A very enjoyable read as always, SFO777 - and welcome to BA Gold!
The breakfast on your LAX-ORD sector does look OK for AA!
The more I see United’s Polaris lounges, the more I like the look of them. They’ve done well to distance themselves from their normal United Club lounge design.
I’ve always liked the look of LH’s F cabins (at least since the change from the blue paired seating!), but the seats still appear to be quite open and lacking in privacy. Henriot is rather unimpressive for international F. The burger main course is also pretty poor, at least visually. The LH F ground experience at FRA continues to look pretty decent what with the FCT and car transfers to remote stands; it almost makes you actually want a remote stand!
I commented on the new EK F product in your separate report before realising it was part of this report, so won’t repeat those comments here. I find the EK lounges at DXB Concourse A to be a little impersonal. Admittedly I’ve only visited the Business Class lounge, but it was almost too spacious. The tartan chairs in the dining area look a little out of place. EK’s old F product on the 77W looks pretty dated and way too blingy for my taste, but it’s still an impressive product for a 3-hour flight!
Nice images of Petra - looks like a great use of your stopover time in Amman.
The RJ lounge looks OK, but would probably be nicer in the daylight when the rather austere terminal ceiling wasn’t so obvious. The catering on your AMM-CAI sector is very impressive for such a short flight - I love the table cloth in particular!
As airport hotels go the Le Meridien at CAI looks pretty decent, although that’s more than can be said for the third party lounge BA uses at the airport.
You got the old Club World soft product on both the CAI-LHR and LHR-LAX flights; the new amenity kits, bedding and catering are a real step up. The divider between Club World seats can be raised straight after the safety video has played, so you don’t have to stare at your neighbours for either takeoff or landing. I agree the design of the seats is well past its use-by date though; new direct aisle access Club World seats are (finally!) coming with BA’s first A350 in the next 6 months or so.
AA have done an OK job with their new Flagship lounges, but they appear to suffer from overcrowding now that 3-class J passengers and oneworld Sapphire members are allowed access. The space at LAX is particularly small in comparison to the JFK lounge. The Flagship First Dining product is the only ‘exclusive’ thing about Flagship lounges these days, although it’s a shame that the catering wasn’t good at LAX. I agree with you about the thick dividers in the LAX lounge. I haven’t tried AA’s Flagship First Dining product yet, but the BA Concorde Room at JFK is worthy of a challenger to the ‘best lounge in the country’ label - with the LAX QF First lounge coming a close second in my opinion.
The catering on the LAX-HNL sector looks pretty poor for such a long domestic flight, although slightly better on the return sector. I don’t have an issue with older cabin crew provided they can safely and professionally carry out their duties; there’s no excuse not to close the galley curtain though (although on AA I guess it’s more of a veil anyway).
I remain unimpressed with AA’s catering, even in 3-class F on the LAX-JFK sector; the options are essentially the same as in J on that route, just plated and presented differently. I didn’t know the A321T operated JFK-BOS. I might have to give that a try!