Category Archives for Trip Reports.
American Express’ first ‘Centurion Studio’ opened a month ago at Seattle’s international airport, across from gate B3.
Overall it was a nice space, where I enjoyed spending a couple of hours. I definitely prefer it over the Alaska Airlines Boardroom (but no pancake machine) and over the United Club there. But make no mistake, it’s not a Centurion Lounge if you’ve been to one of those in another U.S. airport.
After missing my Virgin Australia flight to Los Angeles and spending the night at the Rydges hotel at the airport, I was re-booked onto Delta’s own Sydney – Los Angeles flight.
I was actually excited to be able to compare Virgin Australia’s 7-across business class to Delta’s four-across. Delta operates the flight with a Boeing 777 fitted with (not reverse) herringbone seats and unfortunately no internet. So not the airline’s best product, but decent enough.
The last stop on my Sydney lounge tour was the Air New Zealand temporary lounge.
The temporary lounge was.. interesting. It’s a drab, windowless space that was definitely too small for all of the passengers it was servicing. Like the rest of the downstairs lounges, the ceilings weren’t especially high. This one had no windows.
But it did retain the Air New Zealand hot dog stand.
Right beside the American Express lounge is the Skyteam lounge, and as a Delta business class passenger I had access. So that became my second stop on the day’s lounge tour of the Sydney airport before my flight back to Los Angeles. Hence I have the opportunity to offer this Skyteam Lounge Sydney review.
The lounge features internet, showers and power at each seat. The lounge is about 8000 square feet and advertised to support either 140 or 150 passengers.
There’s ample seating and tarmac views to be sure, though I found the ceilings a bit low and the overall feel of the lounge to be less uplifting than the windows and bright furnishings would have you expect.
I needed to be in New York on Monday for meetings, so I flew up Sunday night. I spent less than 20 hours in the city.
My plan was a hotel near my first meeting of the day. And the W Times Square was both reasonably close and priced ~ $180 on a ‘AAA Hot Deal’. I hadn’t ever stayed there, so figured I’d give it a go.
I used Starwood’s app and was happy to see the hotel come up as ready for their new ‘keyless’ option — you check-in with your phone, your phone acts as a room key, and you can bypass the front desk entirely. At about 10pm, wanting to get sleep before morning meetings, that appealed to me.
Good Sri Lankan food is always a great option. Spicy Lanka is just 5 miles from New York’s JFK airport.
I was in New York for about 20 hours, flying into LaGuardia and out of JFK. I was on a 5:30pm flight out yesterday. The lunch event I attended in Manhattan yesterday was more useful for talking with folks and I decided not to eat anything, I got out of there around 2:30pm, so I decided to stop here on the way to the airport. Good call.
After checking in with Delta and obtaining my boarding pass, I decided to lounge hop since I had access to at least three different lounges in the international terminal.. My first stop would be the American Express lounge.
I’ve always said if you’ve never missed a flight you spend too much time in airports. Usually the cost to miss a flight is relatively low but if you’re showing up early, each and every trip, you need to add up all that time… it’s a lot.
There are times when the cost of missing a flight can be much greater — like when you’re trying to fly from Australia to the U.S. and there just aren’t a lot of flights. And when you’re doing it on an award ticket in business class. You really do want to show up on time.
I stayed at the Park Hyatt Sydney back over Thanksgiving, having reserved the hotel before it went up to category 7. I had a decidedly mixed stay, largely colored by an insistence that if I wanted an Opera View room upgrade (not even an Opera Deluxe, let alone a suite) I would have to pay a $100 per night upcharge as a Gold Passport Diamond member.
That was all sorted at the end of the stay, and I was happy to return and give the hotel another shot. I was in Sydney for my cousin’s wedding, and the location of the hotel is actually perfect for me since it’s right by the ferries that take me out to the suburbs where they live.
I love North Queensland, Australia but after just 3 nights I had to leave. That meant a stop at the Virgin Australia lounge in the Cairns airport and a business class flight (thanks to my Delta miles) Cairns – Sydney.
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 »
