- I received this update from one of our readers –
- American Express own the lounge buddy.com site and is closing down the whole site, not just restricting access.
- Keep those new details in mind when you read the story
Lounge Buddy is one of the apps that you use to book lounge access and pay for it. To quote – “you are purchasing access to the specific lounge displayed on your confirmation. ”
It seems American Express will not allow LoungeBuddy to have access to American Express lounges from January 2025 anymore.
LoungeBuddy does still have access to all the other lounges it did have access to, I have to presume it is only the 30 Centurion lounges that will now not be accessible.
Here is an example of LoungeBuddy access at Athens airport.
This is the official statement on the LoungeBuddy.com website.
Looking at the links on their website, they charge between $18 ( for a domestic lounge at Johannesburg airport) and $73 (for the Quantas London lounge at Heathrow) per visit.
I hope this will not affect you much if you are a regular user of LoungeBuddy.
Let me know in the comments below if this is a compromise for you.
I suspect American Express bought LoungeBuddy to get a better way of displaying and searching lounges its cardmembers have access to through their cards. Sometimes this is cheaper than developing it in house.
Pre-AMEX LoungeBuddy was a great operation and app. It was not at all a competitor with AMEX. Why did AMEX purchase it just to gut it and then eventually shut it down?
Thank you for that update Alex.
The world of lounges is always intriguing.
No, the entire thing is being shut down. AmEx owns LoungeBuddy. AmEx is shutting down LoungeBuddy next month. The site will no longer exist. That’s quite clear from “American Express will retire LoungeBuddy.com on January 30, 2025” i.e. the website itself will be retired/shut down.