Background: MI (SilkAir) is SQ's (100% owned by SQ) regional airline.
From:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum88/HTML/000230.html
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And rules are strictly enforced by the Asian lounges.
As for MI and SQ. Here is how strange it can be:
I bought a business class ticket, issued by SQ for Phuket to Sydney, return. So that meant flying MI from Phuket to Singapore and SQ from Singapore to Sydney and vice versa.
At MI check-in in Phuket they give me two boarding passes, one for MI and one for my connecting SQ flight. MI does not have a lounge at Phuket so they give you a voucher that's good for a snack and a drink in the airport's restaurant.
The restaurant is run by Thai. At one end of the restaurant is Thai's lounge which is also the Star Gold lounge. MMMmmmm I thought, I'm not flying Thai and MI is not part of Star but I AM a departing Star Gold passenger holding a Star carrier's boarding pass for later today (SQ from SIN-SYD). So I ask the lounge clerk if I qualify for admission. She thinks not but I tell her what I think the rules are and she rings a supervisor to check. And sure enough, I'm right and I'm allowed into the lounge. The rules here work in my favour even though it seems odd because I'm not flying on Thai or even a Star airline out of Phuket. But rules are rules ...
At SIN, I show my SQ business class boarding pass and I am welcomed to SQ's SilverKris business class lounge. Fine.
But on my return flights SYD-SIN-HKT on the same ticket and with the same airlines, I am refused admission to the SilverKris lounge in Singapore. Why? Because the lounge is for departing passengers NOT arriving passengers and a MI business class boarding pass is not enough for admission, nor is a SQ business class boarding pass from an arrivingflight.
So SQ welcomes me in one direction and almost spits at me in the other. It hardly seems good customer relations but rules are rules ... Sometimes they work for you and sometimes they work against you. And boy does SQ stick to them.
[This message has been edited by Austman (edited 12-14-2001).]