Hi all,
Flying out of LAX, first international flight in economy for a while thanks to having to stop CC churning to get a home loan :/
Fair enough. Do you happen to have any credit card that has travel benefits? If so, look carefully at the details of the card. To give you an example, the Qantas Ultimate card from AmEx provides 2 passes every year to the Centurion lounge. At LAX, there is a Centurion lounge and whilst it can get a bit crowded they do have a good selection of food (certainly better than what you'll find at QF or AA lounges).
Another thing to consider is you may already have Qantas Lounge access but don't know about it. If you hold Silver status, I believe you get 2 lounge passes to Qantas lounges. Additionally, if you achieve Points Club Plus status, that is earn roughly 350,000 Qantas points in a given membership year, Qantas will give you Qantas Club membership. Even if you only earned 150,000 points in a given year, you would earn 2 Qantas Lounge passes that can be used at a number of airports (you'll need to assign it to your Qantas flight to use them).
When you get back to churning cards, I'd strongly recommend the AmEx Platinum card particularly if you travel regularly. The big benefit with them is you get some of the most comprehensive lounge access in the world. Specifically, you get Virgin Australia lounge access, Lufthansa lounge access when flying with a Lufthansa Group airline, Delta Airlines SkyClub access when flying Delta in every class of service except Basic Economy. And if that wasn't enough you get Centurion Lounge access, Priority Pass membership to over a thousand lounges globally. What's more you can guest someone in travelling with you. And the best part? You can have add 4 card holders to your Platinum account for free meaning they will also have the same lounge benefits when travelling. And if that wasn't enough you get an annual travel credit, annual dining credits, an Accor+ membership which gets you a free night at many Accor properties in Asia-Pacific. You also get hotel elite status like Hilton Gold, Marriott Gold, Accor Silver. Same thing with rental cars. The list goes on and on. I held the card for 2 years before finally giving it up. The reason? I wasn't travelling enough to justify the $800 CAD annual fee. But if you travel enough be it domestically or internationally it can certainly make a big difference.
Are there any lounges we can pay to access?
There are and in fact LAX is arguably my favourite airport in the world given the sheer number of lounges in the complex. But here's the rub, most of them are operated by airlines. Airline operated lounges generally require you to be flying with them or alternatively with an airline in their alliance.
I read an article about the star alliance lounge being available to anyone of any airline but when I go to book/pay online it asks for your star alliance flight number, does anyone know if you must be flying star alliance?
Star Alliance lounge is very nice, I'd go so far as to say better than Qantas business lounge at LAX. There's a rooftop terrace, a selection of Asian and American foods, good selection of wine, ample space to get work done, showers, and what not.
Can’t pay for access to the Oneworld/Qantas lounge?
Qantas does allow you to buy lounge access to some of their lounges (unsure if LAX is on the list), provided of course you are flying Qantas back to Australia. Here's
the link for that. Another option, should that not work is you can buy into
the Admirals lounge at a cost of $79 provided you are flying AA or a OneWorld airline. Between the two, I'd probably recommend the Qantas Lounge as the food selection would be more substantial. With that being said, I have not set foot in the Admirals side of the lounge (just the Flagship lounge section as I was arriving on an Alaskan flight in economy as a Qantas Gold and hence had access exclusively to the better lounge), but my experience elsewhere (e.g., PHX) seems to suggest that you shouldn't set your sights too high with Aadmirals lounges in general. If flying Star Alliance, well you can book the Star Alliance lounge for a comparable amount.
Don’t suppose anyone flying 16th Nov back to Aust (night flights) will be around and can guest two people in please? Can give you a firm handshake and once inside, the drinks are on me
It might make sense to check out this thread which
covers people attending lounges this month.
