Plaza Premium Lounge – Transborder Vancouver International Airport.
I got the email the night before travel from Alaska Airlines to attempt an online check in. Alaska is quite sticky with the remote check ins for international travel; something they haven’t quite gotten over. They seem to be wholly focused on being a USA carrier, despite offering co-branded credit cards in Canada. The Alaska App for check in was unsuccessful, as was the online interface.
We had a reasonable get away today. I was up at 5:15 AM to button up the house and MrsWT73 drove us to the airport. She dropped me with the bags and went to go park the car.
We checked in at the lonely Alaska Counter at 7:15 AM; about 2.5 hours before our flight. The friendly Alaska agent weighed the bags (a first) and was able to check them right through to Reykjavik. We also got our boarding cards all the way though to Reykjavik.
We dropped our bags. Since I had starved myself on our last Africa trip, I made MrsWT73 stop at the White Spot restaurant in the domestic terminal for a full breakfast. White Spot is a local BC brand of casual restaurants better known for the quality of it’s breakfasts versus its greasy dinners. The Nat’s Hearty breakfast was to my liking, but MrsWT73 didn’t care much for the broccoli and cheese egg white omelette.
We headed back over to the Us Transborder Departures area and head through a quiet screening and US Customs and Border Protection clearance. I had given up on not having lounge access when we travel so earlier in August, I opted to get one of those swanky American Express Platinum cards. This came with a Priority Pass Select membership which I had already used a dozen times on some work trips. After security, we followed the maze like concourse down to the main departures area.
We headed over to the Plaza Premium Lounge Transborder which started out life as an Alaska Airlines Boardroom. A friendly check of the electronic membership card and we were allowed in.
The lounge itself is quite a small and compact space. It has the usual larger Plaza Premium Lounge chairs that are all around the world. Unfortunately, the large chairs seem a little out of place in this tiny 2000 sq ft lounge.
The lounge had interior views of the escalators leading into the international arrivals hall. They were not terrific views, but better than a windowless basement.
There was a small split food display with some scrambled eggs and sausages available along with packets of instant noodles.
We settled in and watched the CNN highlights of Senator John McCains public viewing lying in state at the Washington Capital.
A flight delay of 50 minutes was posted. It was the third flight delay we’ve had flying this segment. The reason was due to Seattle Traffic Control.
This Plaza Premium Lounge fits into the category of "better than nothing" lounges. I wouldn't make special arrangements to attend early but it is marginally better than absolutely nothing. The real lounge winner in the YVR Transborder area is the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge which has great tarmac views.