get into the Business Lounge without any status if you were flying International Business. This takes the research out of everything. When you think you can’t get in anywhere, I’d load it up anyway just to see.
I didn’t know I could get into BWI’s Airspace Lounge with my credit card. When I told some friends I was in the Airspace lounge, their reactions were–wait, my AmEx Platinum can get me in there?!
I think the number one reason to get this app is to have something keeping your membership rules straight for you. But in a close second, a great benefit is even after you do the math yourself, this app may surprise you with a lounge you never knew you could get into.
I like the app too! I discovered it when it was featured in the app store. Great interface and I like how they’re open to suggestions. I sent them a note through the app about some lounges that were missing from my results and one of the founders wrote back to me saying I was right and it would be corrected.
The Android version of this app is not yet available, but according to their website should be out soon!