Originally Posted by Hammer0425

Had a not so great first experience with the Centurion Lounge in SFO yesterday. Upon showing them my boarding pass with "awaiting seat," I was sent packing.

Per the website: If you are a Platinum Card® or Centurion® Member, access to The Centurion Lounge is complimentary as part of your Card Membership. To access The Centurion Lounge, the Card Member must present The Centurion Lounge agent with the following upon each visit: his or her valid Card, a boarding pass showing a confirmed reservation for same-day travel on any carrier and a government-issued I.D.

My interpretation of that, a confirmed "reservation" is a ticket with a ticket number, a confirmation code, something that shows your name on it and a pair of cities that you're flying between that day. It does not say anything about them needing to see where you are sitting on the plane, and in this case, until the gate opened for departure (an hour early), I can't get a seat assignment. After calling AMEX directly, they agreed but I wasn't going to go back and argue. As I said, say you have a boarding pass on your phone with a seat and your flight cancels. They add you to standby for a flight an hour later. You can go from being allowed in to not being allowed in over the span of 30 seconds.

Of course I was connecting and had a boarding pass from the flight into SFO which I now see would have been fine to get in but the desk agent didn't think to ask about that. She was more concerned with asking me to get a seat assignment and to come back and then telling her co-worker "you really have to look at boarding passes closely" as I was leaving.

Just curious what everyone's thoughts are ... it seems like there are different ways to interpret what a "confirmed reservation" means. No question the lounge access program has gone downhill in the past couple years with AMEX. Just doesn't seem to be good business to start hassling card holders paying $450 a year over verbiage that they can't really justify.