Why Airport Lounge Access Is Worth It: A Real Traveller’s Guide for 2026
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There is a moment that every frequent traveller knows — the moment you clear security at a busy international airport, face the crowded departures hall, and calculate how many hours stand between you and your gate. The overpriced food court. The packed seating areas. The particular exhaustion of an early morning departure or a late night connection, with nowhere quiet to sit and nothing affordable to eat.
And then there is the other version of that moment — when you turn left instead of following the crowds, push open a quieter door, and step into a lounge.
We used Priority Pass and credit card lounge access throughout our 100-day Asia trip — at airports across Hong Kong, Seoul, Beijing, and beyond — and it transformed the experience of travel days in ways that are genuinely difficult to quantify but easy to feel. The money saved on food and drinks alone was significant. The mental difference between waiting in a crowded gate area and waiting in a calm, well-fed, WiFi-connected lounge was larger still.
This is our honest guide to lounge access — what it is, how we accessed it, which lounges impressed us most, and exactly how Canadians can get it without paying full price.
What Is Airport Lounge Access and Why Does It Matter?
Airport lounges are dedicated spaces — operated by airlines, credit card companies, or independent lounge networks — that provide a dramatically better waiting environment than the public departures area. The standard offering includes complimentary food and non-alcoholic drinks, alcohol in most cases, comfortable seating, high-speed WiFi, charging stations, bathrooms (often with showers), and the general atmosphere of a space that has been designed for comfort rather than maximum passenger throughput.
The catch, traditionally, has been access. Lounges were the preserve of business and first class passengers and elite frequent flyers — people who either paid significantly for their tickets or flew enough to earn the status that opened the door. For economy travellers on regular incomes, lounges were architecturally present but practically inaccessible.
That has changed — and credit cards are the reason.
The expansion of credit card lounge access programs, particularly Priority Pass, has democratised lounges in a way that anyone building a thoughtful travel credit card strategy can leverage. Flying economy, no elite status, budget-conscious — and still walking into a lounge at Hong Kong International. This is the reality of travel hacking done well, and lounge access is one of its most tangible and immediately enjoyable benefits.
How We Accessed Lounges: Priority Pass and Credit Card Programs
Priority Pass
Priority Pass is the world’s largest independent airport lounge network — covering over 1,300 lounges in airports across more than 140 countries. It operates independently of any single airline, which means your Priority Pass membership works at partner lounges regardless of which airline you’re flying that day.
Priority Pass membership is available through several Canadian credit cards — most notably the American Express Platinum, which includes complimentary Priority Pass membership with unlimited visits for the primary cardholder and guests. This is one of the Amex Platinum’s most compelling benefits for frequent travellers and a significant part of the value calculation that makes its premium annual fee justifiable.
The practical experience of Priority Pass: you present your card or app at the lounge reception, access is confirmed in seconds, and you walk in. No class of service check, no airline status verification — just lounge access, available because of a credit card benefit you’ve already paid for through your annual fee.
Credit Card Specific Lounge Access
Beyond Priority Pass, specific credit cards provide access to specific lounge networks — Amex Centurion Lounges (for Amex Platinum holders), Visa Infinite lounges, and various bank-affiliated lounge programs at specific airports. Coverage varies by card and airport, and the Priority Pass network is generally more comprehensive for international travel, but credit card specific access adds useful redundancy at major hubs.
The Lounges That Impressed Us Most
Hong Kong International Airport — Exceptional Standard Throughout
Hong Kong International is one of the world’s great airports and its lounge ecosystem reflects that. We accessed Priority Pass partner lounges at HKIA during our time in the city and found the standard consistently excellent — good food, strong drink selection, comfortable seating, and the efficient, high-quality service that Hong Kong’s hospitality culture delivers across every context.
The Chase Lounge — A Special Mention
One lounge at Hong Kong International deserves specific acknowledgment: the Chase Lounge, which we visited during our stay and found outstanding. Beautifully designed, excellent food quality, and a level of finish that distinguished it from the standard Priority Pass lounge experience.
We mention it here with an honest caveat: the Chase Lounge at Hong Kong International has since closed. We include it not as a current recommendation but as a reflection of how dramatically lounge quality can vary even within the same airport — and as a reminder that lounge availability is not static. Programs change, lounges close, new ones open. Always check current availability before arrival.
Seoul Incheon International Airport — World-Class Facilities
Incheon is consistently ranked among the world’s best airports and the lounge facilities reflect its overall excellence. The Priority Pass partner lounges we accessed at Incheon were among the strongest of the entire trip — generous food spreads, excellent facilities, and the specific atmosphere of a lounge that is well managed and properly maintained.
Seoul Incheon is a major hub for transpacific connections and the quality of its lounges makes layovers and early departures genuinely pleasant rather than merely tolerable. If you have lounge access and you’re transiting through Incheon, use it without hesitation — it is one of the best lounge experiences available in Northeast Asia through the Priority Pass network.
Beijing Capital International Airport
The Priority Pass lounge access we used at Beijing Capital International was solid and functional — good food options that leaned appropriately into Chinese breakfast and snack culture, comfortable enough seating, and a meaningful upgrade over the public departures area at a busy Chinese hub airport.
Beijing Capital can be an intense airport experience — large, busy, and at peak times genuinely overwhelming in the public areas. Having a lounge to retreat to before our flights made the departure experience significantly more manageable, which is perhaps the quietest and most consistent value that lounge access delivers: the simple reduction of travel-day stress.
The Real Value of Lounge Access: Breaking It Down
1. The Money Saved on Food and Drinks Is Substantial
This is the most calculable benefit and it is larger than most people assume before they start tracking it.
Airport food and drinks are priced at a significant premium over street prices — a meal at an airport restaurant in Hong Kong, Seoul, or Beijing easily runs $25–$45 CAD per person once food, a drink, and service are accounted for. A beer or glass of wine at an airport bar is $12–$18 CAD. Coffee is $7–$10 CAD.
In a lounge, all of this is included.
On a 100-day trip involving dozens of flights and airport visits, the cumulative saving on food and drinks across lounge visits is genuinely significant — easily $500–$1,000 CAD or more for two people over an extended trip. Against an Amex Platinum annual fee that includes Priority Pass, the food and drink saving alone begins to make a compelling financial case.
The practical approach we took: eat a proper meal in the lounge before every flight rather than paying airport restaurant prices. Have drinks before the flight rather than paying for them onboard or at the gate. Use the lounge for every departure where access was available — because the marginal cost of an additional lounge visit on an unlimited Priority Pass membership is zero.
2. The Quiet Space to Decompress Is Invaluable on Long Trips
This benefit is harder to quantify but arguably more valuable than the food saving on an extended trip.
100 days of constant travel is physically and mentally demanding in ways that accumulate gradually. The crowds, the noise, the stimulation of constantly new environments, the logistics of airports and connections — it compounds. By the time we reached Beijing and Seoul in the final weeks of the trip, the ability to sit somewhere quiet before a flight — to eat well, to sit in a comfortable chair, to not be surrounded by crowds — was restorative in a way that genuinely affected how we arrived at each destination.
Airport lounges are quiet in a specific, valuable way. Not silent — but calm, controlled, and populated by people who are also looking for a respite rather than adding to the ambient noise of a terminal. For anyone travelling extensively, this quality of environment before flights is worth paying for. Getting it through a credit card benefit makes it all the better.
3. Early Morning and Late Night Flights Become Bearable
Travel schedules optimised for points availability and flight connections rather than personal comfort produce a disproportionate number of very early morning departures and late night arrivals. We had more 6am flights and midnight connections on our 100-day trip than we would have chosen purely on comfort grounds.
Lounge access transforms both of these experiences.
A 6am departure becomes manageable when the lounge opens at 5am and serves hot breakfast. You arrive tired, eat well, drink coffee in a calm environment, and board the flight in significantly better condition than you would have arrived at the gate directly from a taxi. A late night connection becomes bearable when there is somewhere to sit comfortably, eat something proper, and decompress between flights rather than competing for gate seating at midnight.
The specific airports where this mattered most on our trip: Beijing Capital for early morning departures, Hong Kong International for late connections. In both cases, lounge access converted an unpleasant experience into a manageable one.
4. WiFi and Productivity
Lounge WiFi is consistently faster and more reliable than public airport WiFi — which matters practically for anyone who uses travel days for work, content creation, or the constant logistical management that extended travel requires.
We used lounge WiFi throughout the trip for blog writing, itinerary management, booking adjustments, and staying connected with family back in Canada. The productivity enabled by a fast, stable connection in a quiet environment — versus fighting for public WiFi bandwidth in a crowded terminal — is genuinely meaningful over dozens of travel days.
How Canadians Can Get Free Lounge Access
The most important message of this entire article: you do not need to fly business class or hold elite airline status to access airport lounges. The right credit card makes it available to anyone.
Option 1: American Express Platinum Canada — The Comprehensive Solution
The Amex Platinum includes complimentary Priority Pass membership with unlimited visits — the most comprehensive lounge access solution available on a Canadian credit card. At the card’s annual fee level, the Priority Pass benefit alone begins to justify the cost for anyone who takes two or more international trips per year.
The unlimited visits structure is particularly valuable for extended trips — on a 100-day journey like ours, a per-visit fee model would have accumulated significant costs. Unlimited access means every eligible airport visit is covered without mental accounting.
Option 2: Other Canadian Cards With Lounge Benefits
Several other Canadian cards include lounge access in their benefits packages — typically with per-visit fees or limited annual visits rather than unlimited Priority Pass. The TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite, Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite, and CIBC Aventura cards all include some form of lounge access, though the specific terms vary.
For occasional travellers who take two to four trips per year, a card with limited annual lounge visits may be sufficient. For frequent or extended travellers, unlimited Priority Pass through the Amex Platinum delivers superior value.
Option 3: Purchase Priority Pass Directly
Priority Pass memberships are available for direct purchase without a credit card — starting from a standard membership with per-visit fees up to a prestige membership with unlimited visits. At approximately $99 USD for the standard membership plus $32 USD per visit, direct purchase makes sense for very infrequent lounge users. For anyone taking multiple trips annually, the credit card route delivers better value.
Lounge Access vs Hotel Executive Lounges: A Note
This article has focused on airport lounges, but lounge access during our trip extended beyond airports into hotel Executive Lounges — a distinct but equally valuable benefit that came with our Marriott Platinum Elite and Hilton Diamond status.
Hotel Executive Lounges — evening hors d’oeuvres, breakfast, afternoon refreshments, and a quiet space throughout the day — delivered some of the most memorable experiences of the trip. The JW Marriott Hong Kong’s evening food service. The Renaissance Saigon lounge. These weren’t airport lounges but they operated on the same principle: a better environment, better food, and meaningful cost savings, delivered as a status benefit rather than paid for separately.
The through-line between airport lounge access and hotel lounge access is consistent: both are benefits unlocked by deliberate credit card and loyalty program strategy, both deliver real financial value, and both transform the quality of the travel experience in ways that go beyond the dollar calculation.
For a full breakdown of hotel status benefits and how to achieve them, read our how we saved $20,000 on our 100-day Asia trip.
Practical Tips for Making the Most of Lounge Access
Always check lounge availability before your flight. The Priority Pass app lists all partner lounges by airport with current operating hours and access terms. Some airports have multiple Priority Pass lounges — the quality varies and knowing which one to use saves time.
Arrive early enough to use it properly. A 20-minute lounge visit before boarding doesn’t deliver the full value. Build your airport arrival time around spending at least 45–60 minutes in the lounge — eat a proper meal, have a drink, use the WiFi, decompress.
Check guest policies. Priority Pass membership access terms for guests vary by card — the Amex Platinum includes guests at some lounges and charges per-visit fees for guests at others. Know your card’s guest policy before bringing a travel companion through the lounge door.
Note that not all lounges are equal. Priority Pass partner lounges range from excellent (Incheon, Hong Kong) to merely functional (smaller airports, some regional hubs). Managing expectations based on the airport and lounge you’re accessing prevents disappointment.
Use hotel lounges as aggressively as airport lounges. Marriott Platinum Elite and Hilton Diamond breakfast and evening lounge access are among the most valuable status benefits available — worth scheduling your day around, worth arriving hungry for, and worth choosing status-qualifying properties specifically to access.
Verify current lounge availability. As we noted with the Chase Lounge at Hong Kong International — lounges open, close, and change their access terms. Always check current status in the Priority Pass app before planning around a specific lounge.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Priority Pass worth it for Canadians? Yes — particularly through credit cards like the Amex Platinum that include unlimited Priority Pass as a benefit. For frequent travellers taking two or more international trips per year, the food and drink savings alone typically exceed the cost of accessing the membership through a credit card annual fee.
Which Canadian credit card has the best lounge access? The American Express Platinum offers the most comprehensive lounge access — unlimited Priority Pass visits plus Amex’s own lounge network. For travellers who don’t need unlimited visits, the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite and TD First Class Travel offer limited lounge access at lower annual fees.
Can you get lounge access flying economy? Yes — through credit card Priority Pass membership, your class of service is irrelevant. We flew economy throughout our Asia trip and accessed lounges at every eligible airport through our credit card Priority Pass benefit.
Are airport lounges worth it for a long trip? Strongly yes. The food and drink savings accumulate significantly over multiple flights, the mental benefit of calm departure environments compounds over a long trip, and the practical comfort of reliable WiFi and comfortable seating before early morning and late night flights is genuinely valuable.
How do I find Priority Pass lounges at a specific airport? The Priority Pass app lists all partner lounges by airport with operating hours, facilities, and current access terms. Download it before your trip and check it before every departure.
Final Thoughts
Lounge access is the travel hacking benefit that surprised us most in its impact across our 100-day Asia trip — not because we didn’t understand its value in theory, but because the cumulative effect of dozens of lounge visits over three and a half months of travel exceeded what theory predicted.
The money saved was real and measurable. The mental value of quiet, calm, well-fed departure experiences accumulated into something that genuinely affected how we arrived at each destination. And the specific memory of walking into the Chase Lounge at Hong Kong International — before it closed, in one of the world’s greatest airports, at the midpoint of a journey we’ll remember for the rest of our lives — is one of the small, specific pleasures of travel that the right credit card strategy makes possible.
Get the access. Use it every time. Arrive better.
For our complete guide to the Canadian travel credit cards that unlock these benefits, read our ultimate Canadian travel credit cards guide. For how lounge access contributed to saving $20,000+ on our Asia trip, read our full savings breakdown.
Disclosure: This post contains referral links. All recommendations reflect our genuine firsthand experience.
Follow our journey: Instagram @angeandzee | TikTok @angeandzee
