Originally Posted by NYTA

I'm going to go against the crowd and say that - if he has a right to the lounge at 18 or 21 why shouldn't he be upset that as a paying passenger, he doesn't get the same rights at 16? He's not traveling as an unaccompanied minor. We're also not talking about breaking any laws here - i.e. drinking etc, we're talking about getting a shower. What if, for example, in F on the EK A380 where there is a shower, the FAs wouldn't let him shower on the plane where he had paid to fly in F? Sure, it's nice to fly F for the other reasons, but if you're denied something you paid for because of your age? That's not right.

Furthermore, bribery is sadly quite common in many parts of the world - just see the Aeroflot forum about the $100 upgrade or the forum about Vegas hotels. I have heard stories of people who bribed border officials in certain Arab countries to let them in with Israeli passports despite having been born in that country - in that case probably the only way to gain access to visit family or visit the graves of their parents/grandparents. It happens in a lot of places, and frankly to say "for a person of your extraction" is not just judgmental, it's racist.

In my view the OP should be entitled to the the services paid for (including lounge access) assuming he's old enough to meet the airline's travel rules so that he's not traveling as an unaccompanied minor. Doesn't matter if he paid for it with his own money as seems to be the case here or if he has a rich family that pays for it (hell if I paid for my son to fly in J and he didn't get lounge access, I'd probably be even more pissed off about it than he would!)