Chase Sapphire Lounges are out of Priority Pass: what changed at every Sapphire Lounge airport

For about four years, the best lounge at a handful of American airports was open to anyone with a Priority Pass card, once a year, free. That ended on August 15, 2026, when every Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club left the Priority Pass and LoungeKey networks at the same moment. There was no discounted rate left behind, no grace period for people who had already planned trips, and no exception for lounges that had been in the network for less than a month. If you want into a Sapphire Lounge now and you do not hold a qualifying Chase card, you pay $100 for a day pass, and only if there is room.

This piece goes airport by airport through what that means, because the answer is very different in Dallas, where Priority Pass has two decent fallbacks, and in LaGuardia, where it now has none. But first the rules, because Chase changed those too.

What Chase actually announced

Two things happened on August 15, and they were designed to be read together.

The first was the exit. Before that date, a Priority Pass or LoungeKey member from any issuer, meaning Amex Platinum, Venture X, Citi Strata Elite, Bilt Palladium, direct members, anyone, got one complimentary Sapphire Lounge visit per calendar year, and paid $75 for each additional visit. That arrangement was unusual; Amex has never let Priority Pass into a Centurion Lounge and Capital One has never let it into its own, so the Sapphire Lounges were the one place a non-Chase cardholder could sample a bank lounge. Chase's stated reason for ending it was crowding, and anyone who has seen the line outside the LaGuardia lounge on a Friday afternoon will find that plausible. The lounges were built to be the best room in the terminal. They were. The Priority Pass queue outside became part of the furniture.

The second was a sweetener for Chase's own cardholders. The entry window for connecting passengers grew from three hours before departure to five. Originating passengers are still held to three. The point, I think, is that if you are going to shut the door to outsiders in the name of crowding, you want your own customers to notice they got something for it, and an extra two hours on a DFW or Boston connection is something.

Chase also made a point of saying that the Priority Pass Select membership bundled with the Sapphire Reserve is unchanged. Sapphire Reserve holders lost nothing on August 15. If anything they gained: a quieter lounge and a longer window.

Who gets in now

Chase Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Reserve for Business, J.P. Morgan Reserve, and the Ritz-Carlton card, which is no longer open to new applicants but still carries access for existing holders. That is the full list.

Each primary cardholder brings up to two guests free plus any children under two, with additional guests at $27, which remains the cheapest guest fee at any US bank lounge; Amex charges $50 and Capital One $45. Authorized users on the personal Reserve, at $195 a year, get the same lounge access as the primary and their own Priority Pass Select, which makes them the easy way to cover a partner. Authorized users on the business card get nothing at the lounge door, a distinction that surprises people every week.

Entry is three hours before an originating or nonstop flight, five hours before a same-day connection. Chase has said nothing about arrival access and never has, so assume the answer is no.

Non-cardholders: $100 a person, capacity permitting, which in practice means not at peak.

Airport by airport

Chase and Priority Pass have said that 49 Priority Pass lounges and experiences remain across the nine affected airports. That is true and it is also a number that flatters the situation, because "experiences" includes spas and Minute Suites, and because the 49 are not evenly distributed. Here is where they actually are.

Boston Logan. The Boston Sapphire Lounge sits in the Terminal B/C connector near gate B40, with two showers and a 4.6 from us. Priority Pass members now have two choices. The Lounge in Terminal C, across from C19, is a serviceable independent room without showers, rated 3.9. The Air France Lounge in Terminal E near E3 caps stays at three hours and leans toward its own passengers in the evening. Terminals B, C and E connect airside, so either is reachable from a Terminal B gate without re-clearing security. Boston comes out of this fine.

Dallas/Fort Worth. The DFW Sapphire Lounge at D25 opened in July 2026, which means Priority Pass members had roughly four weeks of access before it was withdrawn. Dallas has the best fallbacks of the nine. The Club DFW on the Terminal D mezzanine near D27 rates 4.3, has two showers, runs 4am to 10:30pm and takes pre-bookings, which are worth making before the evening bank. Plaza Premium Lounge (E) near E31 rates 4.4 with a two-hour Priority Pass cap. Minute Suites in Terminals A and D cover an hour each. One warning: the newer Plaza Premium Lounge in Terminal D, opposite D15, left Priority Pass on June 21, so do not walk there expecting entry; the Plaza Premium First next to it admits Priority Pass members with a $45 copay.

Las Vegas. Sapphire LAS in Terminal 1 on Concourse C opened in December 2025 and rates 4.3. Priority Pass retains two Club lounges here. The Club LAS (D) near D33 is the convenient one for most Terminal 1 flights and rates 3.7. The Club LAS (E) in Terminal 3 rates 4.8, which is higher than the Sapphire Lounge itself, and is one of the most underrated rooms in the Priority Pass network; it has two showers and sells walk-up passes at $60 for anyone without a membership. XpresSpa locations in both terminals round out the list.

LaGuardia. This is the airport where the change hurts. The Terminal B Sapphire Lounge rates 4.8, has two showers, and was the only full lounge Priority Pass opened at LaGuardia. Without it, Priority Pass at LGA is a Be Relax Spa visit, one per boarding pass, and for Amex Platinum holders specifically, a Minute Suites Express hour. That is it. If you hold a Venture X, the Capital One Landing in Terminal B is yours. If you hold an Amex, Citi or Bilt card, there is nothing at LaGuardia for you, and you are better off eating landside before security.

JFK. The Sapphire Lounge with Etihad in Terminal 4 rates 4.7 with four showers and was a genuine loss. But Terminal 4 is the densest Priority Pass terminal in the United States and the damage is contained. Wingtips Lounge rates 4.9, the highest score of any Priority Pass lounge in the country, and has two showers. The Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse above gate A5, 4.7 with four showers and the best food in the terminal, admits Priority Pass members from 5am to 1:30pm, before the Upper Class evening bank; a morning departure from T4 with Priority Pass is arguably better off than it was before August. Air France Lounge rates 4.1 with showers. Air India Maharaja and HelloSky are there too, and the Be Relax Spa for cards that include it. Terminal 1 has the Primeclass Lounge at 4.8, and Terminal 8 has Minute Suites. Our JFK Priority Pass guide walks through all of them.

Philadelphia. Same story as LaGuardia, with less fanfare. The Sapphire Lounge in the D/E connector rates 4.5 and was Philadelphia's only Priority Pass lounge. The remainder is Minute Suites in the A-East/A-B connector, limited to an hour, and an XpresSpa near B2. No lounge. For an American hub that handles a lot of international connections, this is a thin offering.

Phoenix. Sapphire PHX in Terminal 4 near D11 rates 4.8. The Priority Pass fallback is the Escape Lounge in Terminal 3, at the junction of the E and F gates, which rates 4.0 and is a decent room. The catch is geography: Terminal 3 and Terminal 4 are not connected airside, so the Escape Lounge is only a fallback if you are flying from Terminal 3 in the first place. Terminal 4 passengers, which means American and Southwest, have no Priority Pass lounge.

San Diego. The Terminal 2 West Sapphire Lounge near gates 46 and 47 rates 4.6 with one shower. Priority Pass members use the Aspire Lounge near the gates 20 to 32 checkpoint, rated 4.2 with one shower and a three-hour cap, plus a Be Relax Spa near gate 26. Terminal 1 has no Priority Pass option at all.

Washington Dulles. The Etihad Lounge in collaboration with Chase on Concourse A near A14 is the odd one out, a co-branded lounge rather than a Sapphire Lounge proper, and it left Priority Pass with the rest. Dulles has the richest fallback list of the nine, because it is an international gateway with a dozen foreign-carrier lounges that take Priority Pass off-peak: Air France-KLM near A20, British Airways Galleries opposite B50, the Lufthansa Business Lounge at B49 (one of the few Lufthansa lounges still reachable with an Amex), the Turkish Airlines Lounge near B43, and for cards that still include dining, a restaurant credit at Chef Geoff's by C14. Three-hour caps apply at most of them.

Hong Kong. Not part of this change, and worth clarifying because people ask. The original Hong Kong Sapphire Lounge, which rated 4.7 and had four showers, closed on January 5, 2026 and reopened as a Kyra Lounge, still run by The Club. It remains in Priority Pass with a three-hour entry window. It is no longer a Chase lounge, so Sapphire Reserve holders use it as Priority Pass members like everyone else.

What is coming

Chase has a Los Angeles Sapphire Lounge planned for late 2026 or early 2027 and a Miami location around 2028. Both will open Chase-only; there is no reason to expect Priority Pass to be let back in. The Austin Sapphire Terrace, the outdoor deck by gate 1 that was never part of Priority Pass, closed in March 2025 when its pilot ended, so there is nothing to lose there either.

What I would do

If you hold the Sapphire Reserve, nothing. Enjoy the shorter line.

If you hold Priority Pass through any other issuer, take LaGuardia and Philadelphia off your mental list of airports with a lounge, note that Phoenix only works from Terminal 3, and check the airport pages before you fly through the others. Priority Pass is still excellent abroad and still patchy at home, and August made it patchier.

If you are picking a card for lounge access and one of these nine airports is home, the Sapphire Reserve's $795 fee got easier to justify this summer, and our Sapphire Reserve page lists every airport it covers. If you fly mostly from somewhere else, the lounge you are losing may not matter, and our comparison of the three bank networks is the better place to start. Ratings here follow our methodology.