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In April word leaked that LAX would be getting a Centurion lounge finally. LAX is the number two airport traveled by Platinum Card from American Express cardholders. We should expect this lounge to open in 2019.
The lounge will be located in the in the Tom Bradley International terminal, and not where it was originally expected between terminals six and seven. It will be 13,693 square feet, 10% larger than the expanded Centurion lounge they’re building in Dallas.
The Tom Bradley terminal is connected to American’s terminal 4. You can access terminal 5 which is also used in part by American. From there you can walk inside security to terminal 6, then 7 and 8.
The LAX Centurion lounge will:
- Be about 13,900 square feet
- Offer a spa, family room and showers in addition to buffet and cocktails
- Have a new ‘tranquility area’ “offering both brightly-lit and dimly-lit quiet areas to help global travelers adjust to new time zones as they travel internationally.” American Express tells me they “will create a tranquil environment through sound, seating, light, and spaces” which doesn’t add much to the description.
Centurion lounge access is complimentary for Platinum Card from American Express cardholders. Everything inside – from food and alcohol to, in some lounges, spa treatments are complimentary as well). Access is also complimentary for Centurion (Black Card) cardholders of course. And no longer possible with other American Express cards.
American Express Centurion lounges currently open are Dallas Fort-Worth, Las Vegas, Miami, New York LaGuardia, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Philadelphia and Hong Kong.
Centurion Lounge, Hong Kong
Denver and New York JFK are confirmed to be in progress.
Together Los Angeles, Denver, and New York JFK will be the biggest Centurion lounges yet, crucial because the lounges are stylish and offering better food and other amenities than most US airline lounges and there’s more demand from passengers as a result. Larger lounges are needed to keep them from being too crowded.
If American Express is building larger Centurion lounges and expanding others, it will be necessary to also have bigger spas. The spa services are what truly separates Centurion lounges from run-of-the-mill airline lounges and Priority Pass lounges. In existing Centurion lounges it is often impossible to schedule spa services within a normal layover when there is only one manicurist and one or at most two masseuses. American Express should also increase the number of showers. One or two is not enough.
Food in the Centurion lounges is better than basic airline lounges. It is not as good as Flagship and Polaris lounges. And Centurion lounge food is clearly inferior to most restaurants in terms of variety, presentation and just about any other way you want to slice it. After the Centurion lounge opens at DEN, eating at Timberline Steaks & Grille with a $28 Priority Pass credit will still be the best bet for food.
@john – you’re kidding, right? Stepping into an AMEX lounge is differentiation enough. Throw the spa in and it’s way above anything else.
It’s amusing that AMEX thinks these new tranquility areas will actually work, the lounges are so crowded that, other than a better meal and a massage, there won’t be much peace and quiet in there…
@ Robert, I’m serious as a heart attack mate. Spa services are great as long as you have a chance to use them. Building Centurion lounges with double or triple the capacity of the original ones means potentially doubling or tripling the number of customers. That should also require having spas that are two or three times bigger than the spas in the original lounges.
I agree that Centurion lounges are often too crowded. Merely being in an over crowded lounge is no fun in my book. We’ll see if making Centurion lounges bigger solves that problem. With respect to spa services, unless the capacity of the spas is increased at least proportionally, bigger lounges will make the chances of getting spa services worse.
In an international terminal loaded with lounges, this location doesn’t help the average domestic traveler much if at all, so this Centurion feels like an outlier. It’s not going to keep me from cancelling at the end of this cycle.
Cant understand why it wouldn’t be part of the airport expansion elsewhere.
In a way its symptomatic of the entire hobby and where its going. Only benefits the single or non-family traveler on crazy itineraries. I am not planning to travel to Ukraine or Vietnam anytime soon. Not sure that I care if Singapore is going to suspend its LAX-Tokyo service. Not interested in a 4th trip to the Maldives. But what else is there to write about? What I would like is a saver business class ticket to PHL or even LHR once in a while. But these are unicorns in the dark forest, killed off by the Voldemorts of the airline business (looking at you Kirby & Parker).
So Centurion lounge at TBIT is white noise at best.