Part I: Phoenix to Los Angeles on Southwest Airlines
Because we wanted to stopover in LA to visit friends, we decided to pay with points for a Southwest Airlines flight to position ourselves for our Sunday Singapore Airlines departure. Normally, we'd try to tack on a free flight under the same award from Phoenix to our gateway city, but award rules/regulations aren't what they used to be! At less than $50 worth of points each way, it wasn't a major expense.
Southwest Airlines operates out of Terminal 4, which is also where American Airlines and a number of international airlines operates their flights as well. This makes flying Southwest excellent out of PHX, because of lounge access.
For me, I use the Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite credit card to access American Airlines' Admiral's Club lounges when traveling and don't otherwise have access. They're not the best lounges out there, but I've liked the newly-redesigned ones, and I always appreciate their liberal olive spread on the buffet. I do have, like 4 Priority Pass memberships at this point from various credit cards, but the lounge in PHX is pretty atrocious and it's usually reserved for BA flyers in the afternoons.
Phoenix has three Admiral's Club lounges at PHX, with two in the A concourses and one in the Bs. It's not super convenient for Southwest flights, which depart out of the other side of the airport, but if you don't mind a long walk for some free food, it can kill some time during a longer layover.
We had a few glasses of red wine to get the trip started, and some delicious carrot soup (Big fan of AA's soup game lately). It ain't the QF F lounge, but it'll do!
We made our way about 20 minutes before boarding to our departure gate in the D Concourse. Our flight, we found out, was a bit delayed coming in, and we boarded about 10 minutes late. Since we had A boarding group, we had 8th row aisle and middle seats for our short 1 hour 15 minute flight.
Unfortunately, LAX's air traffic control struck again, and we were trapped waiting at their mercy for about 30 minutes. Thankfully, we managed to squeeze in a new landing time, and we were off. While this trip, it made sense for us to fly into LAX with all our friends overpaying for beachside Santa Monica closets/apartments, I would avoid it if possible. Burbank (BUR) is just as convenient for those visiting parts of LA not on the coast, and don't have the ATC issues I've seen. With construction on the mid-field terminal at LAX, it's only gonna get worse. Same goes for Long Beach and John Wayne, though those are less convenient for LA visitors. I have had only 2 on-time flights in the last 8 into LAX from Phoenix, but perhaps I'm unlucky.
Thankfully, we arrived, and were quickly out of the terminal area with our carry-ons to make our way to the Hyatt Regency LAX.