We had a nice weekend trip to New York with our older daughter at the end of March. We flew Delta and my wife and I even got upgraded to First Class on the way up. It was a 757-200 with lie-flat seats, which was a nice bonus on a short domestic flight. We stayed at the Luxury Collection Manhattan, which I reviewed last fall, thanks to a crazy deal using Marriott points that I wrote about last year which unfortunately can’t be repeated at this property anymore.

On our way home from JFK to ATL, we didn’t get upgraded, and because there were three of us, I decided we should visit the fairly new Chase Sapphire Lounge at JFK Terminal 4. Visiting either the Amex Centurion Lounge or the Delta SkyClub would have required a $50 guest fee for our daughter. As my wife is a Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholder, she can get herself and two guests into any of the Chase lounges (currently at BOS, LGA, JFK, IAD, PHX and PHL and coming soon to LAS and LAX.) I’ve previously reviewed the Chase Sapphire LGA Lounge. We’ll likely be visiting the BOS lounge in September when we fly JetBlue to Paris.

There was a short wait to enter the lounge. To the credit of the staffer taking down names, he told us it would be about 20 minutes and almost exactly 20 minutes after that, I received a text alerting us that we could enter. We were waiting near the elevators outside the lounge, so we were nearby when I got the text.

Once in the lounge, we showed my wife’s CSR and our boarding passes (no Priority Pass cards needed) and a staff member walked us to a table in the dining area. We could have moved to another spot, but we were all hungry anyway and the seats we took were still comfortable enough in the dining area.

There was a long bar with windows behind it in the main seating area.

The cocktail menu was somewhat limited and when my wife asked for something off menu (a cosmo), it wasn’t very good. They did make a decent old-fashioned though.

There was a small QR code menu plus a full buffet as well. We looked at the menu and ordered some food to our table.

My daughter got the grilled cheese and fries and enjoyed it. My wife ordered the lobster bisque and said it was just OK. I got the burger which we ended up sharing and it was pretty good. It came with fries. It did take about 20 minutes to get all our food so keep that in mind if you’re in a hurry.

I took a look at the buffet and there was a definite focus on halal dishes (no pork) as this lounge is also the first and business class Etihad lounge for JFK and they have two flights per day including, for now, an A380 which has a huge business class cabin. There was a decent dessert selection as well.

Soft drinks were available by the can which is nice as you can grab one to go as well. Seltzers and Coke products were in a fridge near the buffet. Water, iced tea and coffee were also available via self-service.

We left the lounge after about an hour to head to our gate. Unfortunately, we ended up getting massively delayed due to the storm system that was moving in. We were delayed around six hours in total and didn’t land in ATL until 3am!

The Chase Sapphire Lounge JFK is a pleasant place to pass some time before a flight, especially as you have the opportunity to get a party of three in the lounge without paying any guest fees. You may end up waiting as the lounge is fairly small and there are Etihad customers who will get priority during certain hours of the day. The Amex Centurion Lounge is right next door so if you have access to that as well, you can always try and enter that lounge while you are waiting. There’s also a Capital One Lounge coming to T4 this year so it will soon be one of the best terminals in the country for lounge access.

I don’t think the Chase JFK lounge is nearly as nice as the LGA version which is much larger, on two levels, and has a more extensive food and drink offering plus a game room and spa. However, the JFK lounge does have windows with views of the interesting and varied widebody traffic at T4 so that’s a nice feature.

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