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The Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Citi Prestige, and all American Express Platinum cards offer free Priority Pass Select membership, emphasis on “Select.”

Last month I got this email from a vexed reader:

So here is my experience with the highly touted Chase SAPPHIRE Reserve card and its Select Priority Pass allegedly good for getting into 500+ airport lounges.
Newark Airport, Oct. 13, 2016, flying United Airlines Newark to Geneva: “Sorry, don’t take the Priority Pass card in THIS (United) lounge. It can be used in Terminal C” (I think it was C; not sure, but the point is, it didn’t work in the international terminal).
Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, Oct. 24, 2016: Priority Pass worked and got us into United’s business class level lounge which was very nice.
Newark Airport, Nov. 22, 2016, flying United from Newark to San Francisco (SRO). United’s lounge: “Sorry, we don’t take the Priority Pass.” 
San Francisco airport, Nov. 26, 2016, flying United to Ft. Meyers (via Chicgo). United’s lounge in San Francisco: “Sorry, we don ‘t take Priority Pass.” Went to American Express Centurion lounge: “Sorry, we don’t take Priority Pass.”
So, of five attempts to use the Priority Pass, we struck out on four. 

 

There’s a lot of confusion to unpack here, but the basic point is that all the cards mentioned above offer Priority Pass Select, which is access to all Priority Pass lounges except United Clubs.

There are two easy ways to figure out which lounges you can access with Priority Pass. Either download the Priority Pass app and mentally subtract the United Clubs or look on the Priority Pass Select page.

It’s a bummer that my confused reader only got into one lounge when he was actually eligible to go into lounges at all the airports he traveled through:

He didn’t have access to the Amex Centurion Lounge because that’s for folks with an Amex Platinum or Centurion card.

Bottom Line

The Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Citi Prestige, and all American Express Platinum cards offer free Priority Pass Select, which is access to all Priority Pass lounges except United Clubs.

There are differences between the Priority Pass Select memberships offered by the cards, mainly centered on how many free guests you can bring in. Check out those differences in my post “Chase Sapphire Reserve® vs. Citi Prestige vs. Amex Platinum.”

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