The Capital One Lounge Grab and Go concept is a joke.
Earlier this month, I had booked an itinerary with a nearly 2.5 hour layover at DFW (Dallas). The goal was to head towards the Capital One Lounge, no matter which terminal played host to my connecting gate.
Turns out that my first flight was delayed due to a crew time-out, and the replacements could not be located. Ultimately, my 2.5 hour cushion was reduced to six minutes.
Since my script notes tell me that this is where the salt hit the wound, I should mention that the connecting flight was a mere two gates away from the lounge.
In spite of that extremely limited window, I figured that the proximity to the gate meant there was still enough time to hit up the Capital One Lounge Grab and Go.
No dice.
Having never been to this particular lounge before, I didn’t realize that the queue was shared with another lounge (it may have been one of the Admirals Clubs). Nor did I know that the only way to access either lounge was by elevator.
In any event, I inquired about access with the personnel, who all said that I had to add my name to a waitlist. Given the time constraints, I mentioned that the flight was boarding, and that all I wanted to do was grab something and…go.
Nope. Waitlist.
Then, pray tell, what is the point of grab and go if it turns out to be more of a wait and wait?
Given how Capital One Lounges are taking their sweet time to open, and that this one ostensibly quick option has been rendered mostly useless, I suppose it’s time to review other credit cards.
The Capital One lounge wait is not shared with the Flagship Lounge next door. If you’re flagship lounge, you don’t have to wait for the losers going to the Cap1 lounge. You just go up the elevator.
Not according to the lounge dragons I encountered. But given the six minutes, I wasn’t really able to dispute this.
I guess they figure people would use it as an excuse to get in and then just stay, which some probably would.
Then that’s bad planning on their part. There’s even a recent precedent–those United grab-and-go types, e.g. at DEN.
In fairness, what other lounge can you get into and out of in six minutes? Your change in circumstances was unpleasant but blaming Capital One for being popular when you went and you not having 10 minutes seems like misplaced blame.
You must have misunderstood the reason for my post.
The crux was that I couldn’t try grab-and-go, even with just six minutes.