Originally Posted by
Xyzzy
IMH
it's really not too much to ask. I hardly ever end up needing to enter when flying on another airline -- but when I am I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect to be granted access. They've had my money for a while.
From my perspective there are two different communities: people who paid for access after the restriction announcement, and people before. For the people who paid to be able to access the lounges whenever, not limited to legacy lifetime members, United should live up to its end of the bargain. For people who renewed, or signed-up, after the announcement United is not being classy but you fundamentally made the choice to renew.
While an interested party, I'm not the judge and jury. I think that this may take some time to play out, but that it will be hard for front line employees to turn club members away. I also think that the public relations optics to this are at play too...and that UA is more likely to budge than AA. After all most lifetime United Club members were acquired after its merger with Continental, and many CO LT members bought after the bankruptcies.
Remember: from an accounting perspective a lifetime membership is a deferred liability; I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that CH 11 can be used to reduce liabilities, so there might be different outcomes for pre-bankruptcy vs post UA customers and the same for CO. Also remember...everything we say here is discoverable and there is an unfortunately good chance this will all end up in court some day.