Chase Sapphire Lounges left Priority Pass and LoungeKey on 15 August 2026, and your Priority Pass got quietly smaller

Most lounge devaluations take something away from the card you hold. This one takes something away from a network, which means it can reach into a card you hold without that card changing at all.

From 15 August 2026, Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club locations are no longer part of the Priority Pass or LoungeKey networks. AwardWallet, Upgraded Points and NerdWallet report it independently and agree on the date and on what disappears.

What network members lost

Two things, both of which existed the day before:

That is the whole of it, and it is enough. A Priority Pass membership is not a benefit in itself; it is access to a list. When nine airports come off the list, the membership is worth less even though nothing about the card that granted it has changed.

Who still walks in

Access is now tied to holding a qualifying Chase product rather than to a network membership. All three sources give the same four cards:

• Chase Sapphire Reserve
• Sapphire Reserve for Business
• J.P. Morgan Reserve, closed to new applicants
• The Ritz-Carlton Credit Card, closed to new applicants

Two of the four cannot be applied for. In practice this makes Sapphire Lounge access a Sapphire Reserve benefit, with a legacy tail.

One thing genuinely got better

For eligible cardholders, the same-day connection window widened. Access on a connecting itinerary now opens five hours before the connecting flight departs, up from three. Originating flights stay on the three-hour window.

That is a real improvement for anyone who has stood outside a lounge door doing arithmetic, and it is worth stating plainly rather than burying it, because a devaluation post that reports only the losses is as unreliable as a press release that reports only the gains.

What we are deliberately not telling you

Guest pricing. Upgraded Points gives a figure for a guest pass; AwardWallet and NerdWallet do not state guest terms at all, and other write-ups circulating this month carry a different number entirely. Three sources that agree on every other detail do not agree on this one, so we are not asserting a guest price. Check the lounge's own terms at the door rather than trusting any summary, including this one.

Which locations this covers

AwardWallet names nine operating Sapphire Lounge locations: Boston, Las Vegas, New York Kennedy, New York LaGuardia, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Dallas Fort Worth and Washington Dulles, with Los Angeles slated to open. That list appears in one of our three sources rather than all three, so treat it as reported.

Upgraded Points notes that 49 other Priority Pass and LoungeKey lounges remain available across those same airports. That is also single-sourced, and it is the right counterweight: the network shrank, it did not collapse.

What to do about it

If you hold a premium card mainly for its Priority Pass, re-price it. A network membership is worth the lounges it opens at the airports you actually fly through. If your home airport is on the list above and the Sapphire Lounge was the reason the membership felt valuable there, that reason is gone. Check what remains at your specific airports rather than at the network level.

If you were planning to use the annual complimentary visit, stop planning around it. It no longer exists for network members, including everyone who receives Priority Pass through a card issued by someone other than Chase.

Do not assume this is the last one. Issuer-operated lounges leaving third-party networks is a trend with clear economics behind it: the lounge is a reason to hold the issuer's card, and every network member walking in dilutes that reason while adding cost. Amex has run Centurion this way from the start. Capital One tightened its own lounge and guest terms in February. Chase has now followed.

Polo Match ranks cards by net annual value rather than by benefit count, which is the only way to tell whether a lounge programme you cannot actually use is still worth paying for. If your points are the reason you hold the card, the transfer partner matrix shows where they still move well.