Originally Posted by
maalloc
I once spent 20 minutes at the entrance of a SVO lounge. The clerk would not let me in because I didn't have my physical FB card and my status was somehow not printed on my boarding pass. Let's just say I'd have happily skipped the "let's argue with a russian clerk after a red-eye flight" part of the journey. Now my card never leaves my wallet
One of the disadvantages of the absence of physical cards would be that it would make it more difficult to credit a flight to a FFP while relying on another FFP to get lounge access (or other FFP elite perks). Theoretically, you could show your status in the app but I would suspect that difficult discussions of the kind you refer to could all too easily happen.