"Partner" has now become one of those words that means everything and nothing. I recall being told the partner of someone who was already a Partner in a Fat Four accounting firm and working on the project, would be joining a project I was on. It took me a little while - and even then I had to ask - to understand that the partner was not a partner in the business sense but the leg-over sense. I think VA uses the term in the leg-over sense when it refers to family members or similar to whom a "double Platinum" can gift a Gold status membership. And then of course there's "partner in crime" ...