American Airlines Poured Me Dom Pérignon And Drove Me To My Plane—Then Left Me Stranded Overnight

The Chelse lounge at New York JFK is a bit odd. American Airlines operates joint business class and first class lounges in terminal 8 with British Airways. They used to have their own Flagship First Dining there, but that was replaced with Chelsea and it has different access rules. It’s for long haul and premium transcon first class passengers And for British Airways Executive Club Premier and ConciergeKey members in any cabin on those flights (ConciergeKey also gains access on Hawaii travel) As well as passengers buying Flagship Business Plus fares American AAdvantage members cannot redeem miles for access, like they can with Flagship Dining, since this isn’t a Flagship lounge it’s a joint lounge with BA that replaced Flagship. And, with the end of American Airlines Flagship First Class there will be no way for passengers on an award ticket to gain access to Chelsea since the only remaining avenue for someone without ConciergeKey to enter with be a paid Business Plus fare (the equivalent isn’t offered with miles). I had the chance to visit Chelsea after flying American’s media preview flight of its reconfigured Boeing 777-300ER from Dallas to New York JFK when my flight home to Austin was delayed a couple of hours. I’ve visited before, and the lounge is very different from American’s other spaces. (As noted previously, I made a charitable donation greater than the value of what I received at the media event.) There are no windows, no natural light The champagne is excellent, with top names rotating The wines aren’t close to as impressive, though they’re solid business class bottles Sit-down dining is always a treat, but the food isn’t as good as it’s been in the past at American’s Flagship First Dining (or as good as it used to be at American’s First Dining at JFK before that was replaced by Chelsea) While I was in Chelsea they actually had both Dom Perignon 2017 and Cristal 2016. Naturally, I had both! I found the crispness of the Dom cut the sweetness enough that I enjoyed the whole glass. A single sip of the Cristal probably tasted better, but it peaked quickly and I didn’t want to finish. Off-menu they had some caviar. It’s always a good idea to ask whether they have anything off menu! (At the Qantas first class lounge in Sydney I always ask whether they have any unlisted bottles decanting, and they frequently do – something that might have been stocked previously, or something that have only a small quantity of). Here’s the menu from the lounge dining room: I enjoyed the steak with a glass of the Bordreaux, which was nice because I wasn’t going to eat on the plane – I skipped the reasonably-priced $194 upgrade I’d been offered a couple of days in advance and even at check-in so surely someone else took them up on it. While access to Chelsea becomes far more limited with the elimination of Flagship First, the other lounges are decent – some folks actually grab a drink in Chelsea and walk next door to the Soho lounge to enjoy it (there are windows). Greenwich food is improved if you know to QR code order in the Tasting Room. Those two lounges generally have the same food. Chelsea’s big advantage is the champagne. My flight was delayed a few minutes further. The agent in the lounge kept checking on me, letting me know she’d collect me when it was time to leave. They were going to give me a car transfer to the plane, and she said they’d recently improved the process so instead of heading up to the gate I’d just head up the steps onto the jetbridge at the entrance to the aircraft. We pushed back but while we waited to departure, the captain came on to let me know they had a maintenance issue they were going to try to clear. When they couldn’t we headed back to the gate and crew were timing out. The American Airlines app let us know that the flight was rescheduled for 10 a.m. the next morning before any announcement was made onboard. They told customers who were not local to New York to stand in line at the gate for hotel vouchers. Nothing populated in the app. It was about 11 p.m. I wasn’t going to stand in line for a hotel. I wanted to go to a hotel. I probably wasn’t going to want to stay in the one that American Airlines was going to give me near JFK (there are very few actually habitable ones to begin with). So I pulled up the Hyatt app and booked the Hyatt Regency JFK at Resorts World. It’s not a true airport hotel (no shuttle) but about 12 minutes away and perfectly decent. I’ve stayed there many times. I actually screwed up in making the booking it seems. I had a choice to make. The hotel was getting over $400++ for the night at that point (TWA Hotel was over $500). I decided rather than front the cash and file a trip delay claim, I’d just use an expiring category 1-4 free night award in my account. I struggle to use those as it is, since (1) you can’t top off your value to use them at higher than a category 4; (2) they expire; (3) you can’t combine them with a confirmed suite upgrade (I generally don’t want to use these on work trips, and on family trips I don’t want to give up the confirmed suite). After pulling up the Hyatt app, I made the booking. I selected the category 1-4 free night. Somehow – I don’t see how, but I’m open to the possibility that I managed to switch the payment option without realizing it but that seems impluasible – I was charged 20,000 points from my account instead of that free night certificate. I immediately sought help from my Hyatt concierge who told me there was nothing to be done, no matter whose fault it was and even though I’d caught it. Still, it was a perfectly fine stay. I was even upgraded to a suite at check-in. The hotel has always been pretty good about that. Betting that the 10 a.m. flight time the next morning was optimistic, I moved myself to an exit row aisle seat on the 8:20 a.m. flight. I figured that if we were maintaining the same crew for the morning that actual time behind the door of a hotel was going to extend the delay a bit. And in fact that flight did delay. My earlier morning flight went off on time and I was even upgraded just before boarding. Getting into the room around midnight and flying out at 8 a.m. (and taking awhile to fall asleep, though I’d been on the verge of dozing prior to takeoff) meant not much sleep, but the hotel is close and comfortable and remains my go-to for JFK overnights. Topics on this page