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Is The Santa Clara Airport VIP Lounge Worth It? - Travel Tip Tuesday · Travel Mug Podcast

• 0:05
  ​Meggan: Hey everyone, and welcome back Jenn here at the Travel Mug Podcast.
• 0:13
  Just having returned from Cuba uh, this week I wanted to chat about airport VIP lounges and did I think the experience that we had was worth it?
• 0:26
  So I'm sure we've all sort of seen or heard of those VIP lounges at the airport.
• 0:31
  Traditional ways people sort of use them are through their premium credit cards, elite airline statuses.
• 0:38
  Some people are fancy and buy annual memberships.
• 0:42
  Um, But maybe you didn't realize that you can also buy day passes to a lot of them.
• 0:47
  Jenn, did you know about the day pass thing?
• 0:50
  Jenn: I did know about the day pass thing.
• 0:52
  Meggan: Oh, you're so clever.
• 0:53
  Meggan: . Well, I, you know, we had never done this before.
• 0:56
  Meggan: However, of course, not having done any excursions on our trip to Cuba, we thought we would maybe splurge, spend some money and do the airport VIP lounge at the Santa Clara airport.
• 1:10
  Meggan: So we purchased our entry at the resort through our Sunwing rep.
• 1:14
  Meggan: However, I did see people sort of just at the airport randomly wanting to use it and then, Buying it directly there.
• 1:22
  Meggan: So either or seems to work.
• 1:24
  Meggan: Our experience in terms of the cost, which I'm sure also varies airport to airport but ours was for two people, 60 US dollars, which is approximately 83 Canadian with the exchange.
• 1:35
  Meggan: And at the airport, again, I'm sure the services also vary from airport.
• 1:41
  Meggan: Airport to airport, but this is what we got.
• 1:43
  Meggan: So three hours of total use came with the purchase.
• 1:47
  Meggan: You did get an express check-in lane for our flight.
• 1:50
  Meggan: Now, of course, express always depends on the length of the line.
• 1:55
  Meggan: .
• 1:55
  Meggan: Jenn: Mm-hmm.
• 1:56
  Meggan: . Yes.
• 1:58
  Meggan: .
• 1:58
  Meggan: Meggan: Even for those who've is long, the line is long.
• 2:03
  Meggan: So do keep that in mind.
• 2:05
  Meggan: . The food that they did offer, which was unlimited, was sandwiches, which seems to be the official food of Cuba Um, so you could do pepperoni or ham.
• 2:14
  Meggan: They offered drinks as well, so pop bottled water, alcohol again as much as you wanted.
• 2:19
  Meggan: They also provided one hour of free wifi.
• 2:23
  Meggan: If you do happen to smoke, there was a smoking room, which is I'm sure why a lot of people likely use the service, because otherwise you have to go much longer without a cigarette.
• 2:33
  Meggan: So it didn't, the smoke didn't waft in, like, it didn't bother us at all.
• 2:38
  Meggan: So it, it was really separate.
• 2:40
  Meggan: The seats in there were also more comfortable.
• 2:42
  Meggan: We were away from the hordes of people in a crowded airport.
• 2:46
  Meggan: It literally, the airport isn't huge, so it was just rows and rows and rows and rows of people and chairs.
• 2:51
  Jenn: Right.
• 2:52
  Meggan: So this of course got you a bit away from that.
• 2:55
  Meggan: There were more private bathroom facilities, of course, within the VIP lounge.
• 2:59
  Jenn: Yeah.
• 3:00
  Meggan: And then we were able to also board the flight right from the lounge, so we didn't have to go back into the regular airport and queue up with everybody.
• 3:09
  Meggan: They just actually checked us in right from the lounge.
• 3:13
  Meggan: So those were kind of the options that we got with this purchase.
• 3:18
  Meggan: And I would say overall for us at the end of a two week trip, the cost this time around was worth it.
• 3:25
  Meggan: Now, Worth It is different for everyone.
• 3:30
  Meggan: You know what I mean?
• 3:30
  Meggan: So will it be worth it for you?
• 3:32
  Meggan: I mean, that depends on the budget you have and your preferences, but I know I would definitely like to try it again for the experience now in other airports and countries to kind of contrast and compare, but again, it will depend of course on how much it will cost, et cetera.
• 3:48
  Meggan: But for this trip, after especially two weeks, I re really think it was worth it for us to finish things off that way.
• 3:55
  Meggan: So, have you ever used a VIP lounge at an airport, Jenn?
• 3:59
  Jenn: No.
• 4:00
  Jenn: We, we were supposed to use it on ill-fated trip to Italy that I have mentioned 50 million times, but obviously we didn't go.
• 4:09
  Jenn: So someone had actually given us passes
• 4:12
  Meggan: Oh, nice
• 4:13
  Jenn: to use.
• 4:14
  Jenn: I was traveling, I was supposed to be traveling with my stepmom who had cancer, so, and we were going to be using it on our long-ish layover in Toronto.
• 4:24
  Jenn: So we were supposed to fly Halifax, Toronto, Toronto.
• 4:29
  Jenn: To Italy.
• 4:29
  Jenn: So I think it would've been really great cuz we had a long layover and it would've been nice to have comfier place to be with snacks and that sort of thing.
• 4:40
  Jenn: I think it would've been really great and I, I think in the future, if I have an instance like that, I will consider buying a day pass.
• 4:49
  Jenn: But yeah, I'm, I'm sad.
• 4:51
  Jenn: I didn't, I'm obviously sad I didn't get to go on that trip, Meggan: right.
• 4:55
  Jenn: I'm sad for all of these kind of experiences that I also didn't get to try.
• 5:01
  Jenn: But I, I think a lot of people don't know that you can get a day pass and obviously they're limited.
• 5:08
  Jenn: Like they can't let everybody have a day pass to the VIP lounge, but it is something that's definitely worth looking into.
• 5:16
  Meggan: Yeah, no, I agree.
• 5:17
  Meggan: And I, I definitely hope to be able to use it, you know, again, in the future.
• 5:21
  Meggan: But again, it's really depends, like you said, length of layover, all the things that you have to consider before purchasing it, but it definitely worked for us and we'd love to hear from anyone listening if you've had an experience somewhere around the world with an airport VIP lounge, let us know.
• 5:36
  Meggan: We'd love to hear from you about this and what your thoughts are about it as well.
• 5:40
  Meggan: So that is it for this week's travel tip Tuesday.
• 5:44
  Meggan: Thanks as always, everyone listening for your support.
• 5:47
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• 5:50
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• 5:51
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• 5:58
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• 6:01
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• 6:06
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• 6:09
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• 6:12
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• 6:19
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• 6:21
  Meggan: So until next time, bye everyone.