Capital One Travel Opens Newest Lounge at Washington Dulles

06.09.2023 - 13:37 / skift.com / Delta I (I) / Edward Russell / Airlines / Dulles

The idea of an airport lounge elicits glamorous images of jet setting and flying first class. The reality is far more mundane: Airport lounges are increasingly common for anyone flying with a credit card, and increasingly crowded, rundown, and, well, not that exclusive.

Still, lounges continue to appeal to travelers, and that is driving ever increasing investment.

Credit card companies, in addition to partnering with airlines and lounge networks like Priority Pass, are some of the latest investors in the space. American Express was one of the first with its Centurion Lounge that opened a decade ago at the Las Vegas airport. More recently, Capital One and Chase have both entered with their own branded lounges.

Capital One opened its first branded lounge at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport in 2021, and on Thursday, opens its latest at Washington Dulles airport outside the nation’s capital.

“The cardholder demographic that we are really interested in serving cares a lot about travel,” Capital One Head of Travel Jenn Scheurich told Skift.

The new lounge is part of what Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank has previously described as a years-long strategy to “move upmarket to the very top of the heavy spender marketplace.” That included launching the Venture X card, required for access to the lounges, in late 2021.

The new lounge is part of a larger travel ecosystem at Capital One. The company also launched a new travel booking portal, known as Capital One Travel, powered by Hopper in 2021. (Capital One is also an investor in Hopper.)

Airlines are also investing. American Airlines opened a new Admirals Club at its Washington Reagan National airport hub last year and is upgrading other lounges; Delta Air Lines opened a second Sky Club lounge at New York JFK in July and is set to open its first business class passengers-only lounge, the Delta One Lounge, at the airport next year; and United Airlines is testing new concepts at its Denver hub with the grab-and-go United Club Fly concept, as well as new traditional lounges.

Investment in lounges isn’t easy to quantify. But a quick review of U.S. airports shows that even non-hub airports like Pittsburgh have gained new lounges in the past decade.

The challenge for credit card-owned lounges, at least for now, are their limited numbers. Major carriers already have spaces in all their main hubs and bases, plus many secondary cities. If they are a member of a global alliance — Oneworld, SkyTeam, and Star — their customers have access to those partners’ lounges as well.

That creates a pretty unbeatable lounge network around the world — at least for loyal, card-holding, frequent fliers.

By comparison, American Express has only 13 U.S. lounges and 11 international spaces