ale982

If you had looked at the Air France website, you would have seen that is says
FLYING BLUE GOLD AND PLATINUM OR SKYTEAM ELITE PLUS
You and a guest of your choice can take advantage of free entry to the 530 Air France and SkyTeam lounges. You can access these lounges before your flight's departure when you travel:
on an AIR FRANCE, KLM, or SkyTeam international flight,
on an Air France flight within Paris that departs from Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly West and airports in certain select cities,
on a SkyTeam flight within one country that connects to a SkyTeam international flight on the same day.

Goldorak

Fully agree.

orbitmic

You are absolutely right that people do that and that all FT fora are rife with those questions. It is perfectly rational to try and get the best possible lounge and I certainly did not/do not blame you from wanting to do just that.

However, just as it is rational for you to try and get the best of both worlds, it is just as rational for an airline to try and ensure that there are no structural imbalances that make it bear a higher cost for being part of an alliance compared to other alliance members. Being entirely honest, do you believe that many FB Gold/Platinum members flying AF choose to use the AZ lounge instead of the AF one? If not, then it is an imbalance, and that imbalance has a cost for AF, which is not exactly in a great financial position right now and it makes some sense for it to try and limit the damage by using the overcrowding rule when it has to.

Another way of seeing it is that while FT is full of people trying to get the best possible lounge, this was not the reason why lounge access reciprocity was created. It was created instead so that people can have lounge access even in places where their own airline doesn't have one and/or when flying another Skyteam member. The fact that frequent flyers are good at identifying loopholes and trying to maximise what they get out of them does not make it irrational or unfair for airlines to try and minimise them within reason and when there are obvious more logical alternatives available to eligible passengers as is the case here.

NickB

AFAIK, AZ would pay AF for the use of the lounge so, financially, AF would be better off by letting him in. It would be AZ who would be worse off. As far as AF is concerned in this situation, i think it is genuinely a concern over over-crowding of the lounge, unless AZ has instructed AF not to allow its passengers access to the lounge.

orbitmic

There is indeed a fee, but if I'm not mistaken (and I'm happy to be corrected!) it is a standard fee across the network and quite a low one overall, so probably not really worth it for AF for a more expensive offering like the JFK lounge. In other words, in practice, AF would not be able to charge as much for this AZ pax as they would for, say, the JL pax that they host by this ad hoc location specific agreement. So in fact, to be exhaustive, I guess that both AF and AZ might find it a financially sub-optimal deal to let passengers like the OP go to the AF lounge, which would also explain that I'd be surprised if the OP got any support from AZ if he complained that MM passengers flying AZ were refused entry into the AF lounge.

That said, I fully agree with you that I do think overcrowding is a genuine concern and that I don't think AF would refuse on the sole basis of principle, even though I expect that they are quite happy to have overcrowding as a reason.

NickB

Even if the fee is relatively low (or at any rate lower for ST partners than others), I would be extremely surprised if it were below cost. If that is so, I struggle to see how it can possibly be sub-optimal for AF to refuse an AZ pax as long as there is (actual and anticipated) spare capacity: the choice is between having a small contribution from AZ to revenue or having none at all. I would have thought that "none at all" would be sub-optimal compared to "a small contribution".

Now if it were the case that the lounge is routinely overcrowded, I can see that it would make sense to deny AZ pax access as a default rule. But, again, the justification here is overcrowding rather than financial cost.

bennos

How is that, exactly? The JL flights leave around 9am and 1pm, several hours before the first AF flight of the day.

Blootch

As a data point, I just got in tonight with a print out of my AZ status that I got from their promo match. Was traveling in Y on a flyingblue promo award, so they couldn't even add my AZ number to the boarding pass. Figured I would be out of luck but they gave no problems! ^

orbitmic

Very good point. That was what af people told me but you are right it doesn't hold water.

Goldorak

But you were flying on an AF flight to CDG, right ? If yes, there was no reason to deny you access.

orbitmic

Indeed, promoaward suggests AF (at least from T1), and the only issue we noted was AZ cardholder flying Y on AZ, not AZ cardholder flying AF, nor AF cardholder flying AZ.

Blootch

Correct, I was flying on AF to CDG, but after reading this thread thought they would try and send me to AZ. Perhaps my thought process was ilogical, but I was surprised

AlicorporateUK

The OP was flying AZ with an AZ card.

G

orbitmic

No illogical but too extreme! I don't think there ever was any doubt that passengers would be allowed in when flying AF. I personally also do not doubt that FB members flying AZ would be fine too (although it is arguably a lower priority) but indeed, the OP was AZ member flying AZ in Y.

speedlog

As FB gold I have been denied entry to the AF lounge when flying AZ J from JFK. "You have your OWN lounge for this ticket" they told me. Wonderful.