[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by number_6:
In contrast, AF with a *purchased* F ticket refused entry to the F lounge at CDG and it took intervention by a supervisor to get the F lounge access -- for a full fare F ticket! There was no apology for this shoddy treatment ... and I haven't flown AF since then (so this was a very expensive behaviour on their part). I shudder to think how a mere PM is treated by AF if they don't even value their own customers! And the F lounge in CDG isn't that special, hardly worth protecting.
Skyteam seems to be disfunctional when it comes to cross-airline privileges.
Six, you got hosed. In January I was flying steerage on AF (alternative was F...and a second mortgage on my house), connecting through CDG. On the outbound leg, the AF gate guard quickly found the Elite Plus logo on my PM card, and welcomed me to the lounge (and France, for that matter.) On the return leg, a different gal in that "down the escalator" Lounge wanted my card, my ticket, etc., and wrote everything down in some little notebook...but then let me in.
FWIW, the food in the AF Lounges whomp @ss over the "nuclear orange" snack mix in the CRCs....I prolly don't fly early enough in the day for the good stuff...'cept for what's behind the bar.
The lounges were the high point of my AF trip. AF is a clusterf*ck of an airline, but they could improve by doing some really small stuff better, like
(a) checking docs BEFORE boarding...when my delayed from the night before flight finally left, AF had 3 lines to board, each one of which quickly became clogged up b/c of docs checks on people from countries that you have never heard of. Do this BEFORE boarding.
(b) *AHEM* pre-boarding elites.
(c) Not swearing up and down that the plane would be ready in 15 minutes.....11 times over 4 hours. Lyin' MFers. (It would have been longer, but it was the late flight to JFK; there was only limited opportunity for salami tactics).
Regards,
O/H