Tag Archives for Lounge Report 2015.
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.
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.
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 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.
After arriving in Brisbane from Los Angeles, transferring to a domestic flight means proceeding through immigration, picking up baggage and walking it through customs, and then rechecking bags. It also means taking a bus to transfer to the domestic terminal and re-clearing security.
I had the chance to visit Virgin Australia’s domestic lounge in Brisbane, and take a short 862 mile flight from Brisbane to Cairns in business class. All in all, for what it is, I was impressed.
I had an opportunity to see American Express Centurion lounge Miami last night and try the food since I was invited to the pre-opening party there.
The food was outstanding, especially the beef short rib and the fried chicken. There’s a spa, a kids room, and shower room. And gorgeous floor to ceiling windows spanning much of the lounge that overlook airport operations.
For sheer contrast with the rest of the Miami airport, this lounge is an amazing respite and a real win now that it’s opened.
I got to experience the strangest physical layout for a check-in experience I think I’ve come across — check in at one terminal, departure from a different terminal.
Virgin Australia uses the Star Alliance business class lounge, which features an outdoor deck and fire pits. A lovely way to start off a late night long haul departure…
Emirates dedicates an entire level of their Airbus A380 ‘A’ terminal at the Dubai airport for their First Class lounge. It expands across the entire concourse. And there’s just no one there, except for employees. Just how surreal an experience is it to spend time in a lounge that you cannot see the end of off in the horizon?
Now it was really time to head home from my Maldives trip, having had my fill of Sri Lankan food for the day. We checked out of the Hilton and made what was nearly an hour’s drive in traffic to the Colombo airport.
Once there, though, things moved quickly. I had boarding passes from the day before, picked up in Male for both Colombo – Dubai and Dubai – Dallas. And there was pretty much no wait at all for immigration formalities or security to head to the Emirates lounge while waiting to fly Emirates first class to Dubai…
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 »
