Originally Posted by
airoli
And crucially for this discussion: Does the airline validate a boarding pass against its records when you enter a lounge? It is hard to manipulate the data the airline has in its systems, but it is easy to manipulate a boarding pass barcode so that said code claims you hold *G status. If the lounge entry system just reads the BP and does not validate it against the back-end, you have just managed to illegally enter a lounge.
Hence presumably the insistence on a physical card...
Well said. I'm quite sure there is no "live check" when your boarding pass gets scanned at the lounge entrance. That would be a sure way to properly defend against fraud, but would require some ressources.
That leaves 3rd party lounges, which often only check your boarding pass for status and I'm fairly sure do not any further live checking. SOME do want to see your status card, but far from all (according to my experience)
All in all, my feeling is that LX (and other airlines) know that some dedicated fraudsters probably made their way into their lounges some times, but decided that measurements that make their tricks fully impossible are too expensive, thus picked this "middle way" to make it at least harder (and kinda more criminal..) to access a lounge.