Aeon Lounge Overview

Aeon is one of the biggest retail groups in Japan and operate, among other things, shopping centers and malls. Within these centers and malls you may find something called an Aeon Lounge. They don't exist in all of them, but most new buildings will include them along with a handful of older properties.

One of the ways you can get access to these lounges is holding stock in Aeon-related companies, so in this article I'll give an overview of their lounges and how to be allowed in.

Lounge Access Criteria

There are two ways to be qualified:

• Hold an Aeon credit card and spend at least 1 million yen a year on it.

• Own enough stock in one of their companies.

The stock requirements are as follows:

100 shares:

Aeon, Aeon Kyushu, Aeon Delight, MaxValu Tokai, Aeon Fantasy, Can Do

200 shares:

Aeon Mall, Aeon Financial Service, Ministop

500 shares:

Aeon Hokkaido

1,000 shares:

G-FOOT

1,500 shares:

COX

The rights day for all of these companies is the end of February, but Aeon also has an August rights date.

Lounge Experience

Please visit this site for a list of all of the lounges in the network.

The quality of lounge varies depending on the location, some are small with no windows, some are large and give you a nice view outside. I think newer locations usually have better lounges as the buildings are built to take lounges into account. The actual experience is similar across all of the lounges.

You are allowed to bring one person into the lounge with you.

Post-COVID Lounges

Once the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, the Aeon Lounges were shut down for years and only reopened in 2023. The experience since then has degraded significantly in the following ways:

• Previously, you just went to the lounge and either showed your stockholder lounge pass or an Aeon gold credit card. You now need to use iAEON to make a reservation. Holding the Aeon gold card is also not sufficient, you need to spend 1 million yen on it every year.

• You used to be able to bring 3 people in with you, this was reduced to 1.

• They used to provide snacks in the lounge, these are gone.

• There was no limit to the number of drinks, you are only allowed 1 now.

• They used to provide magazines and newspapers to read, these are gone now.

• You could use the lounges as often as you wanted, with a limit of once a day per lounge. This has changed to a limit of 5 times a month for the entire network.

With all of these restrictions I've found the lounges to not really be worth visiting anymore. They were never the most luxurious places to begin with but I would usually stop in with the family for a snack and a few drinks to unwind if I was in the area. Nowadays I might stop in just to get a drink and then leave immediately, and if you're shopping with your family then you likely won't be able to bring all of them with you unless several family members have lounge passes.

Lounges as a stock perk

Since so many Aeon-related stocks will give you access to these lounges, and many of those companies have additional perks that are more worthwhile, you may find yourself with a lounge pass regardless. If that's the case, you might as well register it with iAEON and maybe you can use it someday if you're thirsty while shopping. I highly recommend against investing specifically to get the lounge pass, however! The lounges are a popular topic for shareholders during the shareholder meetings so it's possible enough bad feedback will have them reverse some of the post-COVID changes, but I personally have my doubts. Either way, many of the Aeon companies have been doing well and continue to be healthy, while offer some good perks, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find other reasons to invest in them!