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Ever since I got my first Priority Pass lounge card several years ago, I have visited probably hundreds of airport lounges (if not more). There is a wide variety of lounge quality and amenities. Naturally, most of the really good lounges (like the Emirates First Class lounge or the Qatar Al Mourjan lounge) are reserved for premium cabin passengers and not available for Priority Pass members.

(SEE ALSO: Capital One Lounge Dallas / DFW lounge review – one of the best lounges I’ve been to)

In the United States, some foreign airlines have their own lounges in select airports, and in some cases, they do also allow Priority Pass memberships.

Recently I went to a lounge that is definitely a contender for the worst Priority Pass lounge in the country (if not the world).

What Makes a Bad (or Good) Airport Lounge

Before I talk about my candidate for the worst Priority Pass lounge, I thought I would think about what makes a lounge “good” or “bad”. Here are a few of the things that I personally look for in a good airport lounge

  • Fast wifi
  • Comfortable (and non-crowded) seating. Bonus points if it has a variety of different kinds of seating options
  • Convenient location
  • Food and drinks

So of course the worst Priority Pass lounge is going to have little or none of those things. I used to think many years ago that The Club CVG was the worst airport lounge I had been to, but after attending many other airport lounges, I now know that it is a middle of the road lounge. It’s a bit small, and the food and drink selection is limited, but it’s comfortable, convenient and has good wifi.

IASS Hawaii Lounge – the Worst Priority Pass Lounge?

The IASS Hawaii Lounge is the Priority Pass lounge in Terminal 2 of the Honolulu (HNL) airport. I had previously written about the the Plumeria Lounge, which is the HNL Priority Pass lounge in Terminal 1, but as we were arriving into Terminal 2 (from Maui), we thought we would check out the IASS Hawaii lounge. We were arriving to Honolulu so we didn’t really need a lounge, but I figured we could at least check it out to see what it had to offer.

The answer was…. not very much.

The IASS Hawaii lounge LITERALLY does not have any food at all. Not even snacks and cold finger food. Instead, all it has is some coffee makers and a drink cabinet with a few cans of Coke products.

It has a small seating area

But at least the wifi was fast!

We only stayed about 5 minutes. I hope Capital One enjoyed paying $28 times 7 (or whatever the reimbursement rate is) for our 7 cans of soda…

The Bottom Line

I am proposing the IASS Hawaii Lounge as the worst Priority Pass lounge in the United States. Never before have I been to a lounge that literally had zero food at all. Thankfully the Plumeria Lounge in Terminal 1 is a bit better (though I would say slightly below average compared to other Priority Pass lounges). But depending on where your flight is departing from in the HNL airport, that may be a bit of a hike for you. On our flight departing HNL, we did stop by the Plumeria Lounge but then had about a 20 minute walk over to the G gates (though we could have taken the free inter-terminal shuttle).

What do you think is the worst Priority Pass lounge? Is the IASS Hawaii lounge a contender for the title?


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