Category Archives for Lounges.
The old “The Club” lounge space at the Phoenix airport has been renovated and enlarged and is now two separate lounges with a shared entrance and separate reception spaces. It is an American Express Centurion Lounge and also an Escape Lounge. And they’re both now open.
Air France offers space available upgrades from business class to first class at check-in. This is true even for customers flying business class on an award ticket.
A reader shares that he bought up from a business class award ticket to first class flying Washington Dulles – Paris. He detailed the first class experience on the ground at Dulles airport.
Air Tahiti Nui uses the LAX International Lounge – or more formally, Los Angeles International Lounge at LAX. I hadn’t visited this lounge before, and my expectation were low – but exceeded.
The Los Angeles International lounge is used by El Al, Air Tahiti Nui, Philippine Airlines, Fiji Airways. The lounge is also used by Japan Airlines for premium economy passengers. It was basically empty while I was there, and seems a perfect candidate for Priority Pass, but it isn’t accessible through any lounge access programs – just with a qualifying boarding pass.
American Express is running a pop up Centurion lounge in Manhattan next weekend. They want to be where their customers are, and they want to be where their customers are shopping.
Other pop ups have foretold where they wanted to offer a permanent lounge. For instance they had a pop up at LAX before getting a deal done to build a lounge there. They did a London pop up and then announced a London Heathrow Centurion lounge.
Turkish has opened a lounge on the E concourse at the Miami airport yesterday. It isn’t listed on the Priority Pass website yet however they’re accepting Priority Pass.
There was a time I would have argued that the Qantas first class lounge at LAX was the best lounge in the United States. That was before United opened its Polaris lounges, and American opened its Flagship First Class dining rooms.
While I prefer the ambiance of the Star Alliance business class lounge’s outdoor deck with fire pits at LAX, the sit down dining of the Qantas lounge makes it the most desirable place to spend time in the Tom Bradley international terminal prior to a flight.
With the continued blockade of Qatar led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE there are far fewer Qatar Airways short haul flights. That means fewer passengers with Al Safwa lounge access.
At the beginning of the year they started monetizing access to the lounge, upselling business class passengers initially for as little as $69 but more recently for $165. Now Qatar Airways has extended al Safwa lounge access to their Privilege Club Platinum members flying in business class.
In January American re-opened their large Boston Admirals Club. In February they re-opened their refurbished Charlotte Concourse B club. In May they opened their Flagship Lounge and Dining and refurbished Admirals Club at Dallas-Fort Worth Concourse D.
Major projects that are underway:
You may have lounge access if you’re flying international business or first class, have high enough elite status, or a Priority Pass card that gets you into certain lounges.
However connecting through Singapore it’s even easier than that.
With American Airlines opening 15 new gates in the E satellite concourse of Dallas Fort-Worth airport they’ve surged to 900 peak daily departures at the airport and opened a fifth Admirals CLub there.
Charlotte is their second largest hub, and they’re growing it to 700 daily departures. There just aren’t enough rocking chairs there to go around.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
