Originally Posted by
tpsmith82
03/08/2018 SEA D THUR 15:00 PP DENIED
Went to the Alaska lounge in D and was told too busy not allowing entry. She mentioned only lounge available was North Satellite. After arriving there, was allowed entry. Having never been in the lounge was very underwhelmed. We left fairly quickly and then tried our luck at the AS lounge in C. Allowed in without incident. Makes me wonder about being denied at the 1st lounge. Our appearance was not the best and wondering if being denied based on that. But all in all a good experience and the lounge in C was nice.
I prefer the C concourse lounge with great views of the airfield for takeoffs and landings. Convenient to the C gates and the escalator to the train for N gates is just outside the door. While a lot of people feel access is arbitrary Alaska is privy to information they just don't have. Alaska knows how many F passengers (not U), Alaska Lounge members, and F award ticket passengers are coming and going, if they are originating in SEA or transiting, what gates they will be arriving at and departing from and historically if they bring a guest. This information is useful in estimating Lounge loads at any given time. It is possible that an almost empty lounge will be full within a short period of time and PP members will be denied. Switch it around, if you had an Alaska Lounge membership and were denied access because the lounge was at capacity with PP members, how would you feel? Access is a privilege, not a right.
For disclosure, I am not a PP Member nor an Alaska Lounge Member, I am 75K and usually fly U. I do have the Citi World Elite credit card which gives me Admirals Club membership. The reciprocal lounge agreement allows me access to any Alaska Lounge (used them all many times) when flying any class with Alaska which is 90% of the time. It also gives me access to Admirals Club as long as I am behind security. It allows me into SFO while flying Alaska and use it as an arrival lounge if SFO is my final destination.
James