FredBloggs

I'm confused by the ability (or not) to get into *A lounges, and apparently reps at both Chase and United's Club Service Center are confused also.

I recently got the MileagePlus Club credit card, and was speaking to a rep from Chase about an upcoming trip. She assured me, contrary to all the publicity material, that I would have zero access to non-United lounges. I fished around on the *A Lounge Finder, but couldn't figure it out - in part because I think I have a United Club membership, but the only United option it gives in the drop down is United Red Carpet Club.

Today I got the United Club card, complete with a *A logo. I figured if I called their 800 number, I could just get a list of *A lounges where I could get access. No such luck. The rep said I had to use the Lounge Finder and put in specific city pairs. I asked for JFK to Johannesburg, which leaves out of Terminal 4 at JFK. He checked the Lounge Finder, and assured me there was no lounge in Terminal 4 that I could access, and for the return flight, no lounge in Johannesburg.

I then looked at the Star Alliance Lounge Access Policy http://www.staralliance.com/en/benef...access-policy/ which says "Eligible Paid Lounge Membership Customers have access to any Star Alliance member carriers' owned Business Class lounges." I guess if I knew what a "member carriers' owned Business Class Lounge" was, that might be helpful. So I called back, and happened to get the same rep. I pointed out what I had read, and he looked at it, checked up, and eventually conceded that, yes, there's a Swiss lounge in Terminal 4 that I should be able to use - but he then unhelpfully added that the people in the lounge have the final decision as to whether to let me use it. And, no, he couldn't give me the phone number of the Swiss lounge, and neither could someone at Swiss - so it's hit or miss, apparently.

Questions:
1) Has anyone tried using the Swiss lounge at JFK terminal 4, traveling on an Economy ticket with no elite status, and succeeded?
2) Has anyone managed to use a lounge at Johannesburg airport?

Thanks.

mia

Welcome to Flyertalk. Red Carpet Club is the previous name of the United Club. I believe you are looking for this page:

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...ge/access.aspx

...and this one...

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...s/default.aspx

...which I see ultimately leads you to where you were. I have broken out your question into a separate thread and moved it to the dedicated UA forum where you should receive an authoritative answer.

star_world

If you have a United Club card, you will be able to use the vast majority of * Alliance business class and *Gold lounges if you are departing on a *A airline that day from that airport.

So if you're departing on SA from JFK, you will be able to use their lounge, along with any other *A lounges that are in that terminal. The exceptions are lounges for First Class, and lounges where the airline differentiates between Business and *Gold. LH, LX and SQ are examples of airlines that do this at some airports.

Hope this helps.

alex_b

According to the *A website (which is generally fairly accurate) you have access to the LX lounge in T4 and the SA lounge in JNB (which isn't bad). You'll need to take the United Club card with you and you might need to remind the staff at JNB of the rules (LX at JFK should be use to UC members by now).

sbm12

Assuming you have the physical card from UA you can access both the LX lounge in JFK and the SA lounge in CPT.