Lounge availability LAX prior to night Qantas flight?
 

Flying first class to Australia on Qantas using American Airlines frequent flier miles (Platinum on AA, Admirals Club member) from Los Angeles:

LAX to Sydney QF12 leaving LAX around 10 PM.

What are my lounge choice(s) while waiting in LAX and where are they located? If more than one, which is preferred?

That flight leaves from the international terminal (TBIT), so you want the oneworld first class lounge, on the 5th floor after clearing security. It's a good lounge with good food and drink (better than any AC anyway), though it can get a little crowded at times and the wifi is absurdly slow.

If you are flying back from SYD also in First on QF, you will enjoy the Qantas First Class lounge which is really nice. The word is that once the updated and expanded Bradley terminal at LAX opens, Qantas will run the new oneworld lounges, modeled on the Sydney ones. But that's off in 2013, assuming Qantas stays in oneworld . . .

There is a shared lounge between QF/BA/CX located past security (go right, not left, from the check-in area when you choose which security checkpoint to go through). After you pass security, there is an elevator almost dead ahead that will take you up to the lounge. When you get up, there are the lounge check-in desks and they will direct you to the right for first class (left is business class).

I'm not a huge fan of this lounge - it's usually very busy because QF/BA/CX all have 777s/747s/A380s leaving around the same time, and the food/drink selection is not the best. But...it's better than hanging out in the gate area (and way better than the business class lounge which, I must say, I've actually left and chosen to sit in an empty TBIT gate area before as it was quieter, more relaxing and with a better view).

If you are coming in on an AA flight I would suggest hanging out in the Flagship Lounge in T4 for a while. The wifi actually works pretty well there and you can actually see outside. There is an airside shuttle that runs from T4 to TBIT. It can be kind of fun to race a 747 or a 777:D.

When I did this at the end of May the Flagship Lounge wasn't too crowded and the food choices were ok.

Enjoy your trip!

I am coming in on an AA flight that is part of the ticketed reservation, but the flight arrives in LAX the day before the Qantas segment of the flight. We will stay in a hotel that night. Is the Flagship Lounge in T4 still an option before our Qantas flight, or only the one world first class lounge in TBIT?

Sadly no access to T4 the next day with your flight out of TBIT....

Not really ...

You are not supposed to be able to proceed though security at T4 if your flight is departing from TBIT.

Showers in one world lounge in TBIT?
 

Are there showers in the one world lounge in the LAX TBIT?

If so, is there typically a long wait?

What amenities (shower caps, towels, soap, toothbrush, etc.) do they supply and are the showers nice?

Yes, of course there are showers, this is QF not AA :) Actually I cannot think of a single QF-branded international lounge that did not have showers that I've visited (and so do the major domestic lounges such as SYD and MEL). Soap/shampoo/towels are provided in the shower suite, toothbrush, shavers and maybe shower caps can be requested from the attendant and are typically stocked. I don't know the wait time for J showers, for F it has never been any wait the few dozen times that I have used it. The J lounge gets very crowded but most people are eating and using wifi rather than showering. The danger is that if the J lounge reaches capacity (which does happen at times), then Oneworld diverts pax to several other non-Oneworld lounges at TBIT that they contract and those are much less nice lounges (in past years I've been sent to the AF and KE lounges, which no longer exist in the TBIT rebuild).

Check in with luggage opens from 2pm (fulle service, such as ticketing from 4pm) so if want a shower you can make plenty of time. (http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airl...eles/global/en)

Towels are provided, soap, shampoo conditioner in bulk for each cubicle. You may request toothbrush/paste, razors etc. on entry.

Lounge availability LAX prior to night Qantas flight?
 

The J and F showers at QF TBIT are shared ie. the same showers. The lounge is nothing special, very crowded at night, woeful wi-fi and I wouldn't make any great effort to maximize time there. The onboard experience will be much better however :cool:

Things will improve once the new lounge opens. The current one is temporary while the TBIT work is going on.

That's a bit misleading. The temporary one was out in the hangar! The current one is the newly built but ill-conceived Oneworld lounge, completed circa 2010. It was intended to be the final lounge configuration and was designed before the TBIT expansion was approved (so the footprint was constrained). The LAX expansion is saving QF's bacon by allowing a 2nd attempt at creating a new Oneworld lounge. QF has announced that LAX will have a SYD style F lounge, fwiw. Not sure what they plan for J, presumably it is shared with BA and CX and LA.

The new oneworld TBIT lounges will absorb the current *A lounge area an a bit more (*A move to a 'new' floor above) - so will have more than twice the space.

You know, I dealt with crowded lounges before and can understand space retrictions/peak time issues - but I can't believe how pathetic the Wifi has been - consistantly - no such excuses there.