Carl Christensen

We have in January TN (Air Tahiti Nui) F tickets booked with AA miles. (LAX-PPT)

Depart 5 pm.

We will land in Lax around 10 am *on a separate ticket* with checked bags thus no through check. So we will have to claim our checked bags.

Having flown with TN before, I seem to recall international departures check in only opens 3 hours prior.

Any ideas of how we could spend time in LAX at lounges etc airside?

Is there a service to store your bags for a few hours for a fee? Could I go through security with our checked bags? And then go back out once the TN desk opens?

Are we stuck for 4 hours outside? Any better location to ask this?

anabolism

To be clear, you will arrive in LAX at 10am on a domestic flight, and then connect to your TN flight at 5PM, right? On which airline are you flying to LAX? TN uses TBIT, so if you fly in domestically (or via pre-clearance) on AA or an airline landing at TBIT or T4, T5, T6, Y7, or T8, you can stay airside and then go out to pick up your checked bags. Your checked bags may be collected and put aside, of course, but that shouldn't delay collecting them much if any. You could then use an airside lounge if you have access (e.g., a membership or a credit card with Priority Pass) or buy a day pass.

Carl Christensen

Arriving on a domestic flight 10:55 a - Delta booked separately due to difficulty getting award availability from AA connecting to the TN flight.

I guess that is an idea - just don't exit and let our suitcases be collected and then 3 hours prior to TN departure, exit air side and go collect bags and go through TN check in. Although, I would be a bit worried about suitcase theft?

Thank you.

carlosdca

Your main problem is your checked luggage here. As TN counter won't be open to take your bags.

Security at TBIT now has everybody put their stuff on a large tray, including carry ons.
I don't know how flexible TBIT is but I am going to guess that if your bag does not fit in a tray you won't be let through.

These are my suggestions:

1) Don't check bags and fly with a carry on and a personal item.
Check in online with TN. IF you can't, you can try with the kiosks at TBIT that can issue your boarding pass even if the TN counter is still closed (I tried this before with Air China. It did not issue me a boarding pass online but I was able to get a boarding pass at the kiosk at TBIT)
With those BPs you can get through security and spend your time at the lounge.
See what you can do about air vacuuming your clothes in bags, etc so that everything fits in a carry on. Even if it is expanded. The expanded carry-on will exceed the allowed depth (14" on AA) but it will probably be fine as long as it fits in the TSA trays at TBIT.

2) Arriving at LAX, collect your bags and get on an airport hotel shuttle (any, preferably a large hotel like the Sheraton, etc), At the hotel, ask the bell desk to store your bags, as if you were a hotel guest checking out. Nobody is going to ask you anything. Some hotels charge for this service.
After that, get an Uber from the hotel to wherever you want (lunch at Manhattan beach village or at main street in El Segundo are my suggestions). Get an uber back to the hotel, get your bags, get on the shuttle back to the airport.

3) Stay airside go to a lounge and don't collect your bags until later. Most of the times airline employees collect the bags if they are left alone for too long. But this is kind of risky.
Personally, I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my bags for hours alone at the carousel. Carousel for domestic bags is not in a secure area. Anybody can grab your bag.
And, I was at LAX yesterday and the homeless crisis has reached the airport now. I saw homeless sleeping inside the terminal at both T4 and TBIT. Welcome to LA!!!!!!

JY1024

As this question is not AA-specific, let's move this over to the Los Angeles forum to see if others can chime in about the lounge, bag storage, counter check-in, etc. situations. Thanks.

/JY1024, AAdvantage moderator

TWA884

According to the TN website, the LAX ticket counter opens 3 1/2 hours prior to departure. A shared airport lounge is available subject to availability; invitation cards are provided upon check in. Since Air Tahiti Nui is not a oneworld airline, you will have no access to the Admirals Club or the Flagship Lounge. Additional LAX lounge information is available at this thread.

There are no luggage storage facilities at the airport. The time that it will take to collect your bags and get to an off airport facility and back to the airport will probably take almost as long as the wait for the TN check in counter to open.

There are a few sit down restaurants pre-security on both the departure (Asian Street Eats by Chef Hung, Planet Hollywood, WPizza by Wolfgang Puck) and arrivals (Cantina Laredo) levels of TBIT.

Eurynom0s

Depending on when the flight is, the TBIT Centurion Lounge might be open.

anabolism

It's possible that DL might through-check your bags. DL does interline with TN, so the DL check-in agent could do it. I don't know if DL has a policy prohibiting it, or how strictly they enforce it if they do. It's certainly worth a try. Be prepared to show the TN flight info to the DL check-in agent. I think the DL agent might need to "Long Sell (LS)" the TN flight into the DL PNR (basically just adding the flights but not changing the ticket) so that the system sees that the flight is there and is a connection.

MSPeconomist

If you're hungry, the classic FT plan would be to collect bags and then take a shuttle bus to In-n-Out for burgers and plane spotting by the beach.

You're arriving at about 11 am and check in for your flight should open at 1:30 pm, so this gives you about an hour and a half for lunch or to do something else. I'm guessing that you can pick up the bags at about 11:30 am and will want to start back to the airport at about 1:00 pm.

The current Uber/Lyft situation at LAX makes it difficult to go to Santa Monica etc. for a stroll etc.

I was thinking the same thing, but then I couldn't find the post verifying that the OP arrives into LAX on DL.

IME DL is usually good about checking bags through on separate tickets, but I'm not sure how obvious it will be that the OP has award tickets using AA miles. DL doesn't always play nicely with other airlines. OP should arrive a bit early, ask politely, and have printouts of both tickets and PNRs ready to hand to the DL agent.

Then be sure to show the baggage claim stubs to either the TN check in agent or a TN (employee) lounge or transfer desk employee. TN might want to find the bags and attach their own claim tags. [SQ always did this for me on DL to SQ "connections" at LAX.]

TWA884