A two-floor lounge tucked inside LaGuardia's Terminal B has just been crowned the best independent airport lounge on the planet, edging out competitors in Rome, Hong Kong and London. The Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club, which spans more than 20,000 square feet with greenery, gold finishes and a circular bar, took the top spot in the 2026 World Airline Awards, a ranking built on traveler votes.
The honor comes courtesy of Skytrax, which named the lounge the world's best independent airport lounge, according to Time Out New York. The 2026 ranking, based on a passenger satisfaction survey conducted between September 2025 and August 2026, put Plaza Premium Lounge at Rome's Fiumicino Airport in second place and Chase's own Hong Kong location third, as reported by The Future Media. Closer to home, the JFK-based Capital One Lounge placed fifth globally and the JFK American Express Centurion Lounge placed sixth, while the LaGuardia Centurion Lounge landed at 11th.
What's Inside the Winning Space
The lounge, which officially opened on January 16, 2024, as Chase's largest airport lounge at the time, occupies 21,800 square feet across two levels, per Award Wallet. It's stocked with separate zones for working, eating and relaxing, plus a children's playroom, a photobooth, a retro arcade and private phone booths. Sailor serves as the lounge's menu partner, Joe Coffee supplies the caffeine, Apotheke handles craft cocktails and Parcelle curates the wine list, with complimentary food and drinks included for guests.
The wellness offerings go further than a typical airport club. The lounge's dedicated wellness area offers on-site facial treatments performed by estheticians from Face Haus, along with complimentary travel skincare kits for treatment guests, the report notes. Those relaxation spaces and facial treatment rooms sit alongside the quiet zones and phone booths, rounding out amenities built for travelers with hours to kill before a flight.
Reserve Suites Add an Ultra-Premium Tier
Beyond the main floor, Chase built out bookable Reserve Suites featuring private dining rooms, custom food menus, private bathrooms with showers and optional caviar service, according to the same account. The architectural concept came from interior firm ICRAVE with Corgan as lead architect, using custom furnishings from Italian designers Cappellini, Poliform, Moroso and DePadova, per a separate report. The project was developed in partnership with Airport Dimensions.
Getting In the Door
Access to the lounge comes with layered rules depending on which card a traveler carries. Chase offers complimentary entry to Sapphire Reserve cardmembers, J.P. Morgan Reserve cardmembers and Ritz-Carlton cardmembers, with eligible cardholders permitted to bring up to two guests. Entry requires a valid departing boarding pass and generally opens three hours before a flight.
Travelers relying on third-party Priority Pass memberships face tighter limits. Priority Pass members holding cards from issuers other than Chase get one complimentary entry at each Sapphire Lounge location per calendar year, with subsequent visits to that location costing $75 per person, the report states. The lounge sits after security on level 4 of Terminal B and is open from 4:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily.
A Crowded Field of Independent Lounges
Chase's win comes despite the continued dominance of one operator. Plaza Premium Group was named the World's Best Independent Airport Lounge Group for the tenth consecutive year at the 2026 Skytrax awards, placing two individual lounges in the global top five, in Rome and London, per The Future Media. Chase's first-place finish was notable despite Plaza Premium Group's continued dominance in the category.
The LaGuardia win also tracks a broader expansion strategy. Chase opened its first international lounge in Hong Kong in late 2022 and its first domestic location at Boston Logan in May 2023. Hoodline covered that build-out in its Logan lounge coverage, noting how credit card issuers are competing directly with airline and third-party clubs for premium travelers.
Part of LaGuardia's Larger Transformation
The award-winning lounge sits inside a terminal that has itself become a symbol of turnaround. Terminal B underwent a redevelopment. That rebuild is one piece of a much larger regional buildout: LaGuardia's Terminal B work forms part of a broader $50 billion airport modernization effort led by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which also includes an ongoing $19 billion overhaul of JFK Airport and gate expansions at Newark Liberty, as Hoodline detailed in its report on Newark's gate expansion.
