I’m doing these posts a bit out of order to keep the content varied so that I don’t post too many American Airlines flights back-to-back.
I took a trip in April that somewhat spiraled out of control because more and more flights kept getting tacked onto it. The fun part of the trip (and the part noteworthy for the blog) started in Austin, Texas for the eclipse. When we were planning the trip, I realized I only needed to take one more day off from work to have the entire week off, so I looked for an interesting long weekend destination and settled on Budapest. To get there, I had to first fly from Austin to Chicago. I booked a Southwest flight to get me to Chicago because that meant that I’d even be in the correct terminal upon arrival at O’Hare (T5).
For those in the know, this means that I was in Austin when Southwest had its post-eclipse meltdown, but I wasn’t checking a bag, so I was unaffected. The Southwest flight itself was largely uneventful, so this post is mostly about the Chase Sapphire Terrace that Austin has.
The access requirement for the Sapphire Terrace is just simply that you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve Card. In my case, showing it in my Apple Wallet was sufficient. All they did was scan my boarding pass and look at the card, haha.
The Terrace itself is not very large, but is definitely sufficient for Austin Airport. There is a small indoor area with some seating:
And two Farmer’s Fridge vending machines:
The best part about these fridges is that the food inside was free!
When I first arrived, the vending machines were mostly empty, so all I could get was some yogurt.
The views from the terrace were a bit limited, but the outdoor space was really nice:
There were a few different seating options as well. There were few power plugs to be found, but that was solved with power towers that they gave out. They were a bit clunky but were sufficient to charge your portable electronics at least!
It was very bright though despite the partial cloud cover.
We had gotten to the airport an hour earlier than one would normally because I wasn’t convinced that the airport was going to be able to cope with the eclipse traffic. The airport itself was able to cope (as were most airlines), but Southwest wasn’t because so many people were checking bags.
It turns out that getting there early was unnecessary because all the Southwest flights were delayed to try to get as many people on as possible. (But the flights still went out with many empty seats.) As a result, we ended up sitting at the terrace for a couple hours. Luckily though, that was enough time for them to restock the Farmer’s Fridge! It was immediately swarmed by everyone wanting free food…
But we got some sandwiches and salads, which were decent.
In summary, this was a pretty short post about a small lounge in Austin. The Sapphire Terrace is a fun concept and a good way to fit in an additional lounge in a small terminal that I don’t think was really intended for the amount of traffic Austin Airport now gets. This lounge gets a 3/5 since we had good weather, but in bad weather, I’d imagine it’s largely useless.
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