Chase Sapphire Preferred Lounge Access: What to Know

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is a midlevel travel credit card with some solid benefits and points-earning potential, along with a $95 annual fee.

But does the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card get you into airport lounges? The short answer is no.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card does not include any type of Priority Pass membership or regular entrance into Chase Sapphire Lounges or other airline-specific clubs.

If you want to stay within the Chase family of cards and you’re looking for lounge access, you’ll need the Chase Sapphire Reserve® card instead.

But don’t write off getting the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. It still has some good benefits.

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card holders are allowed one complimentary access to the Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club annually, if they have a Priority Pass membership that they’ve purchased separately.

Priority Pass members can then buy additional passes to the Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club for $75 a pop, if they are available.

Otherwise, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card does not inherently include airport lounge access.

Cardholders can pay out-of-pocket for a membership to a qualifying airline lounge program, including:

Cardholders can also buy day passes at eligible lounges.

Because the Chase Sapphire Reserve® is a premium card, the annual fee is higher at $550 (and $75 for each authorized user), but many additional benefits help offset the cost.

Then there are the increased points bonuses in certain spending categories:

• 10x points on hotels and car rentals purchased through Chase’s portal.

• A 50% increased value when redeeming points through the portal.

Lounge access is included as part of the Priority Pass Select membership; Chase Sapphire Lounges are included as well. Currently, there are lounges in Boston, Hong Kong and at New York’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports. More clubs are on the way.

• $100 in Global Entry or TSA PreCheck or Nexus fee every four years. 

• Two-year Lyft Pink All Access membership.

• One year of complimentary Instacart+.

The annual fee for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is $95 with no additional fee for authorized users.

Spending on the card earns Chase Ultimate Rewards® points, flexible points you can redeem for travel or other things like cash back or purchases.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card earns 1 point per dollar on most purchases, but there are ways to earn additional points.

• 2x points on travel purchases or 5x points on purchases made through Chase’s travel portal.

• 3x points on online grocery shopping.

• 3x points on select streaming services.

You can then use those points in several ways, including transferring them to partners or redeeming them through Chase’s travel portal.

For redemptions in Chase’s portal, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Cardholders get 25% more value per point than they would if they didn’t have the card.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card also includes several travel insurance benefits:

• Trip cancellation and interruption insurance.

• Trip delay reimbursement.

• Primary car rental collision damage waiver.

• Services for travel and emergency assistance.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card does not include any airport lounge benefits as a perk of having the card, but it does have other travel benefits for a $95 annual fee.

If lounge access is your goal and you think you will get enough out of this benefit and others to justify the higher annual fee of $550, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® card may be your best bet.