BA is functioning as a contract lounge for BR during those hours; they aren’t going to be admitting random OW pax. In fact it’s even a BR staffer up front. It’s also not exactly an amazing lounge (I was there last month for a BR 25 J flight). They refurbished the furniture and they have some snacks but it’s not light years better than the Club at SEA for the S Gates. There is a shower (ONE shower) but it’s seen better days (functional but aging).
If a really NICE lounge is super important like it appears to be for OP I wouldn’t call the BA lounge “nice”. CX/BA at SFO or OW/FL at LAX blow away ANYTHING at SEA (maybe AMEX lounge at SEA comes closest, but even that isn’t the best AMEX lounge in the system). Frankly the JL lounge at SFO is ~= BA lounge at SEA (except for the shower). The Club at SEA isn’t a LOT worse- it gets super crowded though because it’s used by LH/EK/NH/OZ/FI/SQ as a contract lounge, and some of them have overlapping departures.
I’m based out of SEA and I guess I am used to the shabby lounge situation- for a J flight I’d rather spend the extra time connecting at home instead of in a nice lounge in LAX/SFO. (F is different because SEA has not much longhaul F save KE and EK.)
Anyways... maybe once the OW shared lounge concept gets going they might do it in SEA and share between BA/JL/CX, but it’s probably not a high priority compared to other places. There is also no guarantee JL and CX are in this for the long term, TYO has JL/NH/DL and DL gave up on SEA-HKG, CX might too. Much easier to go with a contract option until they know they are going to fly the route long term.
Last edited by eponymous_coward; Jan 20, 2020 at 7:04 pm