Originally Posted by
jsloan
Sure, but how many non-flying members did they really have? That number has to be dwarfed by the number of OAL passengers.
Besides, both statements could be true: they could have originally envisioned the clubs as passenger-only, then decided to allow gate passes when somebody complained and they realized that people were using the clubs in situations they hadn’t originally envisioned.
I should probably withdraw the statement, though. It’d be more correct to say that they probably never envisioned anyone would use the clubs when they weren’t flying with that airline, and just leave it at that. There wasn’t much of a need for a rule of any kind until crowding started to become an issue.
This is incorrect. When I joined RCC as lifetime around 1990 a secondary purpose was to use the RCC in TPE and HKG for my frequent intra-Asian flights. That was before the time of the alliances. Almost as soon as I paid the lifetime membership UA announced that business class passengers can use RCC without membership. I wrote to UA asking refund of membership fee since I always fly business class on UA and almost all my flights during those years are TPAC and intra Asia on CI, CX, etc.. An UA executive wrote back to remind me that the value of using RCC in my intra-Asia flights at HKG and TPE (non-UA flights) are worthy of my membership fee. ..
They most definitely knew that you would use their clubs when flying other airlines. It's just that you would be less likely to visit where the lounge was far from your gate.
The convenience of the club made you more likely to buy a United ticket, all else being equal, but they had no thoughts of turning you away if you didn't have the right boarding pass. For over a decade pre-merger Continental even had a club outside security at SFO, accessible at any time to members, .
At time of my lifetime membership purchase the RCC in TPE and SFO are all on the landside. Some airport employees at TPE use RCC near daily to get free meals, and the UA TPE manager told me that they are thinking of asking HQ to require only flying passengers (any airline) be allowed. That was also the time that Lifetime members have free use of meeting rooms for 4 hours, and many including myself have used RCC for airport meetings when some participants flew in (whatever airline), and left immediately after the meeting. Others were locals. The RCC at that time was definitely not intended only for UA passengers.