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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Minneapolis: DL DM charter 2.3MM
Programs: A3*Gold, SPG Plat, HyattDiamond, MarriottPP, LHW exAccess, ICI, Raffles Amb, NW PE MM, TWA Gold MM
Posts: 102,617
Most European lounges are for departures only and this can be strictly enforced. The exception is the designated arrivals lounge at CDG. The SkyTeam rules seem to be implicitly about departure lounges, although the lounge list on delta.dumb now (new within the last several months) specifies departures for the KLM lounges in AMS.
One way around this policy is to use Priority Pass for lounge acess. The regular AmEx Plat charge card allows lounge entry on the day of a qualifying flight, formerly phrased as within 24 hours (forward or back) of a qualifying flight, but for overnight flights whether this must be the day of departure or not isn't perfectly clear. Other alliances seem to have similar or even stricter rules, in some cases not allowing use of lounges before domestic connecting flights, only before the qualifying international segment(s).