Bilt Palladium lounge access at Chicago O'Hare: what it opens for couples

A card built for two people

Bilt spent its first few years as a rent card, the thing you used to earn points on the one bill that never earned anything. In February 2026 it relaunched as a full card lineup, moved its issuing from Wells Fargo to Cardless, and put the Palladium at the top at $495 a year. The pitch was aimed squarely at the Sapphire Reserve and the Venture X, and on lounge access specifically, the pitch is about guests.

The lounge benefit is a Priority Pass membership, activated and managed inside the Bilt app rather than through a separate Priority Pass login. It admits you plus two guests per visit, with additional guests at $35. It is lounges only. Restaurants, spas and Minute Suites are excluded, and if you read in May that they had been added, that was a Priority Pass error: they appeared in Palladium and Citi Strata Elite accounts on May 12, Bilt's Richard Kerr said within hours it was a mistake, and they were gone by the evening. There is no Bilt lounge, no airline lounge partnership, no Centurion-style proprietary network. For lounge purposes you are buying Priority Pass with good guest terms.

Where the Palladium gets interesting is the authorized-user pricing. Each authorized user is $95, up to five, and each one gets their own full Priority Pass membership with the same two-guest allowance. They do not get the card's hotel credits or Bilt Cash, but at the lounge door they are a second primary cardholder.

Set that next to the competition. A Sapphire Reserve authorized user is $195 and gets Priority Pass and Sapphire Lounge access. An Amex Platinum authorized user is $195. A Venture X authorized user gets nothing until you pay a $125 lounge add-on. A Citi Strata Elite authorized user is $75 and gets Priority Pass, which is the only one cheaper than Bilt, though Citi's own guest allowance applies. So a couple on the Palladium pays $590 for two independent memberships that can each bring two people free: four guests between them, no charge. No other US card gives a pair that much guest capacity at that price, and it is the honest case for the card.

The honest case against it is what Priority Pass actually opens at O'Hare, and that case is strong.

Three lounges, all in Terminal 5

O'Hare has seventeen lounges. Priority Pass opens three, and all three are in Terminal 5, the international terminal. Nothing in Terminal 1, where United flies. Nothing in Terminal 3, where American flies. Nothing in Terminal 2. If your O'Hare flying is domestic, which for most Chicagoans it is, the Palladium's lounge benefit does not exist at your home airport. Terminal 5 does handle some domestic flights, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest and a few others, and for those the three lounges are reachable.

Air France Lounge, near gate M17. Opened October 17, 2025, about 5,000 square feet with 105 seats, a full bar and two showers. It is the SkyTeam-affiliated lounge in the terminal and Air France, KLM and Delta's international partners send their premium passengers here. Hours are 5am to 11:30pm, but Priority Pass members are locked out from noon to 5pm, when the lounge is reserved for Air France-KLM and SkyTeam Elite Plus passengers. We rate it 3.0, which reflects a pleasant but small room that is frequently full; outside the midday lockout it has the best food of the three.

Swissport Lounge, near gate M13, though Chase's own guide puts it between M7 and M8, which tells you how easy it is to miss. Full bar, no showers, a 3.9 from us, which makes it the highest-rated of the three. Priority Pass is accepted with an international boarding pass, up to three hours before departure. The lounge periodically closes to new arrivals between 3pm and 8:30pm, when the evening long-haul bank fills it, and "periodically" in practice means most evenings.

Wingtips Lounge, in the Concourse M rotunda between gates M19 and M20, in the space SAS vacated when it closed its lounge in October 2025. Soft-opened in January 2026 with a grand opening in April, so it is the newest Priority Pass lounge at the airport. Open 9am to 10pm daily, with a self-serve bar, a cold buffet and about eighty seats; no showers. It takes Priority Pass and LoungeKey with a three-hour maximum stay and, usefully, no midday or evening lockout. We rate it 3.0, which is honest about the food but undersells how useful it is: when Air France is closed to you at 2pm and Swissport is at capacity at 6pm, Wingtips is the one still letting people in. Priority Pass's own members rate it 3.6, and that is about right.

Put the timing rules together and you see why the third lounge matters. A 1pm departure finds Air France closed to Priority Pass and Swissport possibly full; Wingtips is open. A 6pm departure to Europe, when most of Terminal 5 leaves, may find both of the older lounges turning Priority Pass members away; Wingtips, with its unlimited-guest policy and later opening, is the backstop. It is not the lounge you would choose, but it is the one that keeps the Palladium's two free guests from being worth nothing. Still carry a backup plan, because Wingtips is small and there is no Priority Pass dining credit at O'Hare to fall back on.

What the Palladium does not open at ORD

It is worth spelling out, because the fourteen lounges it does not open are the ones most Chicago travelers want.

The three Admirals Clubs in Terminal 3, at G8, L2A and H/K, and the Flagship Lounge at H6, which rates 4.6 with eight showers. These need American status, a qualifying premium ticket or an AAdvantage card. The Admirals Club (H/K) rates 4.7 and is among the best in the system.

The five United Clubs across Terminals 1 and 2 and the Polaris Lounge near C18, 4.6 with ten showers. United membership, a United card or a Polaris ticket. The B18 United Club rates 4.7.

The two Delta Sky Clubs in Terminal 5, including the newer one near M15 that rates 4.8. Delta ticket plus status or a Delta or Amex card.

And the absences: there is no Centurion Lounge at O'Hare, no Capital One Lounge or Landing, no Chase Sapphire Lounge, open or announced. Amex's current expansion list includes Boston, Charlotte and a bigger DFW, and skips Chicago entirely, which for the third-busiest airport in the country remains a mystery to everyone who writes about this.

So who should get it in Chicago

A couple that flies international out of Terminal 5 a few times a year, brings friends or family along, and wants a card that is not an airline card. The Palladium's guest terms are hard to beat for that trip, and the $95 second membership makes the pair's total cost about what a Sapphire Reserve costs for one person. Add the card's $400 annual hotel credit and the math is reasonable.

A couple whose O'Hare flying is mostly United or American domestic. Priority Pass opens nothing for you here, so the Palladium's lounge benefit is worth exactly what it is worth at your other airports, which may be a lot or nothing. A United Club Infinite card or an AAdvantage Executive card, both narrow everywhere else, will serve you far better at O'Hare specifically. If O'Hare is most of your flying, that is the trade to make.

Anyone hoping to use the Palladium on a midday or early-evening international departure should know that two of the three lounges may be closed to them at those hours, and that the third is a cold buffet in a rotunda. Fine for a beer and a seat. Not the lounge experience the card's marketing shows.

The O'Hare page lists all seventeen lounges by terminal and the Priority Pass at ORD guide covers the three in more detail. Bilt is eight months into this card and has already adjusted terms once, so check the current guest rules in the Bilt app before you build a trip around them. Our methodology explains how we record each card's grants and score each lounge.