@ThomasJNewton wrote:
@K-in-Boston wrote:Amex cut the restaurant benefit for Priority Pass years ago due to widespread abuse and I am shocked it took Chase this long.
That was what AmEx said, or simply speculation?
It was widely publicized by journalists at the time, IIRC from an earnings report call. One of the biggest loopholes was that for the price of a credit card's annual fee, airport employees could treat themselves (and friends) to meals every day. Restaurants ended up costing Amex a lot more than what was expected; that was around the beginning of people complaining about lounge overcrowding (something that I have actually only experienced a few times and I use lounges around 20-30 times annually depending on routes, but I understand that there were issues for other people) so more people began using the restaurants and the reimbursement amount from the issuer in dollars was much more to restaurants than to lounges. There's also no rule against using it more than once at the same airport, and there were reports that people would bar-hop at airports with multiple restaurant and lounge locations.
How many people traveling are actually regularly using this benefit at pre-security restaurants rather than for post-security lounges?
I only find one landslide restaurant on the U.S. list of restaurants: https://onemileatatime.com/guides/priority-pass-restaurants/#which_us_airport_restaurants_participat...
Looks like that list really dwindled in the past 5 years or so and that mostly kills the business meeting example.
Given that in the U.S. unless they were in Tucson, everyone would need a ticket to get through security, and at least the person who was using it would need a ticket to even get the benefit. I just do not think that there are that many people would jump through the hoops to make it work, just to save at most $56.
There's still the refundable ticket method and companion gate pass method, but I agree there likely aren't a lot of people who would jump through the refundable ticket hoops or even know that all US airlines offer gate passes for companions (allowable circumstances vary by airline). The airport employee loophole is of course still a valid example where this perk could be easily abused. At any rate, Chase (like Amex 5 years earlier) has decided that the costs associated with providing restaurant access on the PP network are too high to continue offering it.
