dhelman

I will be flying Air China from SHE to PEK, arriving at 12:30 am. I understand the Air China lounge will close about 2:00 am when the FRA flight departs.

I have a NH flight to at 9:00 am the next morning, and I have heard the Air China lounge will open up again at 6:00 am

This gives me about four hours in the wilderness. Where is the best place at PEK airport to kill these hours?

I heard the Air China lounge has "sleeping rooms", so I figure I'll try to get two hours sleep there, and have my breakfast at NRT (NH lounge has much better food) before my afternoon flight to JFK. If their are no sleeping rooms, I guess I'll just to to rest on what should be a somewhat more comfortable chair in the Air China lounge than what is by the gates.

If it matters, I will only have carry on luggage, so that should save me time in the morning to get on my NH flight.

BF263533

Good luck. The sleeping rooms suck. They have only walls so it is real noisy.

moondog

That plan sounds completely miserable on multiple levels. If I were you, I'd toss it and start from scratch with something more sane (e.g. earlier arrival at PEK, later departure from PEK, avoiding PEK altogether, flying nonstop from PEK to JFK instead of via Japan).

TennisNoob

+1 very very miserable.

If you even are able to sleep there without kids (yelling, screaming, yelling) and with the beds looking like crap, than go for it.

It's worst than sleeping in a shack or motel like 10000x.

dvs7310

There's a Hilton at the Beijing airport, I'd certainly do that rather than trying to spend the night in the terminal. That airport sucks during the day, I can't imagine it when there are no lounges open.

Are you going on separate tickets? From what I see SHE-JFK on NH requires routing on the NH SHE-NRT flight, which also arrives in Tokyo too late for a same day connection. Are you not traveling on a day when the CZ SHE-NRT flight operates in the morning? Usually I don't see the same cost advantage China to US (especially on NH) vs Japan to US that you often see to other locations, so CZ then connecting to NH in NRT may work out quite similar if not less in price.

BTW, I'm not sure I can agree about eating in NRT vs PEK, there isn't much food on hand at the NH lounges with the exception of the noodle bar (or NRT UA lounge for that matter). The CA lounges usually have some reasonable breakfast offerings, maybe not gourmet but typically edible.

TennisNoob

Coming out of IAH, we have the worst chinese food imaginable. CA's dimsum offered at the lounge is worst than the food we have in Texas which is very very shameful.

It's not the type of dimsum I'm saying is low grade. Simple matters like the shrimp dumplings, was made poorly. The skin of the dumpling always fell off or was not made to perfection.

dhelman

SHE -> PEK is separate booking than my PEK->NRT->JFK

SHE was my destination. PEK and NRT were just bumps in the road.

The trip r/t to PEK (via NRT) was booked last minute (literally on the airport bus to JFK for the outbound flight). The only clothing I had was what was on my back. Suffice to say, it was for an emergency (fiancee father had a heart attack, I was needed for support, possible blood donation, and potentially cash to pay hospital bills).

So to maximize my time in Shenyang (SHE), I took the last CA flight from SHE to PEK (arrive 1am). My 9am PEK->NRT on NH will let me get my JFK flight with about a 3 hour layover.

Hardly a pleasure trip, but it will put me within in reach of UA Platinum if I burn 4K of my remaining 8K UA flex PQM's, so a bit of a reward for doing my errand of mercy.

The food (at least lunchtime) at the NH lounge was much better at NRT than at the UA lounge. I am well acquainted with the CA lounge of PEK not being a wonderful experience (did not know however the sleeping rooms were such a joke). I guess the nicest thing you can say about the CA lounge is they have real (but not very appealing) food, which is a step above the hamster food UA lounges offer.

Not sure if its worth going to the airport hilton. The airport has an hourly lounge for 50 RMB ($ 8) an hour I heard. No advance reservations. I guess its be worth $ 25 to get one REM sleep cycle if the are accepting guests at 1 am in the morning.

dhelman

1. their is a free shuttle bus between terminals that runs 24/7. Of course plenty of "friendly" people will tell you there is not and will promptly offer you a "taxi" or a hotel room.

2. I could not enter the CA Lounge at 5 am as I had to wait to check in/drop off luggage. In my case, that meant after 6:15 when the NH counter opens for my 8:55 am flight.

3. Free and decent Wifi (as evidenced from this live report). HOWEVER if you do not have a Chinese phone, you will need to get a password from someone willing to share one. A password can be used for numerous devices, but expiry every 4-6 hours.

4. While it did fill up, you should be able to find a seat.

5. Very few power points. I found some"hidden" ones between counter C32 and Excess Luggage baggage. Of course, not seats, but my seat 20 meters away gave me a bird's eye few of my backpack (with laptop inside). Can't exactly recommend this as I was drifting in and out of sleep. The power cord and brick between the power point and my backpack was a dead giveaway a valuable piece of electronics was inside.

All in all, bearable, but I might not feel that way with three more hours to departure, 3 1/2 hour layover in NRT, and a 13 hour flight to JFK. Def will try to get some rest in the lounge in PEK and NRT.

cxfan1960

I had a Chinese phone, but for some reason, I was not able to get a password last time. I got a password from the lounge agent. My colleague did the same. We were in the domestic CA PEK lounge (T3C). So you may still be able to get a password without a Chinese phone.

BuildingMyBento

I have yet to find something edible in a mainland lounge, unless it is an orange or an apple. Their airports offer terrible options too, but IIRC there's at least a Korean restaurant at PEK's T3.

Otherwise what's usually on offer is hard water (for those ubiquitous) thermoses and particularly overpriced beef noodle soups.

Obviously, I'm not in the group that considers any of that stuff to be worthy of a purchase, but NRT - unfortunately mostly pre-security - has much more palatable offerings.

BF263533

There is a benefit of waiting till 6:15 to use the Air China lounge. If you use the showers in the business lounge, the German Cockroaches are very active and entertaining. In 45 years years of flying, for me that was a first, especially since I traveled in First Class to PEK. Air China and the roaches changed my longstanding good opinion of China.

LAX/HKG

The *A business lounge in CA is one of the worst I have ever been to. The shower area has a musty smell and the restroom reeked of urine. On my recent visit there it made me miss the US domestic lounges...

moondog

The advice on taking a taxi to somewhere nice or sleeping in a hotel instead of semi sleeping in an airport seems pretty smart to me.

SunLover

Not a ton of information on PEK but this website is normally a pretty good resource: http://www.sleepinginairports.net/


SunLover

BF263533

We flew first class, and I would have reserved a hotel if I knew the first class lounge situation was so messed up. The Air China situation just killed the rest of the day.