Lounge News & Reviews

The Hugo Junkers Lounge is on level 2 of the "Pier B" area at Düsseldorf Airport and, as it's a 3rd party lounge (i.e not run by a specific airline or alliance), it acts as Business Class lounge for a variety of carriers across all three major alliances....although Star Alliance is the most underrepresented.

Cathay Pacific does airport departure lounges very well (I'm not so keen on its arrivals lounge) but it's been a long time since I've had the chance to try out one of the airline's First Class lounges....so I was very keen to see what the Pier First Class lounge had to offer.

I arrived in to Hong Kong at around 7am and, as I had no checked baggage to worry about and as I was one of the very first to disembark, it wasn't long before I was through immigration and customs and in the arrivals hall of Hong Kong airport. I really wanted to have a shower after my overnight flight and, as I was pretty sure that the Hyatt Regency wouldn't have my room ready for me a that time of the morning, I decided to head to the Cathay Pacific Arrivals Lounge ("The Arrival") to see what was on offer.

None of the OneWorld airlines have their own lounge at Zurich Airport's E-gates so the lounge you're directed to if you're flying with Cathay Pacific is the Aspire Lounge. The lounge is divided into a regular Aspire Lounge (available to OneWorld Business Class flyers, Emeralds/Sapphires and those with Priority Pass memberships) and a First Class Aspire lounge which is open to OneWorld Emeralds and First Class passengers.

Joanna and I were flying out of San Francisco on British Airways but, because I'd done some research ahead of time, we knew that the Cathay Pacific lounge was our best option for somewhere to relax at SFO before our flight. I'd heard that the British Airways lounge at SFO gets quite crowded and that whatever the airline provides its First Class passengers isn't up to much so I wasn't exactly in any hurry to see what was on offer.

I reviewed the Aspire lounge at Heathrow's Terminal 5 not long after it first opened and my thoughts on the offering weren't exactly very positive. Since then I've had a number of readers ask me about the lounge so I thought that it was only right that, a year down the line, I give the lounge another try.

Back in July I took Joanna on a trip to Las Vegas and San Francisco (introduction full details of the trip are here) as a small thank you for being so supportive of this blog and for putting up with all my traveling (there really is a lot!) The trip was a lot of fun but at some point the fun had to end and we had to head back across the Atlantic. This is a look at the Cathay Pacific Lounge at San Francisco Airport which was our first port of call on our way home.

There are two "The Club" airport lounges at Las Vegas McCarran airport (one in T1 and one in T3) and, rather confusingly, they're both called "The Club At LAS". Joanna and I were traveling to San Francisco on Virgin America so we visited the lounge in Terminal 3. The Club At LAS in Terminal 3 is located across from gate E2 and acts as the airport lounge for British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Alaska Airlines (amongst others) and is also part of the Priority Pass network of lounges. The lounge is open daily from 8 am until midnight.

The Dublin Airport Executive Lounge is where Joanna's mystery trip really started. All along she'd known that the first flight of our trip would be from Heathrow to Dublin but, from here on in, she wasn't really too sure where I was taking her. British Airways doesn't have a dedicated lounge in Dublin Airport so the Dublin Airport Executive Lounge is where premium cabin flyers and oneworld elites flying from terminal 1 are directed to.

Joanna and I flew with Air Tahiti Nui from Los Angeles to Tahiti as part of our Bora Bora trip and, although our Business Class tickets with the airline entitled us to entry to the Los Angeles International Lounge (in the Tom Bradley Terminal), we chose to use my Priority Pass membership (courtesy of my Citi Prestige credit card) to visit the Korean Air Lounge instead.

I visited the Sala Montale Lounge at Milan's Malpensa Airport after my American Airlines 767 flight from New York JFK. The lounge is operated by a third-party on behalf of a number of OneWorld airlines that use the lounge for their premium cabin passengers and their elite status holders.

I passed through Copenhagen Airport a few weeks ago and stopped by the CPH Apartment Lounge which caters to First Class and OneWorld Emerald card holders amongst others. This time around, as promised in that last review, I stopped by the Aviator Lounge Copenhagen Airport (next door) to see how it compared.

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The Etihad chauffeur service picked me up from the Ritz-Carlton Abu Dhabi around two hours before my scheduled flight time and, with a short drive to the airport, I was soon walking into the dedicated check-in area for First and Business Class passengers at Abu Dhabi airport's Terminal 3.

I got a text from the Etihad chauffeur company at 6:40am to tell me my car had arrived and was waiting for me outside. They were 5 minutes early. Still, it was 6:40 in the morning and not 5:30 in the morning as they had originally intended so I wasn't about to complain.

The Amex Centurion lounge in Miami opened in June of this year and was a welcome addition to an airport where the lounges are really not up to much. The lounge is situated in concourse D of Miami Airport, near gate D12, which this makes it very convenient for American Airlines travelers whose gates surround the area the lounge sits in.

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