I had purchased the business tickets partly due to the AA lounge access in the early morning hours while awaiting flight from MIA to Merida. There was not a huge difference in price since the flights were only about two hours both ways.

My mistake!!! We were denied access to the AA VIP Lounge; they allow lounge access only to certain destinations and MID is not one of them. When we checked in for our flight, checking one bag, the agent assured us that lounge access was included. Imagine my surprise, after trekking through the nightmare of MIA, to be deniced entry to the lounge.

Heads up! If you are buying a ticket for a business class flight mainly for the lounge, make sure, first, that you can actually enter the lounge! You know what "assume" means!

Do you know why this was the case?

I thought all international biz tickets entitled one to lounge access. We had a 1st class ticket to Punta Cana on UAL from ORD which is only a 4+ hrs. flight and had lounge access.

I would have been very disappointed. Sorry for this.

American's lounge policy has always had this feature - lounge access with business or first class tickets is generally only good for intercontinental travel, for Central America, and for premium travel between certain east coast and west coast cities, such as JFK-LAX. The only destination in Mexico or the Caribbean that carries lounge access is Mexico City. Scroll down to "qualifying first and business" here - https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/...lub-access.jsp

Thank you.

I was hoping you would chime in.

I have made multiple trips on American from GUA - DFW - PDX....business on the first leg, first class on the second. They always looked at my ticket and said since I was coming from GUA I was able to enjoy the lounge.

Yes, because last time I checked GUA was in Central America. The OP is going to Merida, which is in Mexico.

Last time we flew American it was on tickets that we actually paid for. As a result, instead of being sent to the Admirals' Club we were redirected to the Flagship Lounge, which was really terrific. The chefs that day were having a competition (we were at ORD), and the hot food was amazing--even scallops. All kinds of sushi and other delectable.

Years ago in London the Admirals' Club was being redecorated, and there wasn't enough room for all the visitors. So we were redirected to the Flagship Lounge and first and only experience with bacon butties, brought to our seats along with Champagne. Rather an odd combination, I thought.

I paid for my tix also and you cannot imagine how hard I tried for lounge access. As said above by our airline expert, the only city destination that permits lounge access is Mexico City/ I will not even go into how vast and confusing MIA is.....and my home airport, JFK is no picnic but nothing as awful as MIA.

Oh, boy, Gardy..do I wish I had brought this up before shelling out $900+ for each of 2 tix..my mistake. You are a gem.

After much reading, I now understand that we could have had accesss to AMEX Centurion Lounge. Too bad no one at the dreaded MIA even mentioned that, but my fault for not researching more....