The Airport Lounge Is Not the Point
The real luxury is making the trip feel less like an obstacle course with boarding passes.
For me, a trip starts when I am on my way to the airport. Cats are taken care of, and my final list of pre-departure checks are done. I’m on my way.
That may sound too early to start enjoying the “vacation”, especially if you are the kind of person who treats the airport commute as a necessary punishment before the “real” travel begins. But how you move through those first few hours carries over into the rest of the trip.
The trip is not only the beach, the city, the conference, the race, the hotel balcony, the glass of wine, or the first walk through an unfamiliar neighbourhood. It is also the leaving, and the transition into something new. The slightly awkward in-between state where you are no longer fully at home, but not quite there yet.1
Small Victories
Travel, despite what Instagram posts suggest, is rarely one smooth reel from front door to destination. It is a sequence of small tests. Can I get out of the house on time? Did I remember my passport? Is downtown traffic behaving? Will security line ups be reasonable, or will I end up behind someone unpacking their entire life into six grey bins?
This is where the idea of Small Victories comes in, something I talk about in my book The Freedom Project: Travel. The trek from home to airport to final destination can be hectic and stressful, but it becomes easier to handle when I stop treating it as one giant, exhausting event. Instead, I break it into smaller steps. Each one completed is a small victory. Get out the door. Victory. Arrive at the airport. Victory. Check the bag (or better, avoid checking one). Victory. Clear security. Big victory.
Small Victories give me a better way to move through the uncertainty of a long travel day. I do not need the entire day to go perfectly. I just need to complete the next step.
The Lounge Is Just One Small Victory
This is where the airport lounge enters my story. With any luck, depending on the airport, I may have a few lounges to pick from.2 I like lounges that offer a quieter place to sit, and enjoy a drink with a light meal that does not require a second mortgage. Most importantly: I may find a little breathing room away from the terminal chaos.
A good lounge represents a little bit reduced friction, however the lounge does not make the trip meaningful. No social media bragging required about your pre-departure cheap sparkling wine. But, with a little luck, it can create one small victory in the middle of a long travel day, and provide a quick reset before the next step.3
The Better Travel Day Is The Achievement
On social media, there is a strange humble-brag subculture in my newsfeed around premium travel perks. Somewhere along the way, lounges, elite status, premium cards, and travel memberships became wrapped in a little too much self-importance. As if access to a bowl of mixed nuts and a slightly better chair proves one has achieved enlightenment. It does not. And sometimes the food isn’t even that great.4
A comfortable, calm space that feels a little like you have arrived, is useful. I don’t care my trip looks impressive to anonymous people online. I care whether it makes my trip easier. The true value of travel rewards and premium memberships is in preserving energy: you arrive at your final destination feeling just a little better. You arrive with enough attention left to actually experience where you are going.
Access to a lounge, priority check-in, and/or a business class seat can all support the experience. The better travel day is the achievement.
Premium Perks Should Support the Experience
An American Express Platinum card can be valuable for the right traveller. FounderCard can be useful for the right business owner, creator, or frequent traveller who will actually use the benefits. But neither of them are magic keys. If your flight is cancelled, it still sucks. If they lose your bag, you may not get it back.
These tools can become expensive distractions, if you’re not careful. The real question is whether they reduce friction in a life you are already building, or whether they tempt you to build a lifestyle around benefits you did not need yesterday. Don’t mistake access for freedom, what these programs really offer is options: the ability to choose a different path than most, if you choose.
The Real Luxury Is Arriving With Something Left
Long-haul flights, red-eyes, delays, weather, and airport logistics can humble anyone. Travel has a way of reminding us that control is something we didn’t really have to begin with. Still, we can design parts of the experience to be better.
The point goal is arriving with a little more patience, a little more energy, and a little more capacity to enjoy the place I came to see. If a lounge helps with that, excellent. If a quieter route, a better departure time, or a less frantic layover schedule helps more, start there.
Get Into Action
In my book The Freedom Project: Travel, I talk more about Small Victories and the idea that travel begins long before arrival. The book is a good place to start if you want travel to feel less like escape and more like a deliberate way of seeing the world.
For VIP readers, I also keep a private VIP Lounge of my own with travel invites that are not publicly advertised. Right now that includes elevated invites for the personal American Express Platinum, with roughly $300 in additional points value, and FounderCard, where VIP readers can access Elite for less than the regular first-year membership price. Those are not general-public links, and they are not a reason to apply for any card or program that does not fit. They are simply available for readers who already know these tools would make their travel life smoother.
Further reading
The trick is to be ok with feeling lost or out of place for a little while, without trying to fix it. Instead of seeing the travel day(s) as the end of something, or worse, a failed attempt at rest, I treat it as a decompression buffer. Full story here.
Available lounges varies depending on my class of travel, combined with membership access regardless of my class of travel through either FoundersCard or Amex Platinum. Details and referral bonuses available in my VIP Lounge.
Sometimes the “lounge” feels more like mix between a crowded coffee shop and a daycare facility, than the premium experience it used to resemble. With so many credit cards now offering access, you wonder if it’s quieter outside the lounge than in. Full story here.
I’m looking at you, YVR. The Plaza Premium lounge in Vancouver US departures used to be a decent option. Lately, it’s been hit or miss at best. Packed seating, food lines, and people on speakerphones. The noise levels and cramped feeling completely defeat the purpose of being there. Full story here.