The Admirals Club at DFW

As promised, I took some pictures of the Admirals Club at DFW in the A concourse. As a UA flyer my standards are of course pretty low as far as airline lounges go, and all the reviews I’ve heard of the Admirals Club have been quite positive, at least when compared to UA. I have to agree and at the same time disagree with such a statement.

The lounge itself is much nicer than any RCC within the US and most RCC’s outside the US. The club is huge, has plenty of space, has many separate rooms (relaxation room, main rooms, kids room, showers, etc.), and overall has a grand feeling to it.

The weakness, as I see it, is the food. The snacks the Admirals Club offers are basically non-existent. In the morning they had mini muffins and in the evening they had pretzels and cookies. Red Carpet Clubs, on the other hand, have danishes, yoghurt, granola bars, and some other things in the morning, and cheese and crackers, veggies and dip, chips, cookies, snack mix, chocolate, and the like in the evening. While UA’s food isn’t great, it’s possible to make a real filling snack out of it, which kind of makes the $300/year membership worth it when I think how much I’d otherwise spend on concessions at the airport.

At the same time AA allows you to purchase food in the lounge, which is somewhat reasonably priced ($8.99 per wrap, pictured below) for an airport and of ok quality, kind of like wraps you’d find in the refrigerated section of a supermarket. Overall I wasn’t really blown away by the Admirals Club. The architecture, seating, room, and “grandness” were all great, but the food and to a large part the staff weren’t as good as at UA. Definitely a great club when you can get in for free with a Plat Amex, but I doubt I’d join if I flew more with AA, since I can’t really justify two airline memberships.