Priority Pass (Temporarily) Suspends Access To Lounges In Russia Until Further Notice

Priority Pass has sent out an email to their members that cardholders won’t be able to use the membership to access lounges in Russia anymore until further notice.

All airport lounges and travel experiences in the Priority Pass program within Russia have been temporarily suspended and are unavailable for Members.

The suspension of services most likely will also have to do with the payments Priority Pass has to remit to the lounge operators for the visits made to that location by members.

Hard to say how many Priority Pass members there are in Russia who use the card for access to lounges when traveling (mostly domestically right now). Memberships are still sold individually or are attached to premium financial products on a global basis. Even though Russia has 140M+ citizens the economic structure is much different than that of most western countries so there won’t be even close to as many members as in Asia, continental Europe, or especially North America.

This is the email Priority Pass sent out today:

We’ll how long this “temporary suspension” of access is going to be. I have a feeling the majority of international PP customers won’t be impacted by this too much as Russia most likely is off the travel priority list for most people.

Rather than concerns for the current war situation, I think it’s mostly practical aspects that relate to the sanctions and financial transactions. How would they pay the lounge operators?

Conclusion

Priority Pass has suspended operations in Russia which means that all airport lounges and travel experiences Priority Pass had under agreement within Russia have been suspended for the time being.

That doesn’t mean these lounges are closed, just that Priority Pass is no longer accepting them as partners to be charged by. I haven’t traveled withinin Russia domestically but if it’s anything like China then these lounges also accept premium cards of local banks. Dragonpass might also still be available.