zrs70

I will be flying on MX in November, a 10am flight. Does anyone have info on what lounges will be open and available at that time of day? Thanks in advance. Zach.

[This message has been edited by zrs70 (edited 09-09-2001).]

PremEx

Ahhhh. Indeed I do. Same situation exactly...MX out of Bradley.

I inquired about any *A lounge access at MX First Class check-in. Was told "No. Unfortunatly there is not."

There was a gentleman over at the LH counter so I thought I would ask him. He was very nice and said they had some sort of agreement with a pool lounge company (that services many airlines) but that room did not open until noon (about when my flight departed). I'm not certain I would have been allowed in that one anyway, as it was not officially at *A lounge.

So I decided to head upstairs (there are 2 floors above that house the various lounges) to poke around.

I went around knocking on doors and ringing doorbells. What you are going to find before 10am is that most of these lounges are not opened yet as I guess most of their flights must go out in the afternoon.

I did stumble upon an ANA First Lounge, where the receptionist nicely directed me to the ANA Business lounge.

At reception I presented the lady with my 1K card and she said "You are very early." I got the feeling that she assumed I was flying on a later ANA flight. Later when I was chatting with her, I did mention I was flying MX and I think this surprised her, but she let me remain and was very gracious.

But my flight was at Noon and since she was just in the process of opening when I arrived at about 10am, you might be out of luck there if your flight departs at 10am.

If you have time, be sure to visit the MX lounge in Mexico City. It's very nice.

Good Luck!

zrs70

Thanks, premex,

I'm actually not going to MEX, but rather to Cabo and Mazatlan, neither of which have lounges (I don't think).

stargold

PremEx: You should have been allowed access to the ANA F lounge, unless it was a contract lounge, according to the rules. But I always get this feeling their frontline staff in USA are largely undertrained.

pb9997

At Bradley and flying Mexicana I tried ANA's First lounge and I was also redirected to Business. I showed her my Mexicana Boarding Pass, clearly stamped UA Gold yet this lady didn't find enough, or seemed odd being in ANA's lounge and flying MX.

In order not to get angry (myself) I handed her my two *A Gold Cards (RG&UA) and politely asked her to please check with her supervisor. She did. It was OK.

I do think people from some *A carriers should be better trained...

Gaucho100K

*A lounges at Bradley are quite pathetic, in my opinion. Even the SQ lounge is a joke. In any event, I have been granted entry by the grouchy SQ people when presenting one of my *A Gold cards (I didnt have to show my PPS) and a same day MX boarding pass (coach has also worked for me).

Shareholder

I concur with Gaucho100K's comments in this regard. This is a place where STAR needs to have a single lounge as in ZUR. I cannot believe the lack of service the alliance provides in this terminal. T2 has both AC and TE lounges. And of course, UA has its own in its terminals. But at Bradley, forget it...

The majority of STAR carriers fly out in the evening, and so do not operate their own or their shared lounges until a few hours prior to flight time. This means that options are very limited during the daytime hours and even some late nights. I believe Thai may have some alternating early morning flights, but that's about it. I've been through Bradley on both Sunday and Monday nights, and the only official STAR Gold lounge, with the sign and a true welcome, was the VARIG lounge, and I found that one open only once on four trips through the terminal this spring and last winter.

I had a similar argument trying to get into the ANA lounges, and was unsuccessful in both cases. Neither SG or TH were open that night. Nor was LH. And, of course, MX doesn't have a lounge and informs people that there is no STAR facility for them to use. There are, however, four or five choices for oneworld travellers at most times. Don't expect things to get any better given the fall off in customers and overall reductions across the board all carriers are implementing.

Greg45

Last time I was there LH didn't have a lounge.

Even for their own FirstClass/Senator/*G passengers they offer no lounge of their own. Sometimes they give a limited number of invitations to the (tiny) ANA lounge. I have been told by check-in agents that none of the other Star longes were open to LH passengers (even FC/*G).

Last time I got a $15 dolar voucher for the Mexican fast food restaurant that had a 45 min. wait for a table!

Usually I wouldn't mind if there was no lounge, but at the international terminal there aren't even enough seats in the departure area for everyone, and (almost) no shops or restaurants beyond the security check.

For a short time LH departed from terminals 6 and 7, which was nicer as we could use the Continental lounge in 7 and the United FC lounge in 6.

There have been earlier threads about the * lounges at lax, but no one had any information about planned improvements.

Any exciting ideas how to pass the time at LAX int. terminal?

zrs70

And I suppose it would be almost impossible now to go over to terminal 2 and use the AC lounge, as I would not be able to get through security.

Gaucho100K

Great summary, Shareholder. Switching to another terminal to use a lounge is IMO not a practical solution. There are a bunch of *A carriers operating out of Bradley, why can they just get their act together?

Travellin_man

Slightly off-topic but if your ARE in T2, the Air New Zealand Lounge is bigger than the Maple Leaf Lounge, has a better snack selection, is open later, and has Kiwi beers.

Shareholder

One of the other problems with Bradley is the fact that most lounges are shared and operated by companies independent of the airlines themselves. Some of the airline name cards are actually changed through the day, so the same lounge serves several carriers. But it is clear oneworld provides superior alliance services here, and it is most unlikely STAR will do much until the recession is over. Then again, maybe this downturn will spur these carriers to consolidate into a single STAR Lounge, rather than the current three or four sporadically opened ones.

I suspect one of the key reasons for this mess relates to MX, which has more flights from this terminal than any of the other STAR partners. It has a very limited network of Executiva Lounges, and the cost of maintaining one here would be prohibitive since staff would have to be paid at US wage scales. MX does have its own elites, club members and J-class passengers, but unlike those using the overseas carriers, net ticket prices for J are far lower than a tansPacific or transAtlantic one, and thus cannot include much towards the upkeep of a lounge.

I am surprised to hear to hear about LH. I thought I had seen one of those removable signs for them. Using the AC or NZ lounges at T2 is not really practical, even prior to new security measures. I generally came off an AC flight to connect to MX, so could have done this. But checking in at Bradley, then catching the shuttle, or walking, to T2...

Rudi

LH lounge information (LH world wide timetable, page 398) for LAX
* AC Maple Leaf: access for Senators and StarGold
* NH Fuji: access for Senators and StarGold
* NZ International: access for Senators and StarGold
* RG First Class: access for Senators and StarGold
* UA RCC: access for Senators and StarGold

PremEx

Rudi writes: While technically that is correct, now that LH has been bumped from United's terminal over to Bradley, schleping between the 2 would hardly be very convienient.

Not to mention that with the new security proceedures in place, I'm not certain that passengers traveling on a LH ticket with LH flight number, would even be permitted past security at UA's LAX terminal.

I'm flying on UA into LAX today. I'll inquire at Security if they would allow a LH ticketed pax past security at UA's terminal.

Rudi

LH 'runs' several code-shares, with UA being the carrier on inner-North American flights (LAX-HNL comes to my mind), where the RCC is THE lounge for Senators.