Originally Posted by
MADPhil
However BA is far from being the only lounge operator that does it in order to protect access for their own members or passengers. For example, AA stopped selling day passes while lounge capacities were reduced for construction and AS are notorious for doing it.
While that may be true, the "deny entry due to lounge full" relies on a faît accompli state - "
Now the lounge is full and so
at this point it is not possible to let you in, despite you have access rights". It is not a tool to allow a lounge agent to pick which customers s/he wants in the lounge. Either the lounge is full or it isn't.
I might be ignorant, but I actually only experienced one airline having this practice and it is pretty widespread with BA. It just goes to show how they look upon their alliance friends and how weak the alliance model really is. There is no actual alliance body, it is just a perceived entity that relies on its members to do the right thing.
If a number of alliance members are inventing their own rules to discriminate against alliance customers, then I guess OW is losing in importance and eventually will just fall apart.
Refraining from selling lounge passes is another thing IMO, as they never were "guaranteed" to begin with.