VWGuru

Work may/may not be picking up a RCC membership for me and I had some questions. I will be *G by the time DEQM posts but I am going to MEL/SYD in Y on the 25th, will that membership be able to get me into the NZ lounge with my wife? This will mainly benefit me on my domestic legs and I am hoping to get it either way but having a nice pre-flight drink would be nice since I will not be in C for that flight.

ddrewboy

Are you going on the 25th of this month? I dont think deqm will post by then. If you have become *G before your flight, I would make sure and call UA res. to reenter your MP# to acknowledge your changed status.

Technically, you are supposed to have the *G card (1P in your case) with you when you enter a lounge. However, I found that many lounges will let you in without the card but YMMV. The likelyhood of you getting a 1P card before your SYD trip is pretty slim though, IMHO.

If anything, print out the 1P benefit page. You may get lucky

good luck,
drew

Diplomatico

I don't think the RCC membership will get you access into the NZ lounge unless you are flying on NZ. From .bomb:

"For admission to one of our designated Star Alliance® member clubs or lounges listed below, you must be departing on a Star Alliance flight and present your same-day ticket on the appropriate carrier along with your boarding pass or United Red Carpet Club membership card."

The bolded area implies that you must be on the carrier with which the lounge is affiliated.

Here's the link:

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,,3113,00.html

mahasamatman

It's ambiguous. The "appropriate carrier" could simply refer to the aforementioned Star Alliance flight. It's also interesting how they seem to require both a ticket and a boarding pass.

UnitedEF

Since UA shut down the RCC in SYD I thought that UA members could use the NZ lounge as part of their RCC membership because UA contracted them to handle it. Is that not right?

Diplomatico

I know...that's why I wrote "implies".

mahasamatman

Non-sequitur. In logic, "A implies B" is non-ambiguous.

EsquireFlyer

The issue of whether RCC membership gets you access into the SQ lounge (and it would be the same rule for the NZ lounge) is under debate in page 10 of this thread.

The short story is that I think the answer is yes, and I'm pretty sure about that, although there is some ambiguity on .bomb's RCC page. But some other FTers think that the answer is no, based on those ambiguities.

Last night I used my RCC card to access the SKL in SFO and was admitted without question. But because I am coincidentally also a *G, it wasn't a perfect experiment. I did not present my *G card, but my status was printed on my BP.

Diplomatico

Uh huh.

OP, would you report back after (if) you try this? The more data points we have, the better.

EsquireFlyer

mahatsaman is correct: logically, it's not implied, due to the ambiguity.

But if you want to use a lay definition of "imply" as simply meaning "suggest," then what mahatsaman is saying is that was the text you pointed to doesn't imply that travel on NZ is required any more than it also implies that travel on any *A carrier is sufficient (because of the previous text it refers back to). Because the text you relied on equally implies two opposite things, it text doesn't support your claim. Unless you can find additional text on that page to back your point. Which you can't.

p.s. LOL at this:
Last edited by mahasamatman; Today at 5:29 pm. Reason: Missed a comma.

VWGuru

If I end up getting it, sure! I just hate that the wording leaves so much gray area, but then it would not be United if it was crystal clear.

ger3sf

Yes, NZ's Koru Club in SYD is available to RCC members on UA flights.

EsquireFlyer

I think that interpretation is wrong, for three reasons. The phrase you bolded must be examined in context to determine its meaning, rather than taken out of context and interpreted alone. And based on the context:

1. The requirement says "on the appropriate carrier," not "on the carrier operating the lounge." In order to have meaning (so that the reader can figure out what is "appropriate") the phrase must refer back to the text preceding it, and the preceding text is "you must be departing on a Star Alliance flight and present your same-day ticket on the appropriate carrier." So "the appropriate carrier" is the carrier whose Star Alliance flight you are departing on. It doesn't have to be any specific carrier within Star Alliance; just "a Star Alliance flight."

2. Look at the "Red Carpet Club member" column of that page, and scroll down to the US Airways Club row. See the box checked, and the footnote number 9 next to the checkmark. Footnote 9 reads: "Only when United Red Carpet Club members are flying the same day on a U.S. Airways operated flight." This implies (and in this case, it actually implies) that there is no general rule that RCC partner lounge access requires travel on the specific carrier operating the lounge. Because if there was such a general rule, US Airways would not have had to make an exception for itself; the US Airways exception would have been the rule. There would be no reason for footnote 9 to exist at all.

So, the fact that footnote 9 exists must mean that any airline lounge in the table that does not have a footnote like footnote 9 will permit RCC members to access the lounge when flying on a Star Alliance flight, regardless of whether the flight is operated by the same carrier that operates the lounge. If you scroll to the NZ "Koru Club Lounge" Row, you see that the RCC box is checked, and has no limiting footnote.

3. In any case, the specific portion you bolded is part of a clause in the requirements that is now obselete/invalid, or at least no longer enforced. See the full sentence: "For admission to one of our designated Star Alliance® member clubs or lounges listed below, you must be departing on a Star Alliance flight and present your same-day ticket on the appropriate carrier along with your boarding pass or United Red Carpet Club membership card."

So the "on the appropriate carrier" language is part of the requirement that the passenger present a same-day ticket in addition to the boarding pass. But paper tickets are a thing of the past, and it's not physically possible to present an e-ticket (unless you bring your laptop, or have a ticket copy on your Blackberry, etc.). At least in the past 5 years, I've never been asked to present a paper ticket in addition to the boarding pass, for *G lounge access. So the "on the appropriate carrier" language is within a clause that is no longer used or enforced as a requirement at all.

The above 3 reasons show why, when the phrase is interpreted within the four corners of the document, it cannot logically mean that travel on the same carrier that operates the lounge is required--especially because that would make US Airways's exception and footnote nonsensical.

However, if you wish to look beyond the four corners of the document, the Star Alliance website's Lounge Access Policy explicitly supports my interpretation of that .bomb page, and contradicts yours.

Note the section "Paid Lounge Membership Customers," which is what applies to paid RCC members. And the policy says: "Customers have access to any Star Alliance member carriers' owned Business Class lounges."

There is no requirement for presentation of a ticket. The only requirements are: "Customer must present a valid paid lounge membership card" and "Customer must also present a boarding card for a same day Star Alliance flight departing from the local airport." So, according to the Star Alliance website, RCC members can access any *A carrier's business class lounge, upon presentation of the RCC card, and a BP for "a same-day Star Alliance flight"--which has to depart from the local airport, but the specific carrier operating the flight makes no difference, as long as it is a *A carrier.

I hope that helps to clear up the ambiguity..the words at the top of the .bomb RCC page are confusingly written, but I think that if you read the whole page, there is only one interpretation that makes sense.