golfingboy

Welcome to the Alaska Board Room Meeting Thread, a place where those with Board Room membership can offer to meet those without membership in the Board Room. Those without membership may also request sponsorship. The general listing of offers and requests are contained in the wikipost above, which you can edit (starting soon).

INSTRUCTIONS - READ BEFORE POSTING

1. SPONSORING: If you are willing to sponsor other Flyertalkers into an Alaska BoardRoom, please help us help you by posting in the following format: Date ETA-ETD Airport Lounge, Handle (whether willing to guest 1 or 2)
   Simply cut and paste the following into your post and then edit (the content, not form) accordingly:
   
   COPY AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING: MM/DD 0945-1300 SEA BR, golfingboy (willing to guest 2)
   
   
2. LOOKING FOR ACCESS: If you are looking for access, please post in this format: Date ETA-ETD Airport, Handle
   Simply cut and past the following into your post and edit (the content, not form) accordingly:
   
   COPY AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING: MM/DD 0945-1300 SEA BR, golfingboy (access for 2)
   
   
3. PURPOSE: Following the above format serves two purposes - not everyone is familiar with flight times if you give just a flight number, and it makes it easy to skim the list to find matching opportunities.
   
   
4. PM FT'ER DIRECTLY: Please PM the FTers offering/wanting access directly - do not send the mods a PM and ask us to match you up.
   
   
5. Finally, thank you for (1) your gracious efforts in sharing your Board Room memberships with fellow Flyertalkers and (2) following the instructions posted herein. ( ). The master listing is done as a courtesy to you and our fellow posters. If your format cannot be corrected easily, I'll leave your entries off the list until more information is provided or your post is corrected. Thanks in advance for understanding.

Example of the correct format:

• 12/23 1000-1100 LAX BR, golfingboy (willing to guest 2)

Examples of the incorrect format, with the incorrect part highlighted in red:

• 12/23/2007 1000-1100 LAX BR, golfingboy (willing to guest 2) [Wrong date format]
• 23DEC 1000-1100 LAX BR, golfingboy (willing to guest 2) [Wrong date format]
• 12/23 10:00-11:00 LAX BR, golfingboy (willing to guest 2) [Wrong time format]
• 12/23 10am-11am LAX BR, golfingboy (willing to guest 2) [Wrong time format]
• 12/23 1000-1100 LAX BR, (willing to guest 2) [No handle]

Be sure to check out these other airline club meet-up threads. If you've got a Board Room membership, you may find someone looking for access whom you can help, or if you're looking for access and can't find anyone here, you may find someone willing to sponsor you into another club. Also, check (and post in!) the LoungeConnect section of FlyerTalk for further meet-up opportunities!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...irst-post.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...up-thread.html

jackal

[Moderator hat on]

Welcome to the Alaska Airlines Board Room Meeting Thread!

The intent of this thread is to promote the friendly community aspect of FlyerTalk and the Alaska Airlines forum by making it easy to meet in person those whom you know online. We believe this is consistent with the spirit of the Board Room's guesting policy.

In order to make this thread as user-friendly as possible and keep clutter to a minimum, we kindly ask that you entertain any meta-discussion about the existence of this thread, Board Room guesting policies, or pretty much anything except concise posts in the exact format described above in the existing http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alask...ng-thread.html.

Let's also keep this on topic for the Alaska Airlines forum by sticking to Board Rooms and partner clubs specifically listed on the Alaska Airlines website (before offering to sponsor a guest at a non-Board Room property, make sure you will be able to guest someone in per the rules on that page). As a courtesy and to facilitate meeting other AS flyers, we'll also allow posting about access to clubs at cities served by the AS network, but let's keep it limited to clubs accessible by AS ticket-holders (i.e. discussion about a club at JFK or at LAX T6 fits better in other places). Links to guesting threads in other airline forums will be posted in the first post--check those out for additional opportunities to meet other FlyerTalkers.

Enjoy, and I hope to eventually run into you all!
[/Moderator hat off]

Points Scrounger

Are folks here aware of the Lounge Connect feature? Just asking ...

jackal

It's here, for those of you who did not know about its existence.

ctporter

What is lounge connect? I see the calendar and add events. But not surewhat this is for?

Points Scrounger

It's a site wide (not just airline or alliance-specific) calendar of members' upcoming lounge visits.

eponymous_coward

Nobody's tending to this thread any more, are they?

Kinda makes sense, now that people are deserting AS for UA...

jackal

Once the new wikipost function is expanded to be editable by all members (hopefully in the next couple of months), we're hoping that everyone can help with keeping the wikipost up-to-date. Also, consider using the Lounge Connect function discussed above.

jackal

The invitation is not open to everyone. I do not stand in the airport terminal and shout, "First two people to follow me get lounge access!" I, too, would disagree with that approach, as it cheapens the lounge membership cost and experience for both me (as the member) and other people in the lounge.

Although FlyerTalk has gotten larger and larger over the last several years, we are still part of a relatively small, tight-knit community. I have probably personally met half of the regular posters in the Alaska Airlines forum and consider several to be good friends. Some I have met at DOs, but some I have met in transit at the airport. Thus, when we have the opportunity to meet up en-route, it is a great way to establish a friendship or re-establish a connection.

For me, at least, it's mostly about the potential for meeting new friends with whom I share a common interest. Having an open invitation here on FlyerTalk to meet up en-route is really no different than extending the same invitation to your group of friends or (if you're into that sort of thing) your lodge buddies or whatever.

Also, I have been participating in this thread and several other lounge-guesting program threads around FlyerTalk for several years (as a sponsor, not a requester). It really is not that common of an occurrence for my itinerary to match up with someone else's to the point where we can meet up. And probably in at least a third, maybe even a half, of the times where it does work, I find that the other person I'm meeting up with is already a member and doesn't need me to guest them in. And look above--the ratio of hits to misses on this thread is pretty abysmally low. So, the "load" on the lounge is imperceptibly small--on the order of maybe one or two guestees every few months, certainly not enough to have any effect on the level of crowding in the lounges. Even in the bigger forums with multiple times as many travelers, it seems like only a few people end up meeting up each week, spread across dozens and dozens of lounge locations, so the average is probably still less than 1 person per location per week.

So, the worry that "everyone is doing this everyday" is really unfounded.

First, if by "everyone" you mean "every Board Room member," then what public place would those people have to arrange for meet-ups? I know very few people outside of FT who have Board Room memberships, and of the very few that do, I cannot imagine them having a venue to post their travel schedule and arrange for meet-ups. If FTers travel far more than the average person and we rarely intersect in Airworld, then the chances of someone who does not participate in a community of frequent flyers running into someone else they know are infinitely smaller.

Second, if by "everyone" you mean "every FlyerTalker who is a Board Room member," there really aren't that many frequent posters in the AS forum. There are only 44 people who have posted on FT at least an average of two posts per week since the beginning of this year, and there are only 100 people whose handles I recognize as regularly participating in this forum. So, the pool of likely people to be participating in this program is pretty small, and it has historically been shown that most FTers who are lounge members don't bother to take the time to post their schedules here.

Third of all, the odds of two posters on FlyerTalk having itineraries which cross paths is very, very small. Even if we did have 100% participation on FT in this thread, I doubt we'd see more than one or two meet-ups each week, and possibly less often than that.

And finally, since there are no real cons, the benefits far outweigh the cons! The ability to meet other like-minded travelers and establish friendships or business networking opportunities or whatever is one of the very most valuable things I have received as a FlyerTalk member. Why not join in and experience a taste of that?

Points Scrounger

It's very rare that a non-member replies saying, "I'll be there then, thanks for the offer!" Instead, it's basically a way for FT'ers to meet. I would bet a fair sum that the number of "extra non-member" bodies clogging up clubs from this is quite negligible. That includes non-members asking if access might be possible as well.

edgewood49

I was or tried to be careful in how I worded my post so as not to insult or otherwise infer anything but my feelings. With respect to how many people do take this offer up is at thin point conjecture. But it is a world wide web!

Again, only my opinion but not a visit goes by to a BR that I do not see someone attempting to gain access for one reason or the other !

Points Scrounger

Really? In all my years of checking in at lounges, I've never seen anyone but legit members attempting to enter. As for how many people take up these offers, we have given you our non-theoretical experiences that very, very few non-members are admitted as guests this way. Any "crowding" I've encountered outside of peak-period high-demand times has likely been from extended families, and even that hasn't happened very often.

jackal

It is not simple conjecture. I have several years of experience in the guesting threads both as a sponsor as well as a moderator. I am confident that my estimates of the number of people who gain access this way are accurate. And you have others here now attesting that it is pretty rare for someone to take up the offer of access.

The issue of someone approaching the Board Room concierge and asking if they have access because they are flying international coach or have a Costco Executive membership or because their father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate was an AS pilot is completely separate. That does not have any bearing at all on the FlyerTalk lounge meet-up thread. (And I rarely see this happening at the BR--I usually see this more at United Clubs, where people flying in paid F do not have access to the clubs but come in asking for access anyway.)

Again, we are not standing near the entrance saying, "Come on in! If you don't have access, I'll guest you in!" FlyerTalk may be a global community on the "world wide web," but first, people have to find the community, and then they have to join the community, and then they have to invest in the community, and finally they have to discover this thread and make an effort to post in it. Pretty high bar, there.

And once they come in, it's not like we just go sit on separate sides of the room. We sit and (over an Amber or something) talk about what FTers always talk about at FT events: miles and points. It is always good to put a face with a name, and just like we all enjoy meeting each other at DOs, it is also nice to meet each other en-route. The lounge just provides a convenient setting to do so; it could just as easily be at an airside restaurant or Starbucks or something.

Exactly. For one, I have never seen the lounges outside of SEA crowded--ever. I've never, ever had trouble finding a seat in ANC, PDX, or LAX.

SEA is the only lounge that regularly gets crowded, and I would bet the cost of a Board Room membership that it is NOT because of FlyerTalk members guesting others in (or, for that matter, Board Room members accessing the club while not flying in years past). It is because the lounge is inadequately sized for AS's largest hub. At the very most--EVER--there may be one or two people in the club who are there because of FTers guesting them in, and even then, that's only at most a small fraction of the time (on the order of a couple of times a week for a couple of hours at most).

Points Scrounger

Delta lounges can get very crowded at peak periods - try DCA on weekdays around 5PM (roughly the time of the SEA nonstop), or ATL clubs between 6 - 7AM on weekdays. Those can be real zoos!

edgewood49

PDX which is my "home" lounge does get crowded at certain periods of time, especially with the Hawaiian and east coast flights leaving around the same time. And I have had to stand at times ! Mostly families which is fine with me as long as the kids are respectful, most are and the club management also does a great job.

Again, and this will be my last reply to this post, I was simply voicing an opinion, mine. I remember the "old days" when the club rooms were strickly invitation only and coveted. In those days Braniff had the best !!!! Pan Am was also pretty cool