Definitely No SFO Admirals Club Access (Perhaps When New AL and AC Open?)
 

Given today’s partnership announcement I tried to access the SFO Admirals Club today and was denied. The AA lounge attendant told me access is to every lounge except SFO and there were a lot of disappointed people today.

Thank you for taking one for the team. I was considering buying AS lounge membership primarily to access the SFO lounge.

Take a look at getting an AA Exec card. Full AA membership including SFO, full AS access. The differences are down in the weeds of some partner locations, but worth checking if the differences matter to you.

This exclusion is explicitly listed on the Alaska Airlines site. https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...er-overview:AA

Alaska’s web site announcing the access to “all” Admirals Clubs is quite clear on this too:

Given the short timescale on which a) the AA T2 club will be open and b) AS’s lounge isn’t open, I’m not sure that’s a reason to get the AA card anymore.

As stayed above, AS will not have access to the AA Lounge in T2. AA is moving to T1 in March/April and will have a dedicated lounge there. This is also true for AS who are building their own Lounge in T2.

The email from Alaska said, with no asterisks or qualifiers, that, "Effective immediately", "Access any of American’s 50 Admirals Club locations worldwide with an Alaska Lounge membership." So it was reasonable to think that the access restrictions had been dropped. But it turned out that the SFO restriction remains. (As far as I know, before today, Alaska Lounge members has access to all ACs except SFO, so it was especially reasonable the email stating that something had changed as meaning that SFO was now accessible. But no.)

yes, I misquoted and admit I did not see the email. As I understand it, one of the main reasons for denying entry for AS members was the over crowding of the AA Lounge . This is reasonable considering a lot of air carriers deny entry to third party in favor of their own members.

The AA AC at SFO is OK, and I used it last month before my AS flight to SEA, but I had an onward JL flight to NRT, so OW rules applied. They did scan my AS BP, and I showed them my eTicket as I didn't have JL BP's as OLCI wasn't permitted for passport check. I'm wondering if AS would move to the South Terminal also, but for the upcoming AS lounge opening in "T2".

It’s like that Louis CK joke - about how people get all upset about some new thing they *just* find out about doesn’t work perfectly. How quickly they feel entitled - especially when it’s free.


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We’re people really ‘disappointed’ within 12 hours of some new perk they never had before? And it didn’t work exactly on time, instantaneously and seemlessly, totally for free??

:td:

I would not bother with a new CC and a $450 fee just for SFO access between now and this fall when there will be access to both he new AA and AS facilities. The card may make sense for other reasons.

Alaska Lounge members do not currently have access to The Admirals Club in San Francisco International's Terminal 2 due to space constraints. Alaska will be opening a new 8,500-square-foot, top-floor lounge in Terminal 2 this fall.

Yup. SFO will have an abundance of options in the (relatively) near future for AA and AS flyers.

Current AC at SFO is nice enough but the restriction is necessary, as it's already very crowded without the added AS pax.

Great just what we need. The AC are completely packed full as they are now and we get to look forward to AS members now joining ranks? Ugh.

My annoyance is that the email, with no asterisk, suggested that "effective immediately" lounge members were getting an additional benefit that did not already exist. Poor communication in my book.

Other than the SFO AC, AS members have already had access for years now.