Good advice, Ngaire. It looks like having a few drinks or a nice dinner at the airport hotel and then going to the business class lounge until flight time would be the best idea. We're flying home via Madrid on Iberia. I want to check in with them as early as possible because they wont't pre-assign seats over the phone--only at the airport. We have seat assignments from Madrid to ORD, but they only pre-assign seats to US passengers on flights to and from the US. We're in business class, I suppose it's the same thing in coach--have no idea why they have such an odd rule.