It is Sebastian from SME and today we’re going to compare the different priority passes you get from different credit cards. But first if you are new here, we’re all about how to maximize the value for credit cards. So how to get them as cash back and also how to travel for free if that sounds interesting, that’s a start guard channel, but let’s get started.
Every time into a priority pass video, I get this question a lot. So I figured, and I cover it, because it’s probably going to be helpful for someone. If we take a look at the chart, you can see that there are quite a few versions of priority pass. So some of them are better but some of them are worse.
The worst one of the bunch is probably the Amex Houghton surpassed card, so every time you go in, you actually don’t get to go in for free, you have to pay $27. If you have any guests, they also pay $27 with a lot of other cards, you and your guests can typically get in for free and again at $27 to me.
At least it doesn’t really make sense, and there are some lounges. But for many of them, they don’t really make sense, because they’re not worth $27, if you are going to go in anyways and you’re sat on paying the price, there is a specific lounge, which is worth to you.
I think it makes sense just because you’re paying 45 to 50 dollars at the door, so $27 is basically 50% off for me personally. I don’t really remember any priority Pass lounge, where I would pay $27 for. I’d probably just go outside and eat something and grab your toffee.
I’m more about the food and focus on that, then relaxing to get away from the crowd and taking a shower. Those are all nice things but those are not my priority, so if it is your goal, if you have six or seven hours to wait somewhere and you don’t want to sit outside.
Then go for it at the end of the day, it really depends on how you value something, because it doesn’t make sense for me, it doesn’t make sense for you to move up to the list.
We have the US bank altitude reserve card, which is probably the second worst card. But it’s still significantly better than the Hilton service card. If the card you get for three visits and with each of these visits, you can also bring in one guest with you. If you want to bring in more guests than its $27, if you want to go more than four times per year, it’s going to be $27 for you as well as your guests, if you’re someone who doesn’t really fly often.
So let’s say you do one trip a year, and I think this is pretty awesome and it makes a lot of sense with a lot of two other priority passes. You get unlimited visits, but if you’re only going, once let’s say if I’m going from San Francisco to Calgary and I do a layover in Vancouver, I’m probably only going to be able to hit four lounges, even if I do round-trip and you think about it like that, unlike the Hilton service card.
If you add an authorized user for the altitude card, they get their own Priority Pass as well, and this priority passes the same four limit role. But if you travel with that person pretty often, this makes four visits into eight, just because you would use all of four doors up and then you would use all four of theirs up.
You have to pay $75 to add an authorized user, so it might not make sense for you. You have to consider the other things moving on to the admins Platinum, and we start to see a lot more similarities with the remaining Priority Pass cards. So for all of them, you can go in for free and there’s no limit for the Platinum Card.
You can bring in two gases and if you have any additional guests, then you’re going to get charged $27 authorized users get a card as well. But one thing is that you can’t add just one person, you will have to pay 175 to add up to three people. This means that whether you’re adding one person or three people, you’re still paying the hundred and seventy-five dollars.
If your goal is to add someone solely to get in priority pass, then this isn’t really the optimal strategy, because you’re paying $175 to do it. One interesting thing to consider it is that if you give them a card, they’re going to have themselves access to the Centauri own lounge as well as the Delta allowed, whenever they’re flying Delta.
So these are other lounges you get access to by having the Platinum Card, which makes it better than the other ones. But for the purpose of comparing priority passes, this is not the best version. One interesting thing about the Platinum Card is that you can actually use the app to access the lounge.
So a lot of other ones that the Chase Sapphire Reserve or the Ritz-Carlton one, you can’t do this. The city prestige we simply have the same idea, it’s free for you, and it is unlimited visits, you can bring up to two guests $27 for any additional guests. You also have an app.
If you don’t want to bring your card and authorize users also get a card. The benefit of the city prestige card is that authorized users only spend $50 per, meaning that you do save a lot more money, if you’re looking to add only one person, the Chase Sapphire reserved this which is a bit interesting.
And the main reason is that it allows you to have unlimited guests in theory, this works out very well. Whether you’re traveling in a big group of friends are maybe of a lot of family, you can bring them all in practice. This works out a bit different and the main reason is that a lot of US domestic lounges have started adding rules, saying that you can only have maybe one or two guests for some people. There’s also an ethical dilemma, so whether it makes sense or whether it’s fair to bring in maybe 10 people, some people frown on these people, just because they’re rowdy or maybe it’s just a lot noisier than it.
It should be for a business lounge for me, personally I either travels by myself or with Mandy who has her own past, this doesn’t affect me in terms of entering the lounge, in terms of my experience there. But I still think it is fair. I don’t agree if the people who are like you to have this pass don’t mean you shouldn’t use it at the end of the day.
We’re all about maximizing the value of what we have, and if this is a feature of the card, I think it’s fair for you to do it. For the most part, whenever I’ve seen this happen, people have been pretty respectful, so they’re not being extremely rowdy, they’re not getting super drunk but they’re relatively quiet.
So it’s not that big of a deal, that argument tied for first place is the chase Ritz-Carlton card, as well as the city national bank crystal card and given how difficult it is for a lot of people to get the CNV card and will probably into a future video on this.
I would argue that the first place is the Ritz-Carlton card, both allowing you to have unlimited visits and also bringing in unlimited guess, you can add authorizers for free. So there’s no annual fee to do it and they also get a similar priority pass card. The one thing about it is that you can’t access it via the app, but I have the card with me.
So it’s not that big of a deal, but I know some people who are not happy with that. The Ritz-Carlton card is also how I gave my mom as well as my sister, both priority pass, so they both travel a lot and typically not together, and also not with me. So this works out really well, some people make the argument that it’s risky, because they had to add me as authorized users.
But the thing is that I’m an authorized user on my mom’s card and my sister is an authorized user on another card beforehand anyways. And I haven’t had any issues, and I watched my credit cards pretty much, given all the cards I have. I also have the Ritz-Carlton cards, so it’s not as risky as it might seem, even in the unlikely situation, where she used my card without my permission.
I don’t mind that much, because again she paid for a lot of my expenses growing up again. When you are 12 years old or 13 years old, you’re not paying for your own stuff. So I feel like I owe her money, so this is part of it. The CNP crystal cart is the same as the Ritz Carlton card.
So one thing I’m not sure about is whether you have access via the app as you start getting more cards. One easy thing to screw up is that you can mix up the cards, and this can be very costly, you can easily spend more than $50 by accident, by using the Hilton Serapes card, instead of the Chase Sapphire reserve my recommendation would be to either label them with sticky notes, which is what I do and also use a permanent marker or maybe a pen that doesn’t really scrub off and write on the back what it is.
Let’s say it’s the Ritz or the CSR where you typically put the signature. One other thing you can do is that you can have an Excel or Google sheets that have the number as well as what card it’s for. So let’s say here’s the party pass number, and this is the Chase Sapphire Reserve card or the Ritz card.
Personally, I do all three and if I had something like the Hilton service card, I’d probably put a sticky note, for me, it doesn’t make sense to use that one since I have ones that get in for free. For most people, I don’t think it makes sense to use the one from the surpassed card, because my experience is that most of the lounges are not worth $27 per person, which really depends on you though and how long you’re there.
One side note is that I’m speaking domestically and internationally. There are some really good lounges, where I would be willing to pay $27. One thing I know a lot of people are going to bring up is that the annual fees are very drastically different for some cards. So if the platinum card you’re looking at by fifty and with the Hilton surpassed card, you’re looking at less than $100.
The main reason we’re not considering this, here is because then we also have to look at the effective annual fee and all the other benefits that you get, so it gets a bit too confusing and bloated. If you want to pin more of that information, I’d recommend watching the independent videos for each card, we have done separate videos.
If your goal is to get as many people into the lounge as possible, I would recommend looking at the Chase Sapphire reserve the Ritz Carlton card as well as the Crystal card. If your goal is to give priority pass to someone else, I’d look at the Ritz Carlton card and the Crystal card. Finally, if your goal is just to go to the lounge and maybe you just want to try it once, I would recommend any card except the Hilton surpassed card.
So I hope it is helpful, let me know if you have any questions. My question for you is how you value priority pass. If you like this video, give it a thumb up, it really helps us out and if you know anyone else who’d benefit from what we talked about, feel free to share it with them. Because it does probably going to help them out. See you next time.