allturnleft

Just checked in for flight to HEL
Boarding pass says I am invited to use the number one lounge at LHR
This is odd!
Surely I am better of using one of the one world lounges?

Jainzar

Just go to the CX lounge.

intuition

Assuming you hold status, yes.

Steve_Hun

Even without that... Since silver has no access to lounge, w/ AY if you have lounge access, that always conforms w/ ow lounge access rules. So you either have access because of status, or because of class of service. Either way, you are allowed to use any of the oneworld first party lounges.

intuition

In the very distant past, when I held no status, OW lounges turned me away on AY J ticket. OW rules may have been updated since then.

lkrt

CX yes, but No 1 lounge beats AA and BA lounges, though.

tsastor

Not if you want to have a nap, I think. The "beds" in the No 1 lounge beat anything in the 1W lounges AFAIK.

tsastor

They tried to do that sometimes, but the rules were always the same IMO.

corporate-wage-slave

There are big Finnair signs on the Cathay Lounge and the flight announcements are for two airlines only - Cathay and Finnair - when I suspect most users are on entirely another airline.....

Courmisch

I noticed last week that the AA F lounge actually has a token restaurant menu. Did anybody try? I presume it's better than BA's and worse than CX's?

ffay005

I wonder how many AY pax actually go to those third-party lounges AY has contracts with. I'd assume the majority does – on Sunday at SFO, my BP said AF lounge, but the CX people were happy to have us there. I didn't hear any Finnish in the CX lounge, though, and didn't recognize any familiar faces from the lounge in the J cabin, either, so I'd assume most people obeyed the BP.

intuition

IME many check-in agents are "forcefully" directing pax to the contract lounges. I can't count the number of times I've been told "we use this lounge, do you know where it is?" and I reply "nah, I'm just going to go to CX first lounge". They usually looks baffled and say something like "No, Finnair uses <insert crappy contract lounge name here>".

Only on a few occasions and only at HKG IIRC, the agent says "here is the lounge invite but you can of course go to any lounge you like".

From this I surmise that 99% of AY pax are in the third-party lounge.

ffay005

Now that you mention it... I actually had a similar conversation with the check-in agent at the Y counter. There were only two counters manned 2 hours before SDT, and since the Y counter had no line, that's where we went. The agent handed out the BPs and gave directions to the AF lounge. I said we were probably going to the CX lounge, to which he replied that I wouldn't be able to guest anyone in. I gladly replied that my traveling companion is AY Gold so it won't be a problem and left the agent looking quite baffled.

I'd assume the agents have little knowledge of lounge access rules. AY probably only trains them to direct people to the cheapest lounge with which they have made an agreement, and the agents won't visit the lounges as pax so why would they know...

on22cz

Not that I'd be surprised about it, considering it means additional revenue for them (CX). Of course, it's nice CX staff does their job well in their lounges and it's usually nice to talk to them.


Let's look at it positively - good they at least know about some lounge available. IIRC, it was on SK in PRG months ago where a check-in agent had no idea about lounges and on top of that behaved like if it was my fault that I didn't know whether the contract had already been terminated or not

allturnleft

Just done a direct comparison
No 1 vs CX

CX in a totally different league in terms of quality and ambience

No1 crowded, holiday type clientele but worth going for a bacon roll

CX relaxed , elegant, champagne....