Credit card lounges versus airline clubs: what the 2026 J.D. Power lounge study found

J.D. Power published its 2026 U.S. Airport Lounge Satisfaction Study on August 19, and the headline will not surprise anyone who has stood in a Centurion Lounge line: the bank lounges won again. American Express's Centurion Lounges and Capital One's lounges tied for first at 771 points on J.D. Power's 1,000-point scale, with Chase Sapphire Lounges right behind at 764. Delta Sky Club, the best of the airlines, scored 763, one point under Chase.

What interested me more is how much of the study ended up being about crowding, and how closely that lines up with our own ratings. Here is what J.D. Power found, and where our numbers agree and disagree.

The ranking

J.D. Power surveyed 2,991 travelers between April and June 2026, all of whom had used a U.S. airport lounge in the previous year. It scored lounge networks on eight things: value for what you pay, staff, food and drink, cleanliness, amenities, ease of getting in, ambience and Wi-Fi. The full table:

| Rank | Lounge network | J.D. Power score | |---|---|---| | 1 (tie) | American Express Centurion Lounge | 771 | | 1 (tie) | Capital One Lounge | 771 | | 3 | Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club | 764 | | 4 | Delta Sky Club (including Delta One) | 763 | | 5 | British Airways lounges | 751 | | 6 | American Airlines Admirals Club (including Flagship) | 749 | | 7 | Air France lounges | 746 | | 8 | Alaska Lounge | 737 | | | Study average | 732 | | 9 | United Club (including Polaris) | 702 | | 10 | The Club | 650 |

Credit card lounges versus airline clubs

The three bank lounges took the top three places, but the gap to the best airline is tiny. Delta at 763 is effectively level with Chase. The real gap opens lower down: the bank lounges average about 769, the six airline networks about 741, and United at 702 sits 69 points behind the leaders and 30 below the study average.

That makes sense when you think about what the bank lounges are. There are only a few dozen of them, nearly all new or recently rebuilt, placed at big hubs. An airline club network has to cover regional airports, old concourses and every awkward outpost the airline flies to. The Centurion network is a set of flagships; the United Club network includes United Club Fly in Denver, a grab-and-go counter with no restrooms that we rate 1.4.

It is also worth knowing what changed from last year. J.D. Power's previous lounge study came out in December 2025, used a smaller sample (1,430 travelers surveyed in September and October 2025) and left out premium business-class lounges. That time Centurion led alone on 782, Capital One and Delta tied on 773, Chase scored 771 and United trailed on 705. Every network's score is lower in 2026 and the average fell from 758 to 732, but J.D. Power changed its method and widened the field, so I would not read the drop as lounges getting worse. Compare the order, not the points.

Crowding is the story

The most useful number in the release is this: travelers who said their lounge was not at all crowded scored it 833. Travelers who said it was severely crowded scored it 589. That 244-point swing is bigger than the distance between the top and bottom of the entire ranking. Whether the room is full matters more than whose name is on the door.

And crowding is common. J.D. Power says 46% of guests describe the lounge they use most as usually moderately or severely crowded. People come in for the reasons you would expect: 45% said they use lounges to escape the terminal crowds, and 39% said airport food and drink is too expensive. Free food and drink was the most valued benefit.

The staff findings are mixed. About three quarters of guests found staff welcoming, but only about half said staff seemed happy, and about half called them knowledgeable. A little over half said the food was better than they expected.

This is also the backdrop to Chase pulling every Sapphire Lounge out of Priority Pass on August 15, which we covered in our piece on the Sapphire Lounge exit. The survey ran before that, so Chase's 764 reflects lounges that still let Priority Pass members in once a year.

How our ratings compare

Our ratings are per lounge, not per network, and built differently: we score up to 15 specific things in each room (crowding, quiet, food, showers, Wi-Fi and so on) and average them, as our methodology explains. To line them up with J.D. Power, I averaged our overall rating across the lounges we rate in each network, counting premium rooms like Delta One, Flagship and Polaris with their parent brand the way J.D. Power did. For British Airways and Air France I used only their U.S. lounges, since that is what the survey covered.

| Network | J.D. Power rank | Lounge Frog average (out of 5) | |---|---|---| | Centurion | 1 (tie) | about 4.7 | | Capital One | 1 (tie) | about 4.6 | | Chase Sapphire | 3 | about 4.6 | | Delta Sky Club | 4 | about 4.2 | | British Airways (U.S.) | 5 | about 4.6 | | Admirals Club | 6 | about 4.1 | | Air France (U.S.) | 7 | about 3.0 | | Alaska Lounge | 8 | about 3.9 | | United Club | 9 | about 4.1 | | The Club | 10 | about 3.9 |

The top of the table agrees almost exactly. All three bank networks average 4.6 or better with us. The floor for Capital One is the Landing at DCA at 4.2; for Chase it is Sapphire Las Vegas at 4.3, setting aside the co-branded Etihad lounge at Dulles at 3.1. The best Centurion we rate is DFW at 4.9, and the best Capital One rooms are JFK, Denver and DFW at 4.7 each. Delta in fourth also fits: big, consistent, and with standouts like JFK B31 at 4.7.

Three places where we disagree:

British Airways deserves better than fifth. The seven BA lounges we rate in the U.S. average about 4.6, level with the bank lounges. Boston and Philadelphia are 4.7 each and the SFO Terraces Lounge is 4.8. My guess is that BA's passengers compare these rooms with Heathrow and mark them down for it.

Air France deserves worse than seventh. Its U.S. lounges average about 3.0 with us. JFK is a respectable 4.1, but Boston is 2.9 and Houston is 1.7. Several of these rooms also take Priority Pass, which brings exactly the crowding J.D. Power describes.

United's problem is spread, not ceiling. United averages about the same as American with us. Its best rooms are as good as anything in the country: the Newark C mezzanine club and Dulles D are both 4.9, and the Polaris lounges sit at 4.5 to 4.6. But United has the longest tail of weak rooms of any big network, from Denver's Club Fly to Houston A at 2.7 and Orange County at 3.1. Visit enough United Clubs and you will visit some bad ones, and a member survey picks that up.

On The Club we agree it comes last, but the range is huge. The Club ATL on Concourse F rates 4.7 and The Club LAS (E) rates 4.8, better than some bank lounges. The Club CVG rates 2.7. For most visitors these are Priority Pass lounges, and they absorb everyone else's overflow.

What I take from it

J.D. Power's results measure which networks keep their visitors happiest, and the bank lounges do that best because they are newer and fewer. But the crowding number is the one to remember. A packed Centurion at 4pm on a Friday can be worse than a quiet United Club, and the survey says your mood follows the crowd more than the brand. If you are choosing a card for lounge access, start with which lounges are at your home airport and how busy they get when you fly. Our comparison of Amex Platinum, Sapphire Reserve and Venture X goes card by card, and the Platinum Card, Venture X and Sapphire Reserve pages list every lounge each one opens.

Sources: J.D. Power's 2026 study release (August 19, 2026), and The Points Guy's coverage of the 2026 and 2025 studies. Lounge Frog ratings follow our methodology.