Over Christmas, my husband and I visited Mexico City. This was the first time for both of to visit Mexico, and we were quite excited! We had booked our flights there and back with points, which I described in detail previously. Briefly, we booked two seats in AeroMexico‘s economy cabin through Virgin Atlantic, but with my Flying Blue Gold status we were able to choose AeroMexico’s ‘AMPlus’ seats, which is AeroMexico’s extra legroom economy seat, and were also able to enter the Delta Sky Club near Gate A8 at New York JFK’s Terminal 4, before the flight.

For our flight back, Mexico City MEX back to New York-JFK, we booked flights through Alaska’s Atmos, flying an American Airlines Boeing 737, for 12.500 points plus $106.02 per person. Thanks to our flights on Singapore Airlines to Bangkok, we were able to get Alaska Atmos Silver status, and this allowed us to pick front-row economy cabin seats, marketed by American Airlines as ‘Main Cabin Extra’. Before our flight we were able to visit two lounges. The first, which I will review here, was the Admirals Club at Mexico City’s Benito Juarez (MEX) Terminal 1, on account of the Citibank Strata Elite‘s Admirals Club passes.

Briefly, the Admirals Club at MEX is not a lounge to get particularly excited about. While I thought the wooden paneling was nice, the bar had a variety of good drinks, and there was plenty of seating while we visited, the buffet is a little lackluster and there are no showers. I also believe that if you were to visit over peak hours, it’s quite possible the lounge would be extraordinarily busy, since all Oneworld airlines send their passengers here, and that would include flights with large widebody aircraft leaving for Europe.

1. Hours and Location
2. Access Requirements
3. Seating and Design
4. Food and Drinks
5. Restrooms and Showers
6. Summary

Hours and Location

The lounge is open daily from 4am to 12am.

Finding the lounge is not so easy, as Terminal 1 undergoing a big remodel ahead of the 2026 FIFA world cup, so many of the corridors are under construction. We entered through the international departures security checkpoint J, which is the one that is furthest north in the terminal. it would have been a quicker walk had we entered through security checkpoint G.

If you’re coming from J, take a right and gho straight, through the angled corridor to gate 27, then turn right and follow the corridor until you’re in front of Gate 19. Here, take the corridor that is just opposiyte of the gate, by waiting area H. There will be plants along the left wall of it. At the end of that corridor, take a right and go along the escalator with the glass wall, as below.

At the end of the corridor you’ll first see the Grand Lounge Elite to your right, which I reviewed as well. Walk past it and you’ll get to a larger rectangular space, with an elevator to the right. It will have a sign by it highlighting the Admirals Club lounge, as well as the United Club.

Take the elevator up, and when you come out the Admirals Club should be immediately in front. Through the glass doors you’ll be in the lobby. The agents at the desk seemed a little bored given that there was literally nobody there but is, but I found them to be friendly and helpful. They quickly checked us in by first scanning a day pass (courtesy of the Citibank Strata Elite credit card) for each of us, together with our boarding passes.

Access Requirements

There are various ways to enter the Admirals Club. These requirements should be the same across all Admirals Clubs, but in reality I do know that there are some exceptions, which I will highlight. To get into an Admirals Club, you have the following options:

• Admirals Club Members: you can buy a membership straight-up or receive one through various means, including by getting the Citibank AAdvantage Executive Mastercard.
• Travel in business or first class on transcontinental or international itineraries with American Airlines or OneWorld partners.
• With American AAdvantage elite status, Platinum Pro and up. However, this will only get you on international itineraries.
• OneWorld Sapphire or Emerald members, obtained through a loyalty program other than American AAdvantage, can get access on both domestic and international itineraries.
• By buying an Admirals Club Day Pass. However, capacity controls can restrict access to day pass holders, so this can be a bit tricky.
• Holders of the Citibank Strata Elite Mastercard will get 4 Admirals club passes, which, unlike buying a day pass, are not subject to capacity controls. This is how we entered this lounge: we redeemed two passes, one for my husband and one for myself.

Seating and Design

The lobby area is the prelude to what the rest of the lounge has to offer. The visual design is the same throughout: from the wood paneling with the dark along the lower third and the later panels on the upper two-thirds, to the colors and style of the seating. It surprised me because it’s quite different from the Admirals Clubs I’d seen in either New York JFK’s Terminal 8 or Washington DC’s Reagan Terminal 2, at the E-gates. Granted, the latter sports the newest design aesthetic of the Admirals Club. This one feels a little like a 1920’s rotary club – which is not necessarily a bad thing. Personally I quite like the wood, but it does feel a little old.

Proceed past the lobby and you can go left or right. Find the bar and a bunch of seating to your right, as well as the restrooms, whereas the corridor on the left will take you to the buffet and a co-working space with computers and printers.

On the right are a variety of connected spaces. The first of these also has the bar, which is a fairly prominent feature just to the left of where you enter the space. A nice selection of drinks is displayed both on the bar as well as in the shelves on the back, highlighting a decent selection of drinks. The door just to the left of the bar leads to the restrooms.

In front of the bar are a variety of seats positioned in front of a large TV screen, so I suppose this is in some ways like a media room. The sound of the TV was off while I was there, though.

One offshoot to the right of the bar is a little more isolated and has some Mexican decorations and antiques, like vases. I liked these touches, and wish there was more of it to give the lounge more of a sense of place. As you can see, there’s really just one type of seat here, paired with one of several side table designs. I thought these chairs were quite comfortable, but I suppose that if you don’t like it, you have zero other choice…

If you go the other way, you’ll enter another series of interconnected spaces. First you’ll go through another short corridor, that is mostly nondescript with the same seats, tables and fixtures.

That corridor then opens up into a larger space. As you can see, that space is interconnected with a few more spaces, all of them separated by wooden paneling on the sides with a single path connecting them from where I was making the photos. All of these spaces are about identical in terms of their design and layout. It’s the same chairs for the most part, with some slight variation in the color and the side of the backrest. They are all arranged in semicircles, with side tables and corner tables, some of which also have USB and electrical outlets. Aa little bit of additional decoration can also be found, but for the most part it’s the same chairs and tables throughout.

I wanted to provide some closeups of the furniture and thge side tables. As you can see, at least the furniture seems to be in reasonable condition. They don’t seem particularly worn, and are quite well-maintained. However, I didn’t like the outlet situation. Not every side table has outlets, and given the layout with all the chairs right next to each other, some chairs can be quite faraway from a plug. Plus, it turned out not all plugs actually worked, so my husband and I sat in different places so that we could have a working plug.

You may have noticed large windows in the back wall of the lounge. These windows are looking out over some internal space of the terminal. Looking down, this seems to be some sort of arrivals area, with gates that prevent passengers from returning to the secure parts of the terminal. Since we arrived with AeroMexico in Terminal 2, I’m not too sure what this space was.

Finally, if you’d have turned right at the corridor that led into these spaces, you’d have found the co-working space. This single room had a bunch of glass desks with office chairs, a high-top table with two iMacs, and two printers.

One of these seemed connected to the iMacs, whereas the other was perhaps there for printing from personal devices – though I never figured out how to get it to work. In the end, I went to the attendants at the lobby, and they gave me an email address (specific to that Admirals Club lounge). I sent them my documents for printing, they printed it for me, and then they deleted the email from their inbox.

A note on the lack of people on the lounge: We were here around 9pm, since our flight was leaving around midnight. As you can see, it’s completely dead. There was one elderly woman, the two attendants at the reception desk, and one or two cleaning ladies. Given the setup of these chairs right next to one another, I can see how this lounge may end up feeling very cramped and busy when it’s peak time. As it is, it was perfectly fine for us, given that we were the only ones there.

And you know what? I don’t dislike the design. As I mentioned before, I kind of like all the wood. But I also can’t help but feel that the design is kind of old and past its prime. A facelift would be welcome.

Food and Drinks

Along the walkway with all the interconnected spaces was also the main food buffet. The buffet offered a variety of self-serve dishes, including some hot and cold options such as salads, cold cuts, sandwiches and soups, as well as some deserts.

From left to right, the first you’ll find are a variety of cold dishes. Some raw vegetables and salads, then some cold cuts and cheeses. There was also a small selection of fruits including some grapes, apples and oranges. Little plates with jello and chia pudding were also available, and these were perhaps the only ‘fancier’ touches (if they can be called that).

Then for hot options, there were a variety of things, which were mostly rather generic. The only option that was perhaps ‘sort of’ Mexican was the mushroom burrito. Otherwise there was beef with bell peppers, pasta with bell peppers, and scalloped potatoes. I did try the beef and pasta and these were not too bad. I thought it was comparable to what had been available at the New York JFK Terminal 8 Admirals Club.

The last hot option was a potato cream kind of soup. Right beside that were a selection of desserts and sandwiches, and some breads.

Then, on a separate table closer to the co-working space, was a hot drink station. Really this was just hot water and tea bags, and some packaged snacks.

Overall, I was a little bit disappointed. While I was familiar with the food options at Admirals Clubs, and thought it could be better, I was hopeful that an Admirals club in Mexico City would borrow from the local cuisine a little bit more than this. That said, I didn’t think the food was necessarily bad either, it was just a little uninspired.

What surprised me most was how there was no self-serve drinks in the lounge, except for some water. There was no soda fountain, no hot drink station or espresso machine – everything had to come from the bar, which I thought was a little inconvenient. I did see that in the Grand Lounge Elite, which we visited after the Admirals Club, there also weren’t self-serve drink stations. Perhaps this is a Mexico City Airport thing, or….?

Restrooms and Showers

This lounge unfortunately doesn’t have showers. The two restrooms are down the hall just to the left from the bar. There are separate men’s and women’s restrooms.

The restrooms were not particularly large. The entire restroom was modeled with a grey faux marble, and wooden doors of a design that matches the rest of the lounge decor. There were two sinks by the right wall, along a big mirror.

Then just left of the entrance were two urinals, and a little further in were some toilet stalls. These weren’t particularly big, but also not too tight.

The restroom overall was brightly lit and seemed very clean. I think the cleaners may have just finished up as I came in, but I was happy to see how well-maintained everything looked.

Summary

Overall, the Admirals Club at Mexico City’s Terminal 1 is not really something to get excited about. The lounge was quite well-maintained and clean, though with a visual design that was somewhat outdated, even if I do quite like all the wood. An update would be nice. The food is about what you’d expect from an Admirals Club, and while it’s nice that there is a bar, I would have liked a separate drink station so it’s easy to grab non-alcoholic drinks.

If you’re just looking for a place to sit and relax and don’t really need dinner, I think the Admirals Club does the trick. That is especially true if you come later in the evening when most flights for the day have departed, and it’s still too early for the long-haul European oneworld carriers, which depart between 5-8am. If you want a meal, you may be better served at one of the Priority Pass lounges, or, honestly, just having dinner in the city center before coming to the airport…