Paying For Airline Lounge Membership With Miles - Worth It?

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

Annual airline lounge membership – when it's offered at all – can be an expensive proposition. However, several airlines let you redeem miles for membership rather than paying cash. TPG contributor Nick Ewen takes an in-depth look at the miles options out there and whether any of them are a good value.

Airport lounges offer many benefits for all types of travelers. Although by no means lavish (well, not many) they can be an oasis from the craziness of airport terminals and gate areas. They provide complimentary food and drinks to help avoid (in part) the dreadful and expensive options in the terminal. Many offer personalized assistance with flight cancellations and rebookings. They can sometimes be invaluable for a frequent traveler, but many more casual flyers may balk at how expensive they are. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to use miles to purchase yearly membership to these clubs, and this post will highlight those options.

American Airlines Admirals Club

For any regular American Airlines travelers, you can use your AAdvantage miles to purchase membership in the Admirals Club. This offers access to 37 club locations plus numerous partner lounges across the globe. The number of miles varies across the different elite levels of the AAdvantage program, and first-time memberships require additional miles to cover the initiation fee. Travelers can also choose between a single membership or a joint membership with a spouse or domestic partner.

Here are the details for new members:

Here are the details for renewals:

Delta Air Lines SkyClub

Delta offers three different lengths of membership to access their 50+ SkyClubs and numerous partner lounges around the world: 30-day, one-year, and three-year. Only the yearly membership is payable with miles, though you do have the option of purchasing an individual membership or joint membership. The former will only allow your spouse/partner to access the club when traveling with you, while the latter will offer him/her independent access, great for couples who both travel extensively for different jobs.

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It's important to note that Delta recently announced changes to their paid membership rates that take effect March 1^st, which is also the date that status changes based on 2012 MQM/MQS earnings. If you are considering purchasing a membership, be sure to take advantage of the lower rates ahead of March 1^st!

The mileage redemption levels will not be changing, but keep in mind that members dropping one or more Medallion levels can still redeem miles at their current status for a membership before falling down the ranks.

Here are the current rates (valid through February 28, 2013):

Here are the new rates (effective March 1, 2013):

Notice that the "value" you receive after March 1^st is actually higher than the value through February 28^th. This is a bit misleading, as you are using the exact same amount of miles but simply redeeming them for a club membership that has increased in price.

One final thing to note…any new memberships (including those that have been inactive for over 6 months) are subject to an initiation fee of $50 or 10,000 miles. You don't get to choose how this fee is assessed; paid memberships require $50 cash (no miles), while memberships purchased with miles require 10,000 miles (no cash). This will lower the above "values."

United Airlines Club

United MileagePlus only offers Platinum, 1K and Global Services elite members the opportunity to purchase a club membership directly for the rate of 59,000 miles including the initiation fee, and then after the first year, the rate is 52,500, so you're getting a value of between 0.76-0.81 cents per mile.

There is also a little-known workaround for travelers with the United Club card from Chase. This card grants free lounge access and comes with an annual fee of $395, but through their Choices Program, cardholders can redeem miles earned on the credit card towards an annual fee credit. This FlyerTalk thread discusses the card in great depth and using miles for the annual fee credit, you can redeem for a fixed rate of 0.8 cents/mile (or 49,375 miles to cover the entire fee).

However, make sure you understand the terms & conditions on this option before you apply for the card and expect to get a credit for the annual fee. For example, your "Choices" balance is a separate balance from your regular MileagePlus balance and only includes spend from your United credit cards. In other words, you can't open a United Club Card, transfer 50,000 points from Ultimate Rewards to United, and redeem those miles for an annual fee credit. You would have to earn the 49,375 miles through eligible spend only on the card. In addition, your MileagePlus account needs to have enough miles to actually redeem the reward. If you earned 70,000 miles on the credit card and redeemed 50,000 for an award flight, you will only have a balance of 20,000 in both your MileagePlus account and Choices program account.

US Airways Club

US Airways, like United, does not offer the ability to redeem Dividend Miles for a club membership, and they do not have a workaround like the United Club Card method mentioned above.

Other Options

Since both United and US Airways are a part of Star Alliance, you do have a backdoor way of gaining access to their lounges by redeeming miles: using Aeroplan, Air Canada's frequent flyer program. Their Maple Leaf Club membership is available in three different tiers using miles, and while the basic one probably won't help many readers (it only offers access to the 16 Maple Leaf Lounges in Canada), the top two tiers (listed below) could be an interesting option.

Here are the details:

Remember that Air Canada is a 1:1 transfer partner of both American Express Member Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest (with the added 5,000 mile bonus for every 20,000 Starpoints transferred).

Bottom line - all of these club memberships available with miles offer a relatively consistent "value" of 0.6 – 0.8 cents/mile.

So is this a good choice? As always, "YMMV" or Your Miles May Vary. At the end of the day, we all have different valuations for our hard-earned frequent flyer currencies, but if you are short on cash and long on miles, these memberships offer an alternate way to spend your miles to make your airport experience a bit more tolerable.

Update: Beginning March 22, 2014, American Express Card Members will no longer have access to American Airlines Admiral Club and US Airways Club airport lounges through Airport Club Access / Airport Lounge Program. This means that Card Members will no longer be able to gain complimentary access to the American Airlines airport lounges (known as Admirals Club lounges) or the US Airways Club airport lounges as a benefit of their Platinum Card Membership.

Although these miles options are great for travelers who don't want to spend the cash but have miles to spare, if a few hundred dollars isn't a stretch for you and you're looking to get access to several airlines' lounges at once, a great option is to get the Platinum Card from American Express, which carries a $450 annual fee, but also gets you access to Delta, American and US Airways lounges - and you can even bring two guests or your spouse and any children under 21 - as well as Priority Pass Select access to over 600 airport lounges in 100 countries (guests can also enter for a $27 per person fee) plus a menu of other benefits that make the $450 annual fee worth it.

See also: Travel Tuesday Top 10: Ways to Get Access to Airline Lounges

Have any of you redeemed miles for club memberships before? Please feel free to share your personal experiences in the comments section below!