During my layover on my flight from TBEX in Huntsville, Alabama I visited the Admirals Club in Terminal B with fellow writer John The Wanderer. I haven’t had access to Admiral lounges since I dumped my Citi Advantage Executive early last year. Needless to say, I was looking forward to the visit.
In This Post
Seating
Admiral Club seating is similar to the options you’d find in a United Club or Delta Sky Club. Some chairs have connected tables where you can place food or drinks while other have tables next to them for your food and drink.
Food
Like most domestic lounges your food options consist of snacks. Snacks were expected, and the lounge offered some tasty pasta, vegetables, hummus & pita along with a few salad and soup options. More lounges should take a page out of the American Express’ book with the Centurion lounges and offer a luxury buffet, especially when members are coughing up $300-$600 for lounge access.
Drink
Like most lounges, the Admirals lounges offer complimentary beverages, including alcohol, and had a pretty decent selection. I’m a whiskey guy, and their whiskey selection is decent, but Makers Mark is their premium whiskey…Maker’s Mark? The lack of premium drink options and not having the ingredients to make an old fashioned leads me to believe their alcohol selection could be improved. Normally you have to pay for their “premium” drinks, but you will often find premium certificates lying around the lounge left by those who didn’t redeem them. The lounge also has more coffee and tea options than you’ll ever need!
Service
The concierge service was excellent! A friend of our’s had her flight delayed until 7 am the next morning and the front desk was able to book her on a flight that left in the next few hours! Also, Steve at the front desk worked on moving me to an exit row for my flight to Phoenix.
The Bald Thoughts
Overall I had a great experience in the Charlotte Admirals lounge. While it was no Centurion Lounge, a decent selection of snacks and both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages are available. The highlight of the lounge was Steve and the concierge staff who were able to rebook one of us and book me an exit row. If you fly American frequently I recommend an Admiral Club membership, the easiest way to do this is to sign up for the Citi Advantage Executive credit card, while it’s $450 a year, it’s a premium credit card and is cheaper than buying a yearly membership.
If you want more lounge access and don’t fly American frequently, I recommend the American Express Platinum Card or The Business Platinum Card from American Express. With the Platinum card, you receive access to Centurion Lounges no matter the airline AND Delta Lounges when flying Delta.
Lying around- not “laying” around.
Thanks for the edit. Updated.
It seems like there are only three design-schemes for Admirals Clubs: 90’s arcade (finally being phased out via renovations), Trumptastic Boardroom (the most common), and the new ones are almost spa-like. CLT is one of my preferred Admirals Clubs because its a little different; I would call it’s theme “southern gentleman”.
I should have proofread this before positing. Apologies for my “its” being all-over-the-place grammar-wise.
Great observation Pat. I’m really looking forward to more of the Admirals Clubs being renovated. Today’s traveler is so much more demanding than a generation ago when the clubs were originally designed. Have a great day!
I think the difference with the CLT club is that it was a US Airways club and they used a different theme for their setup. I actually like the more modern look they are moving to. In your terms the spa-like one. The staff at the CLT club were really awesome though so it was a nice experience for us overall. Do you travel through CLT recently?
[…] I accessed the American Admiral’s Club Charlotte using my Citi American Executive Card which gives membership in the Admiral’s Club. I also was able to admit two guests with me using this card. One of them was my buddy Tyler, who also wrote a review of the club on BaldThoughts. […]
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Thanks for letting me know! Please come back and let us know where you’ve been traveling to… and what’s next on the travel agenda.
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