Review: American Flagship Lounge Miami Airport (MIA)

They need to turn Flagship lounges into something that resembles the Soho lounge at JFK or the Chase lounges. Mostly buffet is fine, but you need a couple of made to order dishes / cocktails that can be delivered to your seat. That's simply to stay in the same conversation with Delta One and, now that you can access Polaris lounges on transcon, United.

This looks like an average Priority Pass lounge in Europe

Can you tell me which Priority Pass Lounge in Europe matches this ?

I miss when Flagship Lounges first opened with the Flagship First sit down dining that was genuinely good restaurant quality food and even more premium champagne (IIRC I think at one point they even had Krug?). At that point in time with the fresh A321T with first class, the LAX-JFK experience could legitimately hold its own against some of the industry’s heavy hitters.

If the lounge is open, then there should be booze available. Even if it is just an "eye opener" like a Bloody Mary or a Mimosa.

The French drink cognac with their morning coffee and the Scaninavians have beer with breakfast.

This is my favorite flagship lounge. The food is consistently great.

I ate at the Dfw flagship lounge first class private dining area a couple months ago. The two of us were the only ones there, in a room with seating for about 20. The drinks, food and service were fantastic. We both agreed it was as good an overall experience as a higher end restaurant. I am not very easy to please, but this was a very welcome treat.

I ate at the Dfw flagship lounge first class private dining area a couple months ago. The two of us were the only ones there, in a room with seating for about 20. The drinks, food and service were fantastic. We both agreed it was as good an overall experience as a higher end restaurant.

“ Quite honestly, it’s probably the most premium part of the Flagship Lounge experience.”
This reminds me of a fun experience at the MIA Flagship Lounge. For my 2021 Birthday trip Flagship (DCA) MIA LAX before glassware came back on board I borrowed a champagne flute and beverage glass from MIA used them on the flights to LA and back. Then returned them before flight to DC. Flight Attendants were amused

Also love Bollinger La Grand Anne at DFW a couple weeks ago with a great risotto in Flagship Dining

On my First visit to DFW FL several years back I went for the champagne offer at the entrance until the agent who checked me in came over and said I should wait for the better champagne in Flagship Dining.

One small edit (and a few rambling history stories):

Its just the current iteration of Flagship Lounges that are around 10 years old. That's when they made them Business/OWS lounges. Prior to that, there were a few Flagship Lounges that were F/OWE only lounges. LHR is the only one of those still barely hanging on until AA finally kills off F (as the akwardly named International FC Lounge). Tangent...UA has a similar issue in LHR as their former 'Global First' lounge is now a 'Global Services' space that doesn't fit in their main lounge portfolio, while the equivalent space in NRT remains closed).

Under that old system, AAdmirals Clubs were both the Membership Lounge and Business/OWS spaces, with the difference that OW/class of service J entry got you drink tickets club members didn't get (FT 'chits' if you search back in the forums, there would be elaborate hide and seek and givaways for these) for the paid bar (like what UA did last year at ORD while its Polaris Lounge there was closed).

Opening up flagships to OWS/J allowed for the massively increased footprint, and on the whole I would say improvement, but has also made them more resemble the perfectly adequate but not exactly inspiring BA Galleries vintage lounges of the late 2000s. The design made this worse, by following the hideous sterile hospital template that has also destroyed the ambiance of most AAdmirals Clubs (the only lounge that I've been in that really "works" design wise with that pallet is GRU, which I do find to be a nice space). Thankfully that is no longer spreading.

The new design template will help, like the AAdmirals Club in E DCA or Soho in JFK. But the reality that these are J + OWS lounges will keep them from being super exclusive or cozy I'm afraid. I think that is good, as it is a better compromise and is a OW benefit vs the restrictive-punative DLOne and Polaris access requirements. I haven't seen a coherent attempt to separate AAdmirals from Flagship under the new template, hopefully that will get better.

I'll always have very warm memories of the old Flagship at the end of K in ORD ... it wasn't a great lounge design-wise, but the staff were amazing and it was an intimate space.

100% JFK T8 Soho and Chelsea are top AA.

Also, did they ever reopen First at MIA or LAX?

(Wild that Ben got all these photos without people? Was it a private after-hour tour, or did he use AI to remove everyone?)

I find it ironic how many Admirals Clubs have a bar with a bartender -this is the case in MIA and DFW based on my experiences.
Not sure why they would not extend this into Flagship.

Hhmmmm. Only enjoyed Flagship a couple of times anywhere. I will say it all depends on your perspective. Have been in MIA Gate 30 Admirals Club four times in past two years. (F to Central & South American on vaca - no credit card or pass privileges.) Service, food and beverage all good not great…crowded but not ridiculously crowded. What’s the issue again?

All you do is complain. Why dont you go sit out in the terminal next time. I am very happy to be in the AC or FL

Is this really their flagship lounge? It looks and feels like a standard airline lounge.

...on behalf of Scandinavia (and thereby probably France), what on earth are you talking about? ‍♂️

I was served beer with breakfast in both Norway and Sweden. Cannot speak for Denmark snd Finland.

So bland. The seating is like the average doctor’s waiting area here in SoCal. It’s like no one from AA has ever set foot in a CX, QF or Qatar lounge to see what life could be like.

Bah! Like, if folks can’t enjoy a Flagship lounge, maybe just stay home. (Perhaps, Ben was also at the relatively new BA lounge at MIA, so the FL feels lame/old by comparison.)

That is my home location and far better than PHL and LAX. On par with ORD and DFW. It gets crowded after 3PM so I try to get there by 2PM (if I have later flight) to stake out a good seat.

The staff there tends to be better than the normal AC staff.

I was there on Saturday, flying to Mexico City, however we were not granted entry into the lounge this trip (even after being told by three separate reservation agents that we would get entry to the flagship lounge). The admirals club was almost at full capacity as it took us a while to even find single seats. It’s funny that the admirals club has a full service bar, though, the exact same furniture, including chairs and tables as the flagship lounge, no pleasing decor at all, and everything squished up a close as you could get it! But on the other hand, it even has showers for the asking, a business workstation area, and beyond that the same loungers found in the flagship lounge. It should be an easy transition for AA to turn the flagship lounge into a larger admirals club whenever that day comes (haha). FOOD: Maybe you came a month too early @Ben, because the admirals club this weekend was serving an abundance of shrimp, had sort of a Mexican theme going on with their food offerings, quite the spread, and I loved their (new?) blackened pumpkin seeds.

My SO also appreciates the Dyson hair dryers in the showers in Flagship lounges. They frequently also have superior vegetarian options to Delta or international airlines as well.

The staff in this and other AA lounges are generally quite great as well. They do a much better job than the in-flight staff representing the brand!

That said, the decor in this lounge could certainly use an update, and barista coffee/bartender would be fantastic (and, dare we dream... QR code food ordering).

Ben, I think you're overlooking a means of entry. My experience has been as Platinum Pro or Executive Platinum, you can access flagship lounge if you're flying long haul international (ORD-LHR, for example) regardless of cabin.

Wow...when MIA was my home airport and I used to fly AA, I used to wonder what lies beyond those frosted doors. Now I see, and what a piece of garbage.

One is Vienna is lovely and matches this.