Originally Posted by SanDiego1K

Just a heads up that check in opens in the evening at 7:30pm at JFK. I had called reservations as I was arriving into JFK quite early. I was blythely assured that the lounge opened at 5pm. That might be (and I was told again tonight that it does) - but you're not getting thru security without a boarding card, and the check in folks showed up at 7:30pm. The flight leaves at 11:30pm, so four hours in advance is plenty for most - but didn't happen to be for me. If I had known, I could at least have found a coffee shop (lower floor in the same terminal) and whiled away some time.