Lounge Review: Copa Club at Panama Tocumen International Airport (PTY), Terminal 2

On a recent trip to Central America, I took a bus from Costa Rica across the northern border of Panama and then decided to fly from Panama City to Bogota, the capital city of Colombia. So, I left my Panama City hotel at around noon and took a taxi to Panama Tocumen International Airport (PTY). I arrived at the airport several hours early, got my boarding pass and made my way through security to Terminal 2.

With my Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, I have an annual Priority Pass Select membership that gives me unlimited complimentary access to airport lounges across the globe. So, I went to the Priority Pass website and searched for lounges in PTY Terminal 2, and one of the results that came up was Copa Club.

Overall, I found the experience in Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2 to be above average, although it doesn’t compare with the experiences provided by luxury lounges like Chase Sapphire Lounges, Capital One Lounges and Amex Centurion Lounges. However, the Copa Club lounge had excellent ambience, decent food and beverage offerings and some great amenities.

Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2 Location and Hours

After passing through security at PTY, you’ll need to take a left to get to Copa Club. Once you turn left, you should see a sign for VIP Lounges right next to an escalator. You need to take this escalator to the mezzanine level. When you get to the top of the escalator, Copa Club will be on your left.

If you have trouble finding Copa Club, you can head towards gate 208, which is the closest gate to the escalator leading to this lounge. It also helps to remember that Copa Club is on the mezzanine level and it’s one of only two lounges in Terminal 2. So, if you’re standing on the ground floor of Terminal 2 and you look up and see something that looks like an airport lounge, then you can just walk toward that.

Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2 is open from 5:30 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. every day of the week.

Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2 Access and Entry Requirements

First of all, you’ll only be able to access Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2 if you have a same-day boarding pass for an international flight. There is another Copa Club lounge in Terminal 1 at PTY.

This lounge is accessible to passengers flying in business class or above with Copa Airlines or, because Copa Airlines is a member of Star Alliance, any other Star Alliance carrier. You can also access this lounge if you have Gold elite status or above in any Star Alliance frequent flyer program.

Likewise, you can get complimentary access to Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2 with a membership to Priority Pass, Lounge Key or Diners Club.

I was able to access this lounge with a Priority Pass membership that I have as a perk of my Capital One Venture X card, which has a $395 annual fee. This is one of the most affordable ways to get a Priority Pass membership. However, there are several other credit cards that offer unlimited complimentary access to Priority Pass lounges worldwide (for the member and up to two guests), including:

• The Platinum Card® from American Express
• Chase Sapphire Reserve®
• Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card

It’s worth noting that there are more affordable credit cards out there that offer two annual visits to Priority Pass lounges or similar perks, which could be ideal for more infrequent travelers. If you want unlimited access, though, the cheapest card that offers this perk is the Capital One Venture X.

Regardless of how you access this Copa Club lounge, there’s a maximum stay duration of five hours before your scheduled flight departure.

Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2 Layout and Amenities

Once you pass through the entrance to Copa Club, you’ll find a reception desk with a beautiful backdrop featuring the Copa Club logo surrounded by a multitude of real plants. This jungle theme is consistent throughout the entire lounge and really adds to the ambience.

Once you check in and pass through the entrance, you’ll find a large open space full of seating and outlets where you can charge your devices. Bordering the outside of this seating area are glass walls that allow you to look down at the foot traffic moving through PTY Terminal 2 and beyond to the planes arriving at their gates and taking off. These glass walls let in a lot of natural light and, in combination with the live plants populating the seating area, give you the impression that you’re outdoors.

If you move straight through the seating area, you’ll arrive at the bar, which has four televisions airing four different programs above a dark wood cabinet full of fine liquor bottles. The bar serves a decent selection of beer, wine, spirits and cocktails, which you can enjoy at the bar or take to another part of the lounge.

Past the bar, the seating area wraps around to the right and brings you to the buffet. Here, you’ll find a long island counter with a variety of food selections that vary depending on the time of day. Next to the food counter, you’ll also find a counter against the wall with a variety of beverages, including a state-of-the-art soft drink machine with a touchscreen as well as an automatic coffee machine.

If you walk from the buffet back towards the reception desk, you’ll find a hallway on your left that leads to several other rooms in the lounge. The first room you’ll notice is the media room, which features a massive screen housed in a classy wood display case showing four different television channels at once. There are also plenty of plush leather seats, which are probably the most comfortable chairs in the whole lounge.

Across from the media room, you’ll find a dimly lit room full of lounge chairs, each of which has a side table next to it featuring a power outlet and a lamp. If you want to take a nap or read a book in peace during your layover, this is probably the best room for you.

Next to the media room is the business center, which is basically a room full of luxury cubicles with plentiful outlets. This room is a great place to go if you need to focus on some work and charge your device. Each cubicle is also equipped with an adjustable leather office chair.

If you continue down this hallway, you’ll also come to the restrooms, showers and changing rooms. The bathrooms in this lounge were nicely decorated and well maintained. I didn’t have a chance to use the showers or the changing rooms, but I assume they were just as clean.

Near the reception area, there’s a luggage room where you can lock up your bags so you can move freely about the lounge without worrying about your luggage.

The layout and amenities of the Copa Club lounge at PTY, Terminal 2 are classy, well maintained, and give visitors the impression of being in the jungle.

Food and Beverages at Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2

While the decor, ambience and amenities of the Copa Club lounge are top-notch, this lounge really disappoints in terms of the quality of its food and beverage selections. For a lounge that feels so luxurious and was created with such attention to detail in regard to its interior design and wall art, it’s surprising that they dropped the ball in terms of refreshments.

When I arrived at Copa Club, it was about 2 p.m., and I assumed that they were serving their lunch menu. The main dishes available were pomodoro pasta and pasta bolognese (they were the same dishes, but the pasta bolognese had ground beef mixed in), both of which were dry and relatively flavorless.

At the buffet, there were also toast rounds, onion dip, spring rice salad and eggplant with vinaigrette dip. These dips and salads were actually quite delicious, in my opinion, but I didn’t really want to fill up on onion dip or eggplant dip (especially before a flight). There were also dessert offerings of guava rolls and orange valencia cake, which I didn’t try.

I also must add that this was my second visit to the Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2. During my first visit, which was around 10 p.m., the buffet was offering the same pomodoro pasta, pasta bolognese and the same desserts. This implies to me that this lounge doesn’t have separate lunch and dinner offerings, which is disappointing. And it also seems entirely possible that the pasta I ate for dinner during that visit had been sitting there since lunchtime, which isn’t ideal.

The beverage offerings at Copa Club are better than the food offerings, but still not overly impressive. On the wall counter next to the buffet, there’s a touchscreen soft drink machine, which dispenses water as well as Coca-Cola-owned soda brands, including Coca-Cola, Coke Zero, Fresca, Fuze Tea, Schweppes and Fanta. On this same counter, there’s also an automatic coffee machine that makes espresso drinks like lattes and cappuccinos.

At the bar, you can order beer, wine, spirits and cocktails, all of which are complimentary. The options for beer included Balboa (a popular beer among Panamanians), Atlas Golden Light (another Panamanian beer) and Corona Extra (which hails from Mexico). I chose to trust the Panamanian popular opinion and ordered a Balboa.

For wine drinkers, the bar offers sauvignon blanc and cabernet sauvignon from Casillero del Diablo, a Chilean winemaker. They also offer champagne, but I wasn’t able to get any more details about their champagne selection.

For spirits, the bartender was pouring from bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label scotch, Jack Daniel’s whiskey, Old Parr scotch, Tanqueray gin, Abuelo rum, Flor de Caña rum, Zacapa rum, La Hechicera rum, Smirnoff vodka, Kahlua coffee liqueur, Cinzano vermouth, Disaronno amaretto and others. There were also canned soft drinks for making cocktails.

In general, the food and beverages at Copa Club failed to live up to the standard set by the other aspects of the lounge. Of course, I don’t mean to complain about the complimentary food and beer that I received, and the staff serving these food and beverages were extremely kind and accommodating. All I’m saying is that, when I entered this lounge through the gorgeous reception area and saw the luxurious seating and fine decor, I expected better refreshments.

Unique Features at Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2

One of my favorite unique features of the Copa Club lounge at PTY, Terminal 2 was the wall art. The walls of this lounge were covered with black-and-white photos showing cross-sections of life in Panama, including some of the famous historic buildings from Panama City, people performing traditional Panamanian dances and much more. Additionally, near the media room, there was an entire display of Panama’s famous hats as well as some fascinating information about them. During my stay at Copa Club, I spent a good while walking around and appreciating the art, and I learned a little bit about Panamanian culture.

Of course, the other standout features of this lounge were the live plants and natural light. The entire seating area of the Copa Club lounge is full of live plants, which gives it a calm, outdoorsy vibe.

The lounge’s massive glass walls let in a ton of natural light during the daytime, making the space feel vibrant and open. The glass walls also allow you to watch the people walking around the terminal below and watch the planes as they pull into their gates and take off.

How Much Time Would You Spend at Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2?

If you’re looking for a place to relax, the Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2 is a great place to do so. You can take a nap, watch some television, take a shower, get a drink and easily spend the full maximum of five hours in this lounge without getting bored. However, if you arrive at this lounge hungry, you may not want to stay very long as the food offerings at this Copa Club are pretty lackluster.

I spent about 90 minutes in this lounge, and it was a good space to take out my laptop and get some work done. However, once I got hungry, I decided to leave in search of better food.

It’s also worth noting that there is another lounge (The Lounge at PTY, Terminal 2) just across the hall that’s also accessible to Priority Pass, Lounge Key and Diners Club members. So, if you have a long layover and you want to do a bit of “lounge-hopping,” you can just walk across the hall for a new experience.

Final Thoughts on Copa Club at PTY, Terminal 2

Overall, the Copa Club lounge at PTY, Terminal 2 is a beautiful space. It’s clear that a lot of thought went into its floor plan, interior design, wall art and amenities. And, when sitting in this lounge, it’s hard not to feel relaxed. The staff is very kind and friendly and there’s a ton of comfortable seating where you can kick back and charge your devices.

The main drawback of this lounge is, again, its unimpressive food and beverage offerings. For a lounge that creates such a wonderful experience in every other aspect, it’s disappointing that the food options are limited to pasta and dips. Nonetheless, if you’re like me, then you’ll still eat lousy airport lounge food instead of paying the exorbitant prices that restaurants and bars in the airport terminal charge.

The Copa Club lounge at PTY, Terminal 2 was a great place to pass 90 minutes before my flight to Colombia. And, although I was underwhelmed by the refreshments, I still left this lounge feeling relaxed and refreshed.