Originally Posted by
Gig103
I won't pretend travel bloggers (who encourage this churning) are the only contributors to crowding, but seem like low hanging fruit (and low value clients) that can be chopped instead of limiting people to how many times they can visit, or trying to remove AU access.
It appears Amex has followed the industrys' (Chase 5/24/Citi 24/Barclays no dup/BofA no dup) lead taking some measures to address the free-rider issue. The language introduced in new Amex Apps appear to give them wide discretion on refusing bonuses--give this new scheme some time to gain traction.
In my view, the most fair way to address overcrowding (assuming the problem continues) is, absent of any other consideration, simply take cardmember value, however they objectively determine this metric, and base their decisions purely on past and future potential customer value. Start from the bottom, and work their way up until the problem is resolved, one way or the other.
PS - My view on making the decision based purely on an impersonal level is to address the litany of complaints that are sure to follow when a large enough number of applicants are refused the bonus and/or "XXX" group protests on being unfairly targeted by whatever potential cardmember demographic adversely affected by lounge policy tinkering.