Review: Watching The Super Bowl from the American Airlines Admirals Club
In my recent chronicle of how to use the Super Bowl to fly cheaply, I mentioned that I watched Super Bowl LVII (2023) from the American Airlines Admirals Club – and I did this intentionally. I chose the T4 American Airlines Admirals Club at LAX, I’ve visited before and it’s above average for an Admirals Club. Here’s how it went.
First, I was concerned the lounge would be busy. But this wasn’t true, late afternoon on a Sunday is low-demand for business travelers and die-hard fans of football wouldn’t want to fly during the Super Bowl. The lounge was 25% full, a rarity. We entered the lounge 15 minutes before the game started knowing there is a big bar with two large TVs. Only two other seats (out of 12) were taken at the bar. We sat right in front of a TV.
Now, if the big bar plan didn’t work, the T4 lounge has a large TV room with 20 seats arranged in front of a big screen. That was plan B. Thankfully, we didn’t need it.
We took advance of free beer and wine right away. The bar-tender was thrilled with a $20 tip and thought it was a mistake at first. We assured him we would keep him busy.
The lounge has the normal food items you see at other clubs. They had meatballs and pasta as the hot item – excellent. They recently replaced the terrible chocolate chip cookies with “Mediterranean dessert rolls” aka, baklava, aka a BIG positive change. We ordered the Bao Bun Sliders (a local selection, which was terrible, dry/tough) and Caprese Salad Sandwich (very good).
As the game went on, the lounge crowd dwindled. The bar-top became completely empty with 2 minutes left in the game. The game-watching experience at the lounge was great. The sound was high enough to follow. Our last seatmate unhappily went to their gate. When the game ended we had 45 minutes until boarding. The staff had turned over to a new shift.
Summary: We give the experience a 4.5 out of 5. We paid $137 each roundtrip PHX -> LAX, spent $40 on food and gave a $20 tip. We were both upgraded each way. We place the value received to be much greater than we paid (and had two great days exploring LA). We have lounge access for having the AAdvantage Citi Executive card and visited both the PHX and LAX lounges on this trip, eating a lot of snacks and drinks. The food we ordered being the only negative thing to say. We’re fans of the Admirals Club lounges so watching the big game in an environment we already enjoy, a happy place, makes sense for us. We’d do it again.
