This popular air travel benefit is getting less use by the day.

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Complaints about Priority Pass lounge access have been on the rise.

Main points

• Priority Pass is an airport landing program.
• Many credit cards include a complimentary Priority Pass membership for cardholders.
• Lounge issues have driven down the value of Priority Passes in recent years.

If you’re a frequent flyer, the Priority Pass program may seem surprising when you first hear about it. Get free access to over 1,300 airport lounges worldwide! To make it even better, many travel credit cards offer a free Priority Pass membership as one of their benefits.

It used to be a wonderful benefit. For a long time, Priority Pass was one of my favorite travel card perks. Whenever I travel, I check which salons I can visit in advance.

Unfortunately, Priority Pass has dropped a bit in quality. Whether you’re considering getting a card with membership, or already have one, it’s a good idea to find out what’s going on with this program lately.

A decreasing number of salons

The biggest draw of Advance Pass is always the lounge network built by salons in partnership with the program. In the past, you had a chance to find one or more lounges open to Priority Pass members at any major airport you visited.

That is no longer true as many lounges have decided to end their partnership. There are several major airports that you can visit with a Priority Pass that you don’t have access to airport lounges, including:

• Denver International Airport
• Los Angeles International Airport
• Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
• Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport

These airports have what Priority Pass calls “airport experiences,” a new type of benefit we’ll explore below. But nothing compared to traditional airport landings.

Even airports with an Advance Pass lounge aren’t always convenient to visit. Take Atlanta’s busiest airport in the United States. The International Terminal (as well as some experiences in other terminals) has a single lounge for Priority Pass members.

More ‘Airport Experiences’

To mitigate the loss of its lounges, it has partnered with other businesses to offer Priority Pass airport experiences. Members can get special benefits, typically spending credits, at these businesses. Here are just a few examples of experiences you may encounter:

• Dining credits at partner restaurants
• Massage compliments at spa partners
• Credit at Minute Suites (private travel retreats for sleep, work or relaxation)
• Spending at the Gameway video game lounge

All of these will be fun Supplements Priority pass for those who want to see something different. The problem is that actual salons are becoming the only options when they go offline.

A short flight from LAX, I’ll give you a first example. Priority Pass used to have multiple lounges in the airport. I visited the Alaska Airlines lounge and the Korean Air Kel lounge for free and both were great places to relax before the flight. Back then, getting a priority pass was a wonderful perk that I loved.

Now, Priority Pass gets you limited spa or video game time at LAX. I’m sure those could be nice perks if you’re in the mood. But personally, my whole reason for staying in an airport lounge is to actually enjoy the lounge, not to get a quick massage or play a video game.

Access denied.

Even if you find a salon you visit, there’s no guarantee you’ll get in. Because Priority Pass membership is such a common credit card benefit, salons in the network are often at capacity. Some limit when Priority Pass members can visit or bypass them entirely, two issues that many members have complained about this year.

Priority Pass still has some value, at least if you’re getting it with one of your credit cards. Depending on which airports you fly from and what it has to offer there, it might be worth it. But I don’t pay for an actual membership, and I don’t rely on it. I’ll keep my fingers crossed if there’s a lounge I can get to, but I have a backup plan in case it turns people away.