The Airlines’ Quiet VIP Menu: $350 to $700 for a Curbside Greeter, a Lounge and Maybe a Ride to the Plane

The Journal’s travel columnist was on her second piece of hot-honey bacon with cracked black pepper in American’s Flagship lounge at LAX when an employee stopped by to ask whether she’d seen the text: her flight to Chicago was running a little late, so sit tight. That’s how a delay gets delivered once you’ve paid American Airlines (AAL) for its Five Star service. Dawn Gilbertson tested it against versions from Delta Air Lines (DAL) and United Airlines (UAL) for Thursday’s Personal Journal, on the paper’s dime and unannounced; all three sell a day of frictionless travel at select airports.

American’s looks like the bargain of the three: $350 or 35,000 miles covers the first adult, and a $650 Select tier sits above it. The catch: you can book either only with a first- or business-class ticket. Her greeter met her at the curb with a colleague who took her bag, then walked her through a private check-in desk and priority security. The quiet day even got her into the swankier Flagship lounge, and LAX construction turned the long walk to the gate into a ride to the plane in a black Ford Expedition.

The greeter is the product

Delta’s VIP Select at New York’s JFK cost $700 and ran into rain. The promised Porsche ride to the lounge wasn’t running and the roped-off corner of the Sky Club had little going for it besides nicer chairs. Mauricio Parise, who runs VIP Select as a Delta vice president, said most VIPs skip the lounge anyway; what they’re after is arriving late and being swept through security to the plane. “They’re seeking the private-jet-like experience,” he said. Her greeter found her a better aisle seat unasked but was on the phone when priority boarding began; Delta apologized.

United farms its service out to Global Airport Concierge. Gilbertson paid $400 in Chicago, where her escort steered her around long PreCheck lines and bumped her from boarding group five to one. But the United Club’s e-gate rejected her boarding pass, and she bought a $59 day pass that United is refunding. She came away feeling like a kid flying solo and said it wasn’t worth $400 to her. Then again, she figured, the parents of an 18-year-old the escort also shepherded were paying for peace of mind, not perks.

Our read

The product isn’t luxury; it’s certainty. Delta’s VIPs mostly skip the lounge, Parise says, and that teenager’s parents weren’t paying for bacon. The fee buys a person whose job is to absorb the airport for you, which is why, as Gilbertson notes, so much depends on the greeter and the crowds. For a road warrior who already carries fast-track security and a lounge membership, that’s paying twice for the same shortcut. For an aging parent flying alone, a nervous first-timer or a milestone anniversary, it can be the best few hundred dollars on the itinerary, roughly where Gilbertson landed too.

The cash-flow rule (M5) is the one we’d apply to any upgrade: give it a line in the travel budget and decide in advance which trips earn it, so it’s a gift you planned rather than a status fee you drift into. On Thursday’s opinion page, the Journal’s Brenda Cronin wondered how long before the courtesy quietly shown to VIPs becomes something everyone else pays for openly. At the airport, it already has; the trick is paying on purpose.