Originally Posted by MahiMahi524

I never thought I'd say this, but SkyTeam has the best set of lounges by far at LAX. I remember when it was just the horrible KAL lounge while Star Alliance and OneWorld had their new lounges. Now the tables have turned. I'm a OWE so dont' get a chance to visit SkyTeam lounges typically, and in my mind the reputation of SkyTeam has always been a little below OW and *A. However, this time flying on China Airlines (biz, no status), I wanted to try to catch the Clarins spa at the Air France lounge and also check out the newly renovated Korean Air lounge. I knew that I did not have access to the Delta One lounge for this flight, though having tried the Delta One lounge in the past, know that it is quite nice. SkyTeam has very unclear lounge access rules on their website, and often lounges have all sorts of weird restrictions. I checked with all the SkyTeam lounges to confirm access and turns out China Airlines gets you in to all of them except Delta One (though you can get into Delta Club, but with the other choices that's an easy pass).

The Air France lounge has an automatic scanner which won't approve entrance until 3 hours prior to departure, although the kind agent let me in after looking up my ticket manually. Unfortunately, the Clarins spa closes at 7:30 PM, despite some sources saying 8:30. Thus, it was too late when I arrived. I've been stymied on trying to try this since it opened. I missed its opening by days on my first attempt, and on my second attempt my flight was rescheduled to earlier than it opens, and this time my flight was rescheduled to a time after it closed. The desk told me that it really wasn't busy, so it seems like there is not a lot of demand for those services. As usual, they have a great selection of wine and cheese, and a full bar. Their buffet food is also pretty good with a good variety of French-influenced foods and pastries. The made-to-order kitchen was a shrimp/avocado salad.

I then went to the beautiful new Korean Air lounge, which looks fantastic post-renovation. If its prior incarnation was like a roadside motel, this version is like a high-end city hotel. The warm light wood and lamps are really relaxing, and the food is a tremendous upgrade from the instant noodles they used to have. The Korean selections are much better than the Western options, and included a collaboration with the trendy Culinary Class Wars 2 chef Ok Dongsik for his Dweji Gomtang at the hot kitchen. While everything is premade, there is a "chef" who puts all the ingredients together on demand so things don't get too soggy. That's pretty similar to how most other lounges do their "fresh" food, including Air France. The bright and spacious seating areas are where I would choose to park myself if you've had your fill of