When you come down the hallway from the Jamaica Airtrain station to the area where the ticket machines are (Airtrain side), there's 2 LIRR machines to the extreme right. They are separate from the large bank of ticket machines against the long wall.

In other words, coming from Airtrain, as soon as you get to the end of the hallway, make a right. The large bank of airtrain ticket machines are straight ahead along the long wall. Face 90 degrees right again, and there they are.

Next time you are going to the airport, go through the Airtrain turnstile and look about 10 degrees left and you'll see them.

First you punch in your LIRR destination (Jamaica - Penn Station) choose ticket type (One way, round trip, ... Peak, off Peak, etc), then it gives you an option to add a metro-card/airtrain to it. Choices are $5 or $20 metro card.

It was exactly what they said it was. A metro card on one side, the LIRR ticket on the other side. Very handy. Only one machine to use and one credit card swipe (or ATM or cash transaction) and a single two-sided ticket.

-David