CIMB has granted its cardholders complimentary access to the Sky Lounge at Subang SkyPark Airport with a minimum spend of RM2000 on that same month.
Before you get too excited, know that there isn't anything inherently great about the Sky Lounge, other than apparently serving some excellent Nasi Lemak.
In fact, Priority Pass cardholders already had access to this lounge for a considerable amount of time.
If you're a frequent domestic traveller or if you travel to Singapore Seletar via Firefly frequently, you'll be happy to know that the lounge is open from 6am to 8pm daily. While Subang is a relatively small airport, gaining access to the lounge makes for a convenient addition to your schedule, should you find yourselves too busy to indulge in the local eateries around Ara Damansara, located just 5km away from the airport.
The following CIMB credit cards have complimentary access:
CIMB Preferred Visa Infinite
CIMB Preferred Visa Infinite-i
CIMB Visa Infinite
CIMB Visa Signature
CIMB's Woeful Lounge Access Rules Continues
I've written in several articles that CIMB's way of handling airport lounge access rules is ineffective, and in many cases, you'll find yourselves stuck outside the lounge despite meeting the respective spend criteria for your credit cards.
The addition of the Sky Lounge appears to follow a new set of rules for lounge access, and that rule appears to be that you'll need to achieve the RM2000 spend condition within the same month of accessing this particular lounge. In CIMB's T&C above, it states that if you access the lounge on 29 March 2024 and you've only spent RM1900 in March, you will be billed RM100 as you do not meet the spend condition.
Sounds familiar? This is exactly the poorly designed lounge access policy that is present on the CIMB Travel credit cards!
Why is this an issue? It's an issue because if I access the Sky Lounge on 31 March 2024, and had spent RM0 in March, but I proceed to spend RM20,000 on 1 April 2024, I'll effectively be billed RM100 for that lounge access, which is ridiculous to say the least. Of course, I believe this effectively comes down to the limitations of the backend systems, but one might wonder how difficult it is to come up with a lounge access policy that is both fair and coherent.
Final Thoughts
The addition of the Sky Lounge to CIMB's lounge portfolio is a positive one, but it's never-ending confusing lounge access policy isn't. Other details for this partnership include:
Access to Sky Lounge 4X per month.
Maximum access 12X per year.
Principal and Supplementary cardholders are eligible. Access shared.
Access to Sky Lounge do not use your existing lounge access caps at other airports.
