Chase Sapphire Lounge (JFK Terminal 4) Review

After arriving in New York for a day from Paris, I headed home with my girlfriend from JFK airport. We decided to stop in at Terminal 4 for the Chase Sapphire Lounge before going back through security at Terminal 5 for our JetBlue flight to Boston. This is my second Chase Sapphire Lounge I’ve been to and I’ll say I much preferred the Boston location.

The Preposterous Wait

Upon arriving at the lounge area I noticed there was an attendant at the front with a long line. This meant you had to sign up to get on a waitlist to get into the lounge. I’ve had this happen to me in Boston but only had to wait at most 15 minutes so I wasn’t too concerned. When we got to the attendant, she said it would be an hour wait. I figured it would be much shorter as I had been told something similar at the Boston Chase lounge and let in early. 15 minutes went by.

We decided to check out the nearby Air India lounge as my Chase Sapphire Reserve® has access to multiple lounges with Priority Pass. There was a 20 minute wait there. So we decided to go back to the Chase lounge waiting area since I figured it would be a premium experience anyways.

30 minutes. 45 minutes. 1 hour and 15 minutes went by. I decided to say something to the attendant. She was shocked we were waiting for that long and realized there were some no shows and promptly let us into the lounge.

The Food and Drink

I have found that at the Boston Chase Sapphire Lounge the buffet food is solid and the burger is pretty good on the Made to Order menu that you can order to your table. At the JFK lounge I didn’t really care for any of the buffet food. Salmon tasted too wild for my liking. The Moroccan beef looked like mystery meat. Now, I’d like to say I am not a picky eater. The Kale salad and the arugula salad at the Boston lounge were quite tasty.

After perusing the buffet options at JFK, I decided to order a Sapphire burger from the menu. Solid burger. I would give it a 7/10. Better than a fast food burger by a longshot.

The bar was nice as well. Bartenders were friendly and made some fancy drinks for my girlfriend.

I enjoyed the fact that there was an option to order food via the QR code as well as a buffet. I find the QR code ordering very convenient when I’m in the middle of some work and in this case the food on the Made to Order QR code menu was better.

Amenities

The lounge has three shower suites where one is all-gender and then there is one designated for women and the other for men. I didn’t use the shower as I showered at the hotel before heading to the airport. I’ll say it's an excellent feature for a lounge to have especially on a long travel day with a layover.

Even though I did not have a chance to check out the showers, I did check out the bathrooms. Very clean and spacious. I found there were ample bathrooms and never had to wait to use them.

The Wifi in the JFK Chase Sapphire Lounge was extremely fast and easy to connect to. I could do work and/or stream shows. Another plus is that at every seating arrangement, I noticed there was an outlet with two places to plug in your devices.

The lounge was quite spacious and I found it interesting that the staff leads you to your seating. I thought this was a great feature I’ve never seen at another lounge as it prevents one or two people from sitting at 5-6 people setting arrangements. You would think that would help the wait time…

The Lounge Experience

I always enjoy an airport lounge. Comfortable seating and easy to relax or get work done. I will say at this lounge there’s a lot of people on phone calls/conference calls and people moving around. We got a nice spot in the back of the lounge with chargers nearby which helped avoid the noise. In the middle part of the lounge near where the food and bar was quite loud.

Lounge Access

You can access the Chase Sapphire Lounge with a Chase Sapphire Reserve® or being an authorized user on someone’s Chase Sapphire Reserve®. You can also access the lounge with a The Ritz-Carlton™ Credit Card.

If you have a card that gives you Priority Pass lounge access, like the The Business Platinum Card® from American Express or the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, you receive one complimentary visit per year with your Priority Pass benefits.

People who are flying Etihad Airways with explicit access to the JFK Chase Sapphire Lounge are also able to access the lounge as it is a joint partnership with Etihad Airways.

Long story short: there's just way too many ways to get into this lounge, which I figure contribute to the insane wait time/crowding.

JFK T4 Chase Sapphire Lounge vs. JFK T4 Capital One Lounge

Although the JFK Chase Sapphire Lounge was nice, I found the Capital One Lounge in JFK to be far superior. First off, I didn't have to wait at all. And while I was not within the standard wait time, the staff at the Capital One Lounge still let me in (I arrived 5 hours early). The Capital One Lounge had a nice little cafe spot where you could order all the things you wanted at a regular cafe (Think a Capital One Cafe or Starbucks). They had a bar along with a buffet and a menu you could order from on a QR code.

Another really neat feature of the JFK Capital One Lounge is their Cheese experience bar. When you enter the lounge, you have the option to book a “cheese experience” where you can try all different kinds of cheeses. I tried booking it when I visited but it was all booked up for the night. They do however offer a cheese sample and that was yummy. There were also shower suites similar to the JFK Chase Sapphire Lounge.

I will say the food and drink was far superior to the JFK Chase Lounge. There were a lot more options and the food was tasty. This isn’t to say that the food wasn’t decent at the JFK Chase Sapphire Lounge. It just was not as good and only one really good option being the Sapphire burger and fries.

Overall, I’d say that yes the Capital One lounge inside was nice and better than the JFK Chase Lounge but more importantly the staff were more flexible. I was able to enter early with no problem and without any wait at all. The wait at the JFK Chase Sapphire Lounge was... painful.

Final Remarks

The JFK lounge was solid but definitely NOT worth the 1 hour and 15 minute wait. The food and drinks were good. Relaxing and comfortable lounge. Wait was absurd. If I were you, I would briefly check it out an hour or two before your flight. My concern/feeling is that the lounge is chronically overcrowded and they prioritize people with the soonest flight. If you can’t get in within 15-30 minutes, I’d suggest checking out the other lounges in the airport.