Back in June, I was able to spend a few hours in the Chase Sapphire Lounge PHX and had a nice experience. Unfortunately, I am now only 1 for 4 in actually getting into the lounge. Last night was especially frustrating as I had a quick layover in Phoenix and wanted to enter just for a few minutes to grab a snack and fill my water bottle. Despite being only about half full from what I could see, I was turned away as a 20-minute wait would not give me enough time to get back to the C gates to board my connecting flight.
Reasonable expectations for a small space?
This lounge has very low capacity given the small space, so on previous visits at more peak times, and with relatively short layovers, I had reasonable expectations of not getting in. This time, despite the tight timeline, I was optimistic walking up seeing about half of the seats looking empty. Much to my chagrin, we were told there would be about a 20-minute wait. I asked if I could just enter for 1 minute to fill my water bottle but was denied even that opportunity as they must register each guest and follow the order on the list. Needless to say, I was frustrated despite this being very much a first-world problem. With such a low capacity, putting guests on a waitlist when there is clearly a lot of open seats
Potential solution
In what must be a new development (not available when I was there about 6 weeks ago), reservations are now possible and at many times, probably a requirement to get into the lounge. You can read more here. While great in concept, in practice I think it creates the situation I ran into: holding open tables for people with reservations who may never show up. You cannot make a reservation same-day, only 24 hours to 14 days before, and reservations are only held for 20 minutes. That creates challenges, especially with a short layover. Not knowing which gate you will arrive to (C gates are a 10 minute walk) and potential flight delays make it difficult to predict your actual arrival time.
A much better solution would be the digital waitlist, which in my experience has worked well for the Capital One lounges. Having some type of grab-and-go option to cover those who can’t get in or don’t need a table would also be helpful.
TL;DR: I was denied access to the Chase Sapphire Lounge PHX despite many seats being available. This was likely due to their new reservation system, which, while helpful, has potential pitfalls that can lead to the space being underutilized.
Hopefully just growing pains.
The Chase lounge in PHX has a digital waitlist
How do you access it? The sign I saw and info in the app just looked like a reservation but had to be 24 hours in advance.
You have to hit up the attendant. She’ll put you on, then you can wander off. Granted, I still should have used a reservation because it was a 20 minute wait before i got the text.
You have to hit up the attendant and she’ll put you on it, then you can wander off. Granted, a reservation would have still been better, because it was 20 minutes before I got the text.