SFO American Admirals Club T3 (Closed)
SFO American Admirals Club T3 (Closed)
September 2010
Ever since I took my dad on our Singapore RTW First trip a couple of years ago, I've plotted to do the same trip with Mrs. SFO. I know I'm probably upping the ante on our future TATL/TPAC travel but somethings in life are worth it, and flying SQ First is near the top of my list. For my significant and somewhat traumatic round number birthday, there was never any doubt that I would choose Paris, the only question was how. As it was my birthday, Mrs. SFO consented to flying the long way home, on the condition that we actually leave the airports (she knows me well enough to add that stipulation) and spend at least a couple of days in both Singapore and Hong Kong.
-American Admirals Club SFO
-American Business Class SFO-JFK
-New York City
-Singapore Airlines Check-in JFK
-Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse JFK
-Swiss Business Class Lounge JFK
-Singapore First Class JFK-Frankfurt
-Lufthansa First Class Lounge FRA Terminal A
-Le Meurice
-Paris
-Eurostar Premium Class Gare du Nord-London St. Pancras
-Silver Kris First Class Lounge LHR
-Singapore Airlines First Class London-Singapore
-Raffles Hotel Singapore
-Singapore
-Singapore First Class Check-in
-Singapore Silver Kris First Class Lounge "The Private Room"
-Singapore First Class Singapore-Hong Kong
-Silver Kris Lounge HKG
-Singapore First Class Hong Kong-SFO
To get to NY to start our SQ RTW, I decided to go the day before because the RTW was on a different PNR, and to avoid any possibility of same day connection delays. And since the Princess does not happily do early morning flights, an early afternoon SFO-JFK flight seemed much more civilized.
As I'm still short of my annual 100K EXP goal with no DBEQM for the west coast, I chose AA as upgrades are relatively easy for EXPs and the $139 OW fare on the 1:40pm SFO-JFK was hard to beat. Our upgrades cleared at T-79 or a day later than the official T-100 window (par for the course these days on AA). Unfortunately, eight EXP upgrades were processed at the same time and AA.com apparently doesn't understand that two pax on the same PNR would like to sit together. Even though there were four pairs unassigned prior to the upgrades, we were assigned 11A and 10D. The only remaining pair was the bulkhead 7HJ.
We left our house in the City around 11:50a and were dropped off at Terminal 3 at 12:20p. Check in at SFO was at lot easier mid-day than early morning. The First/Business/Elite line was short (at least when we got there before the masses in the pic arrived) as was Priority security and we were in the Admirals Club by 12:30p. The Club was quite crowded when we arrived with DFW, ORD and JFK flights leaving around the same time. For those not familiar, the SFO Admirals Club is rather small but conveniently located close to all AA gates. I don't think many will miss it when the new Club opens next year in renovated AA/VX Terminal 2.
SFO Terminal 3 American Airlines check-in counters
SFO Terminal 3 First/Business/Elite check-in
We left the club at 1:10p and a minute later we were at Gate 67 where they had just announced J boarding. Navigating the gate lice is no easy task at Gate 67 which essentially shares with boarding area with three other gates. Photo was taken about a half hour before boarding and the arrival of gate lice.
