Originally Posted by
escape4
Indeed we are now on the same page except for the minor crossed out typo above. BA F and BA J passengers can have hot food in the PHL lounge, but QR J passengers cannot. I don't think it would have been very hard to allow QR J passengers to have dining with hot food, but this issue is as much (if not more) QR as it is BA.
The main difference I see with AA Flagship Dining, is that when I went to the Flagship lounge (JFK+ORD) as a QR passenger, since my expectations is NOT Flagship Dining (just like in BA PHL my expectation is not BA F dining), I never raised a fuss because alternatives are plentiful - lots of hot food options on the buffet. This is simply not the case in the BA lounge - as a QR J passenger my alternatives are peanuts (almost litterally speaking) whereas in the AA Flagship lounge my ground experience is so much better.
Definitely understand that. I think the problem is mostly with what BA is willing to provide in its lounges. It is probably not feasible for them to allow additional passengers to access the J pre-flight dining, simply because of capacity. They're slammed. And no way is QR going to pay for extra provisions in the BA lounge that would be eaten up by other OWE/OWS passengers.
The good news is that a Flagship Lounge will be opening in Philadelphia in the next 18 months (a long time, I know), and all OW status passengers and J passengers on AA and QR will have access to a hot food buffet. I imagine, at that point, the only people using the BA lounge will be those who don't know there's a better option.