- If you're looking for a special way to fly
and you really want to treat yourself,
it doesn't need to be something extravagant
and it's something that exists
in almost every single airport.
And those are Airport Lounges.
It really is a little oasis inside an airport
that can elevate your travel experience
just so much more.
Out of all the airports that I've traveled to
in the USA, my favorite one has to be in Denver, Colorado
but my husband has not been there yet.
So, what we're doing in this video is we are
taking him to Denver, Colorado for one day,
just so we can check out my favorite airport lounge.
And hopefully, it'll become his too.
Okay, love. How do you feel
about our trip tomorrow?
- Hey!
I honestly, I don't really have too much expectations,
but I'm excited.
- Editing Maria here.
It's gonna get juicy.
So you're gonna wanna stay until the end.
Good morning, y'all.
Let's get ready for the day.
(upbeat techno music)
We have just touched down to Denver
and now we gonna head over to the lounge,
which is the Centurion lounge.
The reason why I like Centurian lounges so much is
because one, it's super spacious.
Two, the food usually is catered by award-winning chef.
And the third point is because it's such a huge upgrade
because they're so beautifully designed
that you feel like you're riding first class
when in reality, it's just economy.
(upbeat techno music)
We see the lounge just coming up right now.
Look right there.
Beautiful.
(upbeat techno music)
Those are fruits.
Salads.
He's already starting off.
Hash Browns, which I know I'm gonna participate in.
Okay. We got a feast.
How are your first expressions?
First impressions of the lounge?
- Really nice. I like it.
Breakfast was good.
My favorite thing was the biscuits and gravy.
If you come here and there's breakfast,
get the gravy over everything
and it's really good.
- We have finished our breakfast
and now we're gonna freshen up a little,
go into the city for a couple of hours
since we have a 7 hour layover,
come back here in order to go back to San Diego
and then check out the dinner menu
and explore more of the lounge.
(upbeat music)
We just got back from Downtown Denver.
And our original plan was to go ahead
and go back to the Centurion lounge
in order to get dinner but it is completely full
and not even full where we can get onto a wait list,
but the wait list is closed even
though the lounge closes in
about an hour and a half.
I'm so sorry you weren't able to explore more
of the lounge, but that does mean
that JM, we just gotta take him back here.
I'm gonna see if we have any more access
to any more of the lounges.
I don't think that we do.
We're probably going to grab food here
in the terminal.
- It was a little sad.
I was looking forward to dinner too
to see like the dinner menu.
They're just completely full.
- They're turning away everybody
that's trying to get on the wait list
because the wait list is completely closed.
- Yeah.
- This is now video editing Maria coming
to y'all with some thoughts.
Overall, the trip to Denver was so good.
Yes, we were there mainly to go
and see the Centurion lounge especially
since it's the newest one in America
but we really enjoyed going around Downtown Denver
and it makes us excited to book a trip
to Aspen and even Vail since they're both
on our bucket list.
We need to talk about the whole situation
with the overcrowding
and the wait list being closed an hour and a half
before closing at the Denver Centurion lounge, though.
The way that you get into a Centurion lounge
at any of the Centurion lounges
in the world is either being a Platinum
or a Black card holder with American Express.
Recently, American express bumped up its annual fee
from being around $550 to $700 a year,
which is a huge jump
and is the most premium annual fee there is
with credit cards right now.
For a while now, ever since I heard
about the annual fee being raised up,
I didn't know if I was going to renew
for another year once that new annual fee hits.
But now seeing travel in full force compared
to when I went to the Denver Centurion lounge
a couple months ago and it was pretty much empty
to traveling there in 2022,
it's like night and day. Finding a seat was hard.
Wait list closing early,
people were really upset,
even if they reserved the wait list on the app.
And we could tell that the staff was also stressed.
I know that with the rise of the annual fee,
a lot of current cardholders are going
to cancel their card and there's probably going
to be a huge drop in Platinum card applications.
So what does that mean?
It means that these lounges are going
to be a lot less crowded with less card holders.
I'm starting to really support this
because if Centurion wants to stand out from the
bunch with Capital One opening up lounges,
with Chase opening up lounges,
they need to address the issue
of just all airport lounges
in general, being overcrowded.
If y'all enjoyed this video
and you wanna see more from Following Maria,
go ahead and tap this video right here
which is a full tour of the Denver Centurion lounge
when I went a couple months ago
or binge this luxury travel playlist, right here.
See you in the next video.
Bye.
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