How You Can Get Free Airport Lounge Access with Just A Card

Frequent travellers truly appreciate the comfort and convenience of airport lounges. For those who find themselves exhausted by the long waits at check-in counters and immigration, lounges can offer an oasis filled with free snacks, drinks and comfortable sofas where they can relax before getting on their flights.

The only caveat is that lounges are usually only available for travellers sitting in business class or better, and for loyal customers with high mileage points with a particular airline. If you are neither of those, you would need to pay a significant fee to gain access to airport lounges.

However, hope is not all lost and there is still a way to enjoy the relaxation offered by airport lounges for free: air miles credit cards.

Rewards credit cards offer a great way to earn money on your purchases. Especially in Singapore where rewards rates are quite high compared to other parts of the world, you could be losing out on a significant sum of money over time if you don’t actively use credit cards. Air miles cards are a particularly valuable set of credit cards for frequent travellers.

Not only do they earn rewards in form of air miles, they usually also come with a set of travel perks designed to deliver a pleasant experience during your trips. Below, we have prepared a short list of the air miles cards with the best airport lounge access feature.

Citi Prestige MasterCard Card

Citi Prestige card is one of the best cards in the market for luxury travel benefits. While it comes with a relatively hefty annual fee of S$535, the fee is waivered for the first year, making it somewhat manageable. Not only that, this card has the best lounge access feature on the market.

With a Citi Prestige card, you can get unlimited visits to airport lounges all over the world. While most other cards grant lounge access to the cardholder, Citi Prestige also grants unlimited lounge visits to your travel companion as well. Citi Prestige also has many other offers that you can learn about in our review.

OCBC Voyage

The runner-up in our list is OCBC Voyage card, a luxurious travel card offered by OCBC to compete with Citi Prestige and Standard Chartered Visa Infinite card. It is slightly more expensive to use than Citi Prestige because its annual fee of S$488 is not waivered. It is the runner-up in this list because it also grants unlimited lounge visits to over 70 locations around the world, but not to your travel companion.

It also has some unique features like flexible mile redemption program that allows you to book any flight at any time, a rare value proposition in an industry that usually operates with a plethora of blackout dates and limitations in miles redemption. To learn more about why this card is great, read our extensive review and analysis of OCBC Voyage card.

Standard Chartered Visa Infinite Card

Standard Chartered Visa Infinite Card is the last of the “premium” air miles cards in this list. It provides 6 annual visits to 850 lounges globally and costs S$588.5 of fee per year. While it lags behind the previous two cards on these features, SC Visa Infinite comes with amazing miles rewards rate of 1.4 miles per S$1 spent locally and 3 miles per S$1 spent overseas.

It also comes with some really high-end and luxurious perks like automatic upgrades on hotels, 10% discounts on Uber rides globally and discounts on private jets and yacht rentals. You can learn more about the SC Visa Infinite card’s pros and cons.

Citi PremierMiles Visa Card & DBS Altitude Card & ANZ Travel Visa Signature Card

Citi PremierMiles Visa Card, DBS Altitude Card and ANZ Travel Visa Signature Card all offer 2 annual visits to lounges all over the world. They all have distinct pros and cons, which we have reviewed extensively one by one. For instance, Citi PMV card has a more generous welcome bonus, while DBS Altitude card costs less in annual fees.

On the other hand, ANZ Travel card has extremely high mile reward rates for expenditures in Australia or New Zealand. Please read our section on the best air miles cards in Singapore to learn which card fits your personal situation and circumstances best.

Conclusion

Considering that most flights are not that comfortable, the last thing a busy and tired person wants to do is walk around the airport and fight for sitting space at the gate area. Lounge access can be a great place for you to relax even just for 10-15 minutes before heading over to your gate. Couches are more comfortable, bathrooms are cleaner and there are even free drinks!

Given that these cards give you free access to such a great deal, we recommend you to actively utilize perks to squeeze every dollar of value from your travel credit cards. Rewards credit cards often cost a meaningful sum of annual fees, and it’s important that you are aware of the benefits these cards entitle you to, and how you can receive full value from them.

This article originally appeared on ValuePenguin.sg