Citation Needed - The Airport-Lounge Wars

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/12/01/the-airport-lounge-wars

Hello and welcome. Citation Needed. Podcasts where we choose a subject. Read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts. Because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Heath and I am required to make a disclosure regarding this discussion of airport lounges. I am partnered with Delta and America Express, so I will need to recuse myself from certain moments. And I'm joined by the panel of frequent flyers.

we have Noah, aka Delta 9. D.HC. Tom, aka Lufthamza, Elah, aka Jet Blue Balls, botched a second, not judgment about your sex life.

And Cecil, something Alitalia. Oh, well, God. Damn right on the real shit. Okay, Luft Tomza is so good. I have no notes. I have no notes. At Alitalia, we talk and fly with our hands.

All right, Cecil, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event? Are we going to be talking about today? Today, we're going to be reading an article from the New Yorker entitled, The Airport Lounge Wars, by Zach Halfand. All right, let's learn about lounges and apparently the bloody pile of heroic martyrs upon which we sit and wait for a flight. for a couple of hours. Take us away. Airport lounges are about who gets in and who does not. There are lounges with hot dogs on rollers, lounges with pedicurists, and lounges with personal butlers.

Ease of admission varies accordingly. Most people at an airport don't visit a lounge. If they did, it would kind of defeat the purpose. But we're getting there. Last year, Priority Pass, a membership network of mostly low and mid-tier lounges, saw a 31% increase in visits. By 2023, amid the post-pandemic travel boom,

John F. Kennedy Airport had increased its lounge space in Terminal 4 alone to some 70,000 square feet, about the size of Bill Gates' mansion, Zanadu 2. Since then, the terminal has added another Zanadu's worth. There are more than 3,500 airport lounges in the world. A completely unpronounceable airport in Bangkok has 37. Roughly one for every two gates. Cassane Botswana, a town of about 10,000 people, has an airport smaller than some lounges. It has an airport lounge.

Three of four lounges and Putakana's airport have outdoor pools. Finally, after 490 episodes about poor people, an episode we can root for everybody. I'm excited, finally. I have been to the airport in Punta Kana. those are not outdoor pools. You're just outside. It's that humor. No, I personally, I kind of love

watching rich people queue for a crowded lounge while they're clearing out the crowd of the airport at large. That's so nice. That's nice. Yeah. Some people fly just to visit a specific lounge. I don't believe you. I don't know. I believe it either.

Others go to grips. You guys are all being judgy. Go ahead. Thank you. This is Heath's martial arts episode. Yes. Others go to great lengths to get in. In 2016, at Changai Airport in Singapore, a Malaysian businessman named Rejali Bun Tutt missed a flight to Kuala Lumpur.

He dozed off in the Plaza Premium Lounge. Instead of rebooking, he went to more lounges, hopping from one to the next, a total of 31 times. He didn't leave the airport for 18 days. He got into the level. Poundages in the priority pass. A perk of his city credit card and forged flight tickets.

A staffer at one lounge alerted the authorities. She received a special ceremony and a plaque. Bun Tud. Can catch me if you can, motherfuckers? 18 days. Bun Tutt received a fraud conviction and was sent to jail. A place, definitionally very similar to a lounge, but emotionally very different. Okay, they can.

That's fair enough. I'm sorry, but I am very hung up on the first half of that story. He missed his flight and then he was just like, hey, you know what? Turns out I had nowhere to fucking be anyway for like two weeks. And I've got all of these forged tickets with me anyway. Such a great story. What? Recently.

Can you guys refill the pretzels? Recently, I endeavored to visit as many lounges as I could in the span of a week without leaving New York. Like Bun Tutt, but without the first. fraud. I have a fondness for free stuff and a willingness on occasion to sit around and do nothing. I do not have status of any kind, but I do have a priority pass. Thus, I found myself at the Hello Sky Lounge in a busy corner of JFK's Terminal 4. Ooh, always a mistake. You never want to buy a luxury that sounds like it was named by a description on Amazon. It's not going to go well. Also, you never want to be in a JFK terminal, so.

Yeah, that's true. There's that. Like a DMV with couches, Hello Sky had ceiling tiles, almost no natural light, and a carpet that would take centuries to decompose. There were cheap Halloween decorations everywhere. Everyone seems weird to be there. To judge something by is how long the carpet will take to decompose.

Like I get, it's like anti-environmental, but it's just weird. Okay, go ahead. I sat down in front of a paper cut out of a witch. Nearby were Matt and Joan Gross, who were waiting for a flight to Memphis. We're going on a geriatric. Cruz down the Mississippi. Joan explained. They were fans of Hello Sky. It's really nice,

Joan said. It's a lot less airporty. Oh shit. Guys, sorry, I realized Cecil picked this essay because we're supposed to make fun of a guy who just has my thoughts all the time. I mean, this is going to be a tough one. I'll try to play through, but I also hate Joan. It's not very crowded. Matt said. I've been to some of these. It's like being on the subway. You might as well sit out there, he gestured to the concourse. Okay. If I'm going to an airport lounge, the whole fucking point is to get away from Matt and Joan. That's the whole thing.

Anyone striking up a conversation with strangers at the airport should have to ride to their destination and the cargo hold with the luggage. Thank you. Sorry, are you starting to talk? Get the fuck away. You know, it's another really nice uncrowded spot. Most of the gates at any given talking time. I don't have a problem. Thanks to the idiots.

I love it. I love it. It's great. Kevin James, a history professor at the University of Guelve, who has studied airport lounges called the product offering

an enhanced experience of stasis, waiting, but better. Peter Greenberg, CBS News Travel Editor, who 50 years ago bought Lifetime Lounge Passes with six airlines said, what they want people to say is,

well, it's better than nothing. And usually that's what they are, slightly better than nothing. A lounge is the kind of place that puts fruit in your water. One better than nothing criterion to judge a lounge is its bathrooms. An Air France lounge in Paris has restroom suites with padded leather walls and blown glass chandeliers, like a jewel box for bowel movements. Hello Sky had no bathrooms. The water was basic. Lemons, cloudy, warm. I ate mushy cheesecake bites out of a supermarket box labeled Diane's fine desserts and some meatballs, tasty, and it ended my experience of stasis.

I mean, there are cheesecake bites, man. Did you want them to be extra crispy? Well, now I do. I'd be good. Yeah, they could fry them. So, airport lounges exist for the same reason that first class passengers get on first, right? Even though being on the plane longer sucks the most, the point is so that everybody can walk by you and see that you're more important. Oh, God, it's the best.

When I fly first class, by which I mean one time ever, I flew first class, I walked all the way to the back and then all the way back to the front so I could do that. He loudly announced, oopsie, this isn't where I sit. And then he put, he started shoving, he shoved them into the eye. It's really impressive. We got arrested. I heard that the Air India Lounge had toilets, so I made my way over. What kind of weird-ass informational pipeline?

The lounge looked like a college cafeteria and smelled a Fenugreek. I loaded up a plate at the buffet. The cheesecake bite tasted familiar, Diane's. As I nibbled on a soggy samosa, I noticed the two men next to me weren't eating at all. Their name tags, die and Anne. I'd been had. We're just waiting to get in the Virgin Clubhouse, one of them, Ryan. said, lounge access is governed by a complex array of memberships, airline alliances, and credit

card partnerships, with rules stipulating duration of stay and hours of entry. Sometimes you can pay to enter. Hello Sky charged $59 for three hours. The Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse is a different lounge at different times of the day. It's a priority past lounge from 5 a.m. to 130, Ryan said, meaning that you get a bagel, yogurt, porridge. From two to later, it's a real clubhouse, meaning sit-down service, venison burgers, pan-fried salmon, and beet salad. All right, so here's a plan.

We're going to sit here for a little bit longer right here, but then this is pretty sweet. Virgil takes us to the afternoon hotspot where they grind up the deer and we eat them. It's the bed. There's a fuck tornado along the way, but it's going to be fine. This is great.

I honestly cannot figure out the angle of this article. Is he critical of the falsity of this business or is he mad? It's not just boogie enough for him. Right? Not clear. Exactly. I think he's just got a vengeance against Diane's desserts. Ryan's friend, Danny, explained that the Air India Lounge served as a kind of pre-lounge

for the Virgin Lounge, a place to wait for the place you wait. They were on Delta Layover from Stockholm. Ryan is only 20, but he said he expected to hit a million miles soon. I can't count all of the lounges I've been to, he said. I've probably been to all the Delta clubs in Atlanta. There are nine. Sometimes flyers do a club crawl, which involves finishing one drink at each sky club during the layover. Jesus.

Obviously, I've been to a lounge in every continent. Ryan went on. Oh, obviously. He doesn't count. Ant. He doesn't count in Arica. Though there is a lounge there consisting of complex of igloos on a private airstrip, which advises you to drink your champagne quick before it freezes.

That's the only one I want to go to now, right? That sounds pretty cool. It's all I care about in my life now. They have penguins in there. I'm 100% there. God, I want to eat a penguin. There's just a guy with a meat grinder, stuffing penguins in there making burgers.

They got the slicing station like old country's all day. Let me tell you, that flipper meat is tender as fuck. One lounge gave me food poisoning. Twice, Ryan told me. One lounge in China was just a room. That was Shangri-La. The D-King Tibetan autonomous prefecture. Oddly, he wasn't a fan of lounges.

In Atlanta, it's better to go to P.F. Chang's, he said. Yeah, that way I know I'm going to get food poisoning, you know? Twice. Yeah. So what he's saying is like, I fall in for this scam as hard as you can really fall for it, but I just keep taking it.

You should fall for it too so we can be... That's amazing. I hate these cheesecake bites. I'm amazing. I hate them. You guys are out of Penguin. I think I could finish a whole one is what I'm saying.

I think I can eat the whole thing. Yeah, no, you're not wasting any. Penguin. got to be all right. Are you kidding me? Between you and I, we could eat a dozen penguins in a sitting without question. You guys are underestimating the size of an emperor or penguin. I don't think either of you could finish a full emperor.

No, they're not eating a full green. They're eating veal penguins, obviously. You've got to get them when they're fluffy and cute. It's like a, it's a Madagascar situation. Think. All right. Well, Patreon, goal. Do you make sense.

Ethan Tom, eat baby penguins at the sky lounge. Antarctica. Holy shit. Tom, I know. I'm going to become a fucking patron to make that happen.

Tom, seriously? Yeah. First of all, talk to Corp. You might get like a matching donation or something. But everybody else is joking.

I am so goddamn 100. Lock it in. Dude. I'm 100% serious. We're going to fucking Antarctica. Let's go eat a goddamn baby bag with bro.

I want to get drunk in Antarctica. Be honest with me. Be honest with me. to me. How much see you're home? Don't look away. I know you're speaking English.

Do you know sound deep in San Francisco? That guy is cool. Ryan was a diamond medallion tier on Delta, but this did not afford him admission to any of the three Delta lounges at JFK. If you're platinum or

diamond medallion on Delta and traveling internationally, you're allowed into the Virgin Clubhouse, but not the Delta Sky Club. Unless you're flying Delta 1, he said. God, that's so embarrassing for this guy. And they make you- So embarrassing for this guy that he can't get into that lounge. He says, Delta is very judgy. They make you feel like you did something special to get in to be worthy. Yeah, Delta's JetBlue's uncool, rich dad and I fucking love it. They sure the fuck are. Listen into this shit is like a kid explaining his favorite hard.

game. And then if you want to play a Charzard in a situation like this, the men offered to get me into the Virgin Lounge. There's no guarantees, Ryan warned.

Not with any Virgin. The distracted attendant let all of us in. The lounge gleamed. There were polished wooden floors and a red felt pole table. One couch looked like it was made of red balloons.

The water pitcher had slices of orange and lemon and sprigs of mint. spaced evenly around the perimeter and it was ice cold. A waitress brought me a duck to stata. And then she began to dance for us. Her flowing locks waved back and forth,

hither and yon and hither and yon. Tripping the light fantastic. We all made love that day in the lounge. And then her roommate came home. It's just Selma Hayek. she puts his foot in his mouth and pours the water from the pitcher right down into we used to spend a lot more time waiting than we do now. We waited for the mail, for the milkman, for the news, for a ship, for a sign, for the bread

to rise, for the tide to ebb, for the cavalry. For my word counts. For word counts. For my life to have me. As people were always waiting for something, dedicating special areas in which to do so would have been ludicrous. In the 16th century, kings, popes, medicis, and other aristocrats began constructing rooms where courtiers could wait.

In the antechamber, toward a history of waiting, the historian Helmut Puff recounts that when Mozart was 21 and seeking a patron, he complained in letters home about wading in antechambers across Europe. An hour in Bavaria, another whole hour in France. This is a weird diversion, Zach. Half an hour in a frigid room of the Duke and Duchess. When the Duchess finally appeared,

he told her, I'd be only too happy to play something, but it was now impossible as my fingers were numb with the cold. Waiting can make one feel needy, like a baby. The waiter waits because the waitee is too important to. Well, the way tea is a plane, Zach. I feel just might have a lot of it.

Okay, I'm sorry. Are we all just going to slide past the existence of a professor named Dr. Helmut Puff? Thank you. It's amazing. It's all in James and Helmut Puff. It feels like he made up all his services. By contrast, waiters wait in the airport lounge because they are important. Okay.

Important people who spent $59 for unlimited cheesecake bites is what you're talking about. The airport lounge has created. And they're delicious. The airport lounge is created when they're soggy. Thank you. The airport lounge was created in 1939 by American Airlines CEO, C.R. Smith. There's a lot of initials there. As a way to build support for commercial aviation, Smith called his first lounge at LaGuardia, the Admirals Club.

He referred to his planes as the flagship fleet. Membership was private, free, and at the company's discretion. Emmanuel listed those eligible. Generals, congressmen, governors, judges, members of the UN secretariat, persons listed in the who's who. I knew there was a reason my dad kept buying in. Lee Bennett Hopkins Award winners. New admirals were commissioned in faux-neutral. naval ceremonies. Often, they get a write-up in a local paper. Smith would send personal letters

about Admiral business. Dear Admiral, as you know, we are not permitted to extend membership in the Admiral Club to the ladies. He'd sign off. C.R. Smith, plead Admiral. Hey, hey, making rules about who to exclude from society in 1939. It feels like a bad look. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. I guess the the early 1940s were slow news years. What thing? There was plenty of room into local papers for who just got access to a fruit-infused water cooler at LaGuardia? The fuck are you talking about got write-ups in the paper?

Hold on. How much spread out are the different fruits and mince sprays? It's not even. It's going to fuck with me the whole time I'm in here. This is clumpy. The lounge itself was homie. Low ceilings. lamps, blue carpet, flagship blue, and red leather armchairs.

It's the kind of room men enjoy, but in which women will feel at home. If we let them in, which we don't, to be clear. We do not. It was staffed by a young woman called the skipper and hidden within the airport. You'd ring a doorbell. Then, once inside, play bridge or maybe send a telegram. At Washington National, Admiral's could, would come on Sundays without a flight just to drink. The kind of room men enjoy, but in which women feel at home.

Because we've made sure women don't enjoy their home? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Other lounges followed. Continental's presidents club, TWA's ambassadors club, Branf Airlines president wrote to prospective members that we would consider it an honor if you would become a member to the Braniff International Council. drinks could be more expensive than they were on the concourse.

Exclusivity was the appeal. A Pan Am employee training guide instructed that members of the Clipper Club should be made to feel very VIP. Some very VIPs got special tags that read X-Corps, meaning they were deserving of extra courtesy. Within a few decades, there were half a million lounge members. The Times described them as arbitrarily created aeronautrously. aristocracy of Nabob's, moguls, tycoons, and big cheeses whom the airline liked to indulge on the chance that they might eventually throw some business there away. In 1959, the Civil Aeronautics Board, the industry regulator, began an investigation between to determine whether American Airlines use undue influence to win a lucrative route between New York and San Francisco. One person involved testified that they'd been made an admiral.

So look, I get why they want to treat their very important VIP people well, but the existence of extra courtesy suggests that they're intentionally holding back some amounts of courtesy when they're dealing with. And honestly, that explains so much about air travel. Oh, sorry, being poor, that's a preexisting condition, actually. So turn your head a little bit. Slap. There we go. I had to take away courtesy. In 1965, a nightlight salesman from Providence, Rhode Island, named Herbert Goldberger,

was flying on American Airlines with a layover in New York. There were lots of delays. Goldberger wanted a scotch on the rocks. His seatmate suggested the Admiral's Club. He found it, after some searching, behind a door marked with a drawing of a hat that looked like Captain Crunches. The skipper asked if he was an admiral. He asked to enlist.

She sent him away. Okay, I'm sorry. I know. I know this is about airport lounges, but there was a time when nightlight salesman was a whole ass job. Right? Nightlight salesman. Do you guys have any daylights?

Get the fuck away from me. Frankly, I was humiliated by the assumption that I wasn't as good as the next person, Goldberger later recalled. He filed a discrimination complaint with the CAB, seeking to open the clubs to the paying public. Boo, not everything's for everybody. Boo! The board seemed uninterested.

Years past, the airlines fought back. One American Airlines executive asked, if we let just anybody become an admiral, why would anyone want to become an admiral? What's the point of sneeches even having stars? Goldberger kept pushing his case. It was a lonely stand. The CR Smith appeared at a hero.

and said that Goldberger would be the end of lounges. Senators got involved. Walter Mondale was briefed with updates. Goldberger received hate mail. His wife and kids were hardly supportive. The case went into its eighth year. Goldberger would not relent. God, I hate that I know this guy is Jewish.

I didn't even Google it, and I know he's fucking Jewish, and I know what his fucking voice sounds like. And so does everyone else on this fucking podcast. Well, yeah, so did the bouncer at the front desk of the fucking country club lounge where he got rejected. It was definitely like, oh, okay, okay, Mr. Goldberg. Jesus Christ. Yeah, no, I'm going to go check with the boss if we're going to let you in right now. No.

Goldberger eventually won, and he became a minor cult hero. The Times labeled him the James Meredith of private airline clubs. I never joined the young communist league. I never marched on Washington, never wrote a letter to the editor, he said, now I'm drawing people with problems to me. But he promised this is my last big cause. I do have another pet peeve. I think people who pay cash in restaurants ought to get a 7% discount,

but I'm going to do nothing about it. Yep, that's definitely one of us. It's definitely one of hers. Goldberger could come across as a troll, aggrieved but amused. His daughter, Joy, recently assured me that he was not.

It was the biggest thing in his life. Oh my God said his daughter. His child, wolf. She said, I don't remember my father ever standing up for any other causes ever.

Something about the lounge lounge is inflamed a latent sense of righteousness. Either that, or he just wanted in. One of the last times Joy saw her father, he had a layover in Baltimore

or where she lived. He wanted me to meet him. Where she asked, at the Admiral's Club. All right. Mr. Goldberger had a dream. And now airports are great for everyone. It's the best.

So thanks for that profile and courage, Zach Helfen or whatever. I need a minute to wipe away the tears about this just inspirational story. So we're going to take a break. It's my proper of nothing. Hey, podcast listener. I'm Eli Bob.

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Thanks, that vision. Yeah, we heard you. And we're back. When we left off, Herbert Goldberger would not give up his seat in the front of the lounge. Inspirational, truly inspirational. What's next? Like Venice or the Mona Lisa, lounges can become victims of their own appeal.

Initially, the lounge, Glasnosed, was a letdown. People expected the... The lounge? Glassnost? Get the fuck out.

That's what he wrote. That's what he wrote. People expected the Elizabeth Taylor movie, the VIP, which was set in a Heathrow lounge, where white tuxedoed servers carried trays of champagne and patrons discussed tax shelters. Instead, they got bad hummus and sweaty pretzels.

Greenberg, the travel editor said, at least you could get in. The more lounge has improved, the more crowded they became. Lounge gentrification. It's not uncommon to see a lounge line snaking through the concourse. Inside, seats are scarce. The difference between out there and in here can be blurry. Shoe taker offers, phone talkers, seat hoggers. There are 90-minute waits for Delta Sky Clubs. Standing lists at Chase Sapphire lounges. Cewers would rather sit on the floor than skip the lounge for a chair at the gate. A desperation that might have something to do with Instagram envy, inequality, or an overabundance of premium economy professionals with business

class expectations. The reason for the lines is obvious. The airlines started letting more people in. Not Emirates. Those heroes would rather shoot me dead than let me in my cargo short in and I respect them for it, Dan. Listen, the reason you didn't get in, it's because of the Goldberger thing. Me and Goldberger outside. It is definitely giving strong.

I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member vibes. That's for sure. In 1986, Continental Airlines and Marine Midland Bank rolled out the airline industry's first co-branded credit card. Co-branded credit cards

are the ones that offer perks like free check bags, reward miles, and lounge access. Our product was terrible. Our reliability was terrible. Our service was terrible. Henry Hartveldt, who worked at Continental's marketing team at the time told me, they hope the cards might sell some seats. They became wildly popular.

Hartfelt explained, Now you sell the airline seats to get people to sign up for the credit. credit cards. Look, people who pay for airport lounges have already put themselves in that willing to waste money bin that marketers live for. Credit card deals have become the core of the airline industry. During the pandemic, United's mileage program built around its partnership with Chase was valued at around $20 billion. The rest of the business, the passenger part, was $10 billion underwater. Annually, charges on Delta's American Express cards total about 1% of the U.S. GDP.

It's amazing how much money people will spend for a free flight, heartfelt observed. Hey, fuck you! Sorry. Sorry, no. This is a recusal? I said recusal. That's what I said. In most years, the programs account for much of the airline's profits. This year, Delta's card will earn the company $8 billion.

Why do people sign up for these cards? Lounge access is the number one reason, a Delta executive recently said, of their reserve card. Since the airline business is largely a credit card loyalty business, and since the credit card loyalty business is largely a lounge business, it's only a minor stretch to think of Delta or United as lounge companies that also fly planes. In Atlanta alone, there are two lounges that cost more than $100 million to bill. For context, that's about the cost of seven reflecting pool renovations. It tracks since both are filthy cesspools. Atlanta. Lounge purveyors view overcrowding as a grave, long-term threat.

To address it, Delta recently changed its admission policies, capping the number of annual visits and prioritizing American Express passengers. You can actually get unlimited depending on how much you spend. It's not... What's that? You got unlimited visits if he's... It doesn't matter.

Regusal. Regusal. Keith is holding up a script and his hand is shaking so much, everybody. You can't see it. United has a...

Go ahead. United has a similar policy with Chase. The airlines are also increasing supply. Emirates' business class lounge in Dubai is 100,000 square feet,

which is significantly larger than JFK's original terminal. United is building a lounge in Houston that will be 50,000 square feet. It's a little bit larger than a football field, Aaron McMillan, who runs United's hospitality programs told me, the only space they could find big enough to mock up the floor plan was an airplane hangar. Okay, guys, hear me out. We're all running. Dude, they're going to shoot us down over Pennsylvania. We've been over this. No, that's fair. That's fair. That's fair. I visited a new United Club at Newark. that was styled like a lofted co-working space.

Skylights, subway mosaics, exposed brick. It had a remarkable view of the Manhattan skyline. Well, that's the same view you get from all of the other windows on that side of the fucking airport. That's true. It's true. The sandwiches were fresh. The water had cucumbers. What is with this fucking guy?

You know you can put whatever you want your fucking water, right? You can just bring your own shit. It's hard getting the cucumber past security, no longer. Of course you are. Come on. Not if you're willing to... You know what? It's like an armadillo

down there. The club wasn't at capacity, but there must have been hundreds of people in there. It felt as bustling as the terminal. This one was 30,000 square feet about the size of the main concourse at Grand Central and several times bigger

than some airports I've been to. I just have to point out that instead of building whole airports that just don't suck, instead the airport is... being constructed into a series of semi-exclusive enclaves of basic human comforts that are only appealing because of the mad max meets prison cafeteria aesthetic and amenities available to the general public in the rest of the goddamn place. Right. Which incentivizes the airlines and everyone else involved to keep making the airport

experiences suck as much as possible. The fuck have we done to ourselves. You guys are just describing all of real estate. It's just airlines. I think we can all agree that this is Heath's fault. Okay. But Hudson News has disgusting snacks now. You can get those.

You want some seaweed balls? They have uncrustables. The most intense fighting in the lounge wars, as the aviation press calls them, is among the credit card companies. In 2013, American Express opened a standalone lounge for owners of its high-end cards called the Centurion Lounge.

Oh my God, this place fuck so funny. Sorry. You decide. You decide whether you like it. The narrative was, why would you do that? Audrey Headley, the president of American Express travel told me, we're trying

to convey the world-class service and backing of American Express. Chase soon followed. Each competes to outfancy the other. The Centurion Lounge at LaGuardia was nice with refreshing lemon cucumber water, but a little cramped. If this was once a world class, if this was once world class, it is no longer.

This summer, so this summer, American Express rolled out a new buffet menu, crab fratata, cornflake, crusted French toast. That sounds fabulous. Created by four James Beard award-winning chefs. Chase Sapphire Lounge next door offers private lounges within the lounge, starting at $2,200 for three hours. Each suite comes with a PlayStation, a shower, and bathrobes. Ooh, wait till these motherfuckers hear about hotel rooms, huh? Hotelers. Dana Powell's, Chase's head of airport lounges, showed me around.

Typically, when you arrive at the suite, you would have welcome caviar and champagne, she said. The suite seemed unnecessary. The rest of the lounge was nice. enough. There was an art deco bar, custom wallpaper, and carpentry imported from Germany. Everything was J.P. Morgan Blue. Water taps were built into the wall. We rotate this quarterly to maintain seasonality, one of Powell's deputies said. This rotation includes Blackberry Sage Spallwater. Jesus fucking crazy. Hey, also, if the goddamn flights were just on time and the security lines were predictable, literally nobody would need any of this.

Yeah, it's true. That is correct. But Tom, it's not about neat at all. It's about other people not getting your thing. People want to just like dance past other, like, you know, when you have like clear and pre-checking. Yes. You idiots. Yes.

And you walk a little bit faster through a line. Yes, Keith gets it. Thank you. So much better. I signed up for the touchless one where they're stealing my eyes for a fucking flock camera so they can kill a Guatemalan baby. But it's like, fuck. second faster, so do it. Do it twice. I don't care. There was also a photo booth, a faux fireplace, and a spa.

The Sapphire Reserve customer is an experience maximizer, Powell said. I was booked for a facial. No, no, it should be perfectly legal to kill and eat anyone who uses the phrase experience maximizing. Thank you. Thank you. Very true. Also, fun.

In fact, 8,500 children starved to death every day, guys. Oh, Jesus. Nell. In case these assholes were looking for something else to do with all this extra money they seem to have. I don't understand. Why don't their parents get jobs? I have a bunch of jobs. What are they doing? They can't pay the annual fee for the credit card. They should go to the lounge. You should go to the lounge. They have free food in there. Yeah, they've got the cheesecake bites. They can fish the cucumbers out of water. Sweaty pretzels. Kill a penguin. Get good. Yes. Come on.

The technician told me, your skin's kind of sensitive. and dry. She prepared a mask and an infrared treatment to help with the collagen. Afterward, she rub cold metal balls around my face. Caliente. I... E. Priio.

This is cooling, she said. It's for puffiness. My skin was analyzed and graded using AI. My score? 74 out of 100. I went to a mirror and rubbed my cheek. You look nice and shiny, the technician said. My

face felt smooth, cold, a little wet, like a hard-boiled egg in the fridge. Real quick, if you guys are being honest, if you got your face scored by AI at 74 out of 100, are you happy or sad? I don't know. I would be like, I was in the upper percentile of my face. My face barely passed? No, fuck that. That's a flat C.

Yeah, that's a terrible. That's a terrible. Great or precise. It's like, that's a 2.0. Yeah. Zach, get a better face. It's like when people ranked our attractiveness and then everyone put me at the bottom

and I was like, ah, that's okay, it's just a couple people, but then everybody put me at the bottom. And I was like, well, probably a couple people should put me at the top, but nobody did. And they just kept writing on the thread.

But those people are artificially intelligent, Eli. We should probably do it over. If I could have made a clot agent, I would have had it started to be... I've been so much water. I would have burned it. many fours for just one one ranking with me.

When I emerged, I received enough compliments that I felt closer to an 84. Paul said, we have principles called the host mentality. They're granular enough to cover how to refer to a guest, first name, sir, ma'am, honorific in different situations. She declined to elaborate. Our competitors pay attention, she said. All right. How much for the Your Highness tier?

Everyone at Capital One Lounge at JFK called me Mr. Zach, which made me feel like a preschool teacher, only wealthier. Such a good line. I love that line. Capital One was a late but enthusiastic lounge war combatant. Last year, it opened a lounge at Washington National Airport, which included a kitchen custom designed by Jose Andreas. who oversees the food. One company executive told the times, if there was a budget,

I was not aware of it. There is a little cart which is wheeled around to deliver cones filled with caviar. In New York, it's used for a sunset champagne service. There's also a counter meant to evoke a bodega,

stocked with fresh assa bagel. I spent delightful 45 minutes at the cheese monger's bar where I served a personal, a personal flow. I need to just sign up for Capital One real quick. We served a personal flight consisting of Swiss cow's milk cheese shaved into little bouquets.

A deep orange cheddar, a black truffle sheet milk cheese from Italy, along with a sherry wine with a lemoncello to clear my palate. Okay, I know we're supposed to be making fun of this stuff, but for the record, Heathwood nuke Iceland for eight minutes in this lounge. That's true. Out of the wall taps flowed regular water. A Capital One travel employee told me that the fresh food infused water can be a pain. Everything has to be clean constantly and kept at a low temperature. The fruit clogs up the spigots. I just want a glass of water, she said.

We don't need all that stuff. Right. Thank you. Also, we already have fruit liquid. It's called fucking juice. Just have fucking juice. And leave all your weird shit out of my fucking water. You sound so poor right now, Noah.

And I just want to like, That's amazing. You're coming out very poor. Credit card lounges are a way to feel like you have status and money, but they do not necessarily require to have much of either. Chase and American Express recently raised their annual fees. You can still break even only by carefully coupon booking the perks. For those who are actually wealthy, there are even more rarefied options.

The Delta One lounge at JFK has its own check-in area, which looks like the lobby of a luxury hotel. I was met there by a friendly woman named Hikuro, from the premium services department. She's the best. After checking me in, she escorted me through TSA. We're supposed to have our own separate security line, she said, apologizing. It was closed because of the government shutdown. This cost us approximately 60 seconds.

The private checkpoint, when open, leads directly to the lounge, which is furnished with marble, hardwoods, and burnished metals. You never have to see. Showed me around. Sunroom, business workstations, hand towels in the showers arranged into cute animal shapes. Occasionally, we walked by a diffuser that let out a puff of fog that smelled like clean linen. Near the spa, her curro stopped by some of the spigots and announced the magic juice wall. She poured me her favorite.

Cale, cucumber, celery, phenol lemon juice. That is Oroga's favorite. I down two cups. So you know what? Yes. And hey, all I got to do is pay 23.99% interest in an annual fee of $500 and someone put a salad in my water. That's true, baby.

The space wasn't vastly different from the Polaris lounge, United's top-tier offering at Newark. Delta had a spa. United had little sleeper suites with ceiling lit up like the night sky. Neither is open to credit card holders or day-pass buyers. These are only for those with long-haul business class tickets, which typically go for several thousand dollars. Yeah, no, I know one thing I want in a sleeper suite is a lit-up ceiling.

The fancier the lounge, the less the lounge goer has to interact with the actual airport. We have Porsches, Hikoro told me, by the windows. You see them down below? She led me to the tarmac, where there was a fleet of six cars for an extra $550. Delta will drive you straight to the plane and pick you up on the other end. Jesus Christ. Just flips on Born to be wild.

You know, starts doing a neutral drop out. And then it's like, we're there. We're there. It's right. It's so close. That's crazy that we do this. There's your plane. Literally just walked into the plane

from the top. Carol booked me at the lounge's restaurant, a Danny Meyer venture. Adventure, you guys. I had trouble deciding what to eat. I eventually ordered the muscles with charred pineapple as an appetizer and an entree of lamb chops. Are you sure you don't want to order two? My waiter, Darren asked.

I added risotto. No surf and turf? Maybe the swordfish? I ordered the swordfish. It was 11.30 a.m. Everyone around me was drinking red wine. Okay, this article is just a way to expense a bunch of meals for Zach. That's what this is.

He's patting his word count and his expense account. I made a miscalculation. Yeah, I take back a lot of things I said about Zach. Absolutely. I made a miscalculation and accidentally booked a massage at the same time. I was supposed to be getting my dessert. You fucking rude. Learn the system.

So, Darren, held my souffle and pretzel brownie while an attendant escorted me to the spa. Around me, passengers wore compression pants that looked like astronaut suits to drain the fluid out of their travel bloated legs. My treatment was a chair massage. It was a little disappointing. Even this lounge was filling up, making it hard to fully relax. And I couldn't help but think of the Thai Airways' first class lounge in Bangkok, whose free one-hour massages are full body, the real deal. Okay, I feel like Zach's next story is going to be on the various blowjob techniques

at the world's finest grapples. You hate blowjobs now? What is wrong with you people? Check out the Centurion Lounge. JFK, oh, man. The thing about lounging. The thing about lounging is that it's impossible to lounge without worrying that someone somewhere is lounging better.

You would be amazed, Zach. My swordfish was frankly perfect. But it would have been even more perfect in Frankfurt, where Lufthansa has an entire first-class terminal whose restaurant has items from all the, all of the cities in its route system flown in fresh daily. Had I missed out in the best lounge without even knowing it, the Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow used to have a hydrotherapy,

bath steam room tanning, booth ski simulator. Jesus, that's so many dashes. How many is that? Hydro therapy, bath steam, room tanning, booth ski simulator, and a four-hole putting green with a sand trap. Okay, but why the fuck do I care what an airport used to have? Well, because one of these lounges probably has time travel time.

The best lounges are generally abroad, often in destinations with long history of aristocracy. Air France's first class lounge in Paris with jewel box bathrooms offers 15-year Vuv Clique Clow, 12 different brands of bottled water, an Alon-Ducasse restaurant serving foie gras and truffles. Yet nothing underscores the paying for the having paid for. for at nature of this shit. More than 12 different brands of water. According to one visitor, the difference between this meal and one in the Polaris lounge restaurant is like the difference between that same Polaris lounge meal and the

food you'd get at an ambassador lounge. You can pay for your own hotel style suite with a bed, an outdoor patio, and a dedicated butler. They're militant about the entry rules. If you're merely business class and want to partake, you have to pay 990 euros. And you're allowed to do that only if you've flown first class sometime in the past year. The Al Swafa First Lounge in Doha, a private duty-free shop, screening room, Keith Herring on the wall, architecture, more comparable to a cathedral, mosque, mausoleum,

or state monument than anything else, as one visitor described it, is a little more lean, You can even bring your... Are we supposed to know who Keith Herring is? I don't know who that is. If you read the New Yorker, you do. Oh. You should be so lucky. Very VIP there.

You can even bring your own nanny. She'll go to the nanny room, a windowless white space with a few seats and high chairs. And for the person you've entrusted your child to, we have this lovely purgatorial broom closet. An obliad, if you will. But there are separate spigots on the wall for the Blackberry Water for the half.

It's a separate spigots scenario. Equal, separate but equal, though. In the U.S., the best you can do is PS, short for private suite, which houses its lounges in bespoke buildings far away from the terminal, so you never even have to deal with the airport at all. Their tarmac cars are BMWs.

It's meant to feel like you've been invited to a good friend's home, Jean Lou, who designed the PS lounge at Dallas, told me, me, there's art and curated bookshelves along with Michelin-rated chefs and a spa. Lou was prioritizing vintage pieces. So it feels a little more storied. Not everything is new, new, new, she said. We are also really fortunate to work with Sandra Jordan.

She was a pioneer in luxury alpaca fabrics. I never knew I could hate a sentence so viscerally before this. Jesus, thick Blugery alpaca I want to buy Tom a luxury alpaca fabric so he can I want to smite it

Mother you while you Lugry alpaca gloves I'm looking at them. It's the holy grail of wool for you rubes who don't know about unpack. Here's what Tom's going to do with it. Are you ready? Tom's going to put it over your face and then he's going to pour blueberry water on the water

pour you. Oh, I found it. Prima Alpaca, everybody. Jesus. Is it from Sandra Jordan? If it's not from Sandra Jordan, I won't even fucking look at it. I don't even want it. I don't even want it.

Jerk off with that thing. Fucking kidding me. Fucking non-Sandra Jordan alpaca cum sock. That's it in my band. She is actually giving all of us the fabrics for the window. treatment. You still have to you still have to go

through teeth. You have an window treatments? What the fuck me? Yeah. Yeah.

I got two of them. They just got hooks in their back and you just slide them over and make a little meep sound when you slide them. You got to clean underneath them but it's fine.

So good. God. You're moving. I'm going to spit on you. God, seriously, as a New Yorker, I hate the city

I'm from now. because this magazine is named after it. It's so pretentious. So funny and amazing. Guys are missing out on the Sanders Jordan website. I am on a journey. You still have to go through TSA and customs, but they feel more like the help you've invited into your home.

For example, when you approach CBP, the podium is actually a custom piece of furniture that we're designing with them, Lou said. The departure and arrival with PS costs $1,300. That's pretty sweet, by the way. For an extra $1,350 a person, a car will pick you up directly from the plane and drop you off at your final destination.

I don't know where you live, Louie told me, but you really should try it. I have a question. When you go to the CBP place that's the custom design furniture thing, is it still manned by a 60-something-year-old man who looks like he wanted to be a cop but never passed the physical exam?

Or do they get a... Do they get a nicer version of that as well? All right. Cecil, if you have to summarize what you've learned today in one sentence, what would that be? I'm only going to tell you if you have an Admiral Capital One Chase Plus pass.

And are you ready for the quiz? Let's do it. All right. So now that airports are literally selling an even quicker paid security line to get us past the already quicker paid security line,

what's the next thing they're going to charge us for? A, assign seating at the gate. B, a pass that lets you skip ahead of other people waiting for the bathroom on the plane. C, guaranteed overhead bin space. D, why the fuck am I giving them

my D? Jesus, they're going to do all this shit now. Oh, it's definitely D. Yeah, it's D. All right, Cecil. Get off that website. What the fuck, dude? I'm launching Sandra. I'm buying a throw for Tom.

I'm buying a Sandra Jones throw for Tom. Nice. It's just a couple hundred thousand dollars. Jesus Christ. Tom, you got to bring it to Antarctica. Yes. Oh, my God. Seasel will, Heath will cuddle under the stars and eat our penguins.

You got to wrap a dying penguin on it. Seesle. Why do you hate nice things? Because you grew up poor and if you have nice things you'll die like a pilgrim eating a warhead. What? B. Misery fuels your boomer bodies. C.

If your wives ever were too happy, they'd reflect on how they felt about you. Okay. Or D. All of the above. I think it's, for me at least, at C. Is correct. Cucumber water.

All right. Cecil, I don't know what this article is about. I don't understand its audience point of view or its message. Hey, I guess I'll just have to wait. Is there more? Is that it? In a fucking lounge. Well, you'll be wrapped in your alpaca throat, Tom, so you'll be very comfortable. It sounds cuddly.

It's nice. The dead penguin in your lap. I don't know what this means, but that article felt like it was written inside of a bad airport. Right? Like that was like the vibe. I don't know how writing would feel like that, but it did. All right. Well, Noah, I believe you are the winner.

Oh, awesome. I would like a Tom essay next week. All right. Well, for Cecil, Noah, Tom, and Eli, I'm Heath. Thank you for hanging out with us. We'll be back next week, and Tom will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can listen to cognitive distance. No Rogan experience.

The year old dad's god-awful movies, the scathing atheist, the skeptocrat, and D&D Minus. And if you'd like to join the ranks of our beloved patrons, you can make up her episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod. And if you'd like to go to touch with us,

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