Flying Blue (Air France, KLM, and Other Partners) - Access to Air France lounge at SFO when flying KLM

I was recently flying SFO -> AMS on KLM. I'm a plat member.
There is an AirFrance lounge at SFO, and the lounge was open (because the AF flight to CDG was roughly 30mins after the KL flight.)

Now, when I showed up at the lounge the lady there said they couldn't accomodate me, and I had to go to the Delta lounge. The delta lounge did accomodate me, but this one is quite old and rusty, doesn't have good wifi and very few plugs :(

I find this quite weird. I though AF and KLM where both flying blue and that they would welcome any Flying blue member, whatever the flight is (specially a KLM flight!).

Can anyone explain? Has this ever happened to you?

If a lounge is full/busy, you may be re-directed to another lounge, when another lounge is available.

It sounds like this is what you experienced.

Nope. The AF lounge was far from busy. Maybe 5 or 6 people inside.

And you didn't think to ask why you could not be accommodated?

Perhaps when there is an AF departure imminent, they accept only passengers on the AF flight, in anticipation of a busy lounge.

I did. The lady said that the AF lounge was just for people flying AF. I didn't the rule, so I didn't argue. Now that I have more time, I am asking people if that was normal, so that next time, I can certainly argue with her :)

Makes sense, then. I've not been in the SFO lounges, but in NRT, there is a small AF lounge and a much larger Delta lounge.

When capacity is constrained like that, when a lounge can accommodate those passengers from a single airline/single aircraft only, it makes sense to "reserve" this lounge for that upcoming flight of that particular airline, and to send all others to the larger lounge (otherwise, the truly bizarre consequence of Air France passengers being turned away from the Air France lounge would occur, due to the lounge being full of Delta and/or KLM passengers).

In other words, the Air France lounge is not designed to be capable for handling the SkyTeam passenger loads, but is of a size that can only handle AF passenger loads. However, there is a lounge provided which can handle such passenger numbers, and to which you were directed.

Again, I don't know how the SFO lounges operate, but in NRT, the AF lounge opens only a few hours before AF and SB flights so you probably would need to be travelling on one of these carriers to enter that AF lounge. But in SFO, if the AF lounge opens longer, perhaps you would have been welcomed in, after the departure time of the AF flight. (I suspect, though, it exists solely to service the AF passenger loads).

Perhaps if you stated that you were happy to "lounge-hop", and that you were not intending to stay for very long but would soon retreat to the Delta lounge, you may have been let in (but I think perhaps not).

I can confirm this has always been the case at SFO. To be honest, the DL lounge there is one of the nicer DL lounges so if you found it 'old and rusty', I'd recommend you avoid DL lounges in general many of which are much worse :( The AF lounge does get very full but the KL flight leaves a bit earlier so it is possible that when you went there people had not arrived yet. They would have arrived not that much later. I too would have preferred using the AF lounge for the newspaper etc but unfortunately I don't think it will change...

I was recently flying SFO -> AMS on KLM. I'm a plat member.
There is an AirFrance lounge at SFO, and the lounge was open (because the AF flight to CDG was roughly 30mins after the KL flight.)

Now, when I showed up at the lounge the lady there said they couldn't accomodate me, and I had to go to the Delta lounge. The delta lounge did accomodate me, but this one is quite old and rusty, doesn't have good wifi and very few plugs :(

I find this quite weird. I though AF and KLM where both flying blue and that they would welcome any Flying blue member, whatever the flight is (specially a KLM flight!).

Can anyone explain? Has this ever happened to you?

I had the same experience last yr when flying sfo-ams on klm metal and having a gold elite plus card. The lady was very unfriendly and told me the same as she obviously explained you. Furthermore she explained me that even my fb card didn't change that. As based in sfo I know why: SQ does the same when I try to use my Lufthansa Senator card to come in to their lounge when flying *alliance but not SQ. On the United forum there was recently a discussion on that and the main reason seems lack of space in the int terminal on sfo and lounges not big for that reason ( one exception: the United lounges)

I had the same experience last yr when flying sfo-ams on klm metal and having a gold elite plus card. The lady was very unfriendly and told me the same as she obviously explained you. Furthermore she explained me that even my fb card didn't change that. As based in sfo I know why: SQ does the same when I try to use my Lufthansa Senator card to come in to their lounge when flying *alliance but not SQ. On the United forum there was recently a discussion on that and the main reason seems lack of space in the int terminal on sfo and lounges not big for that reason ( one exception: the United lounges)To be fair, the SQ situation, although similar in genus, is rather more severe. The problem for SQ is that SFO is a UA hub with a gazillion UA elites who would rather go for the SQ lounge (although not great) rather than the crummy UA lounges. Things have got worse since the Intl and domestic terminals got linked a few years ago. You can understand that they do not want several battalions of *A Golds in their (small) lounge. They used to be somewhat more lenient for non-UA *A Gs in the past but I understand that they have tightened up since then (it has been quite a while since I last tried).

The SFO lounge is fairly small and can get crowded quickly. It is usually run by a very disagreeable woman of a certain age who seems to think that she is welcoming you into her private home (or is often the case, telling you to go away). As I've always used the lounge flying on AF metal with business tickets, I've never had a problem. FB elites with lounge access are allowed in if they are flying AF that day; I'm not sure where this rule is written and I tend to think it is to be applied for capacity control. If I were the OP I would contact AF and ask them about this specific occurrence. If you read the lounge access information on the AF site, you should have been allowed access to the SFO lounge when flying KLM (the company is Air France-KLM, after all). Sending a KLM Plat passenger to the DL lounge when the AF lounge isn't full seems counterintuitive.

The last time I was through SFO (August) La Châtelaine was in rare form and made several trips around the lounge to try to confiscate peoples newspapers and magazines ("Are you finished with that? Are you really reading that? I need these for later, for other passengers, etc") when there were plenty still out on the stands.

She is something.