Originally Posted by
zorn
Are we 100% certain it's the credit card holders who are crowding the lounges, and not also a combination of the following issues:
- the schedule remains a shadow of its former self
- getting to the airport earlier due to airport issues
- longer connections due to schedule and concern over airport issues
Plus misconnects, delays, etc.
There is the obvious logical issue with "credit cards" being the problem... Frequent fliers are frequently at the airport. If the credit card holders aren't frequent fliers then it's tough for them to add up to a lot of seats in the lounge since they aren't there.... frequently.
The only problem with that is that AC has defined frequent fliers as people who fly frequently *and* pay a lot for their tickets. By excluding all the lower fares from significant status qualification currency there are frequent fliers who don't actually qualify for status. So... perhaps the credit card MLL users people are seeing are statistically mostly just people who would have previously qualified for status and are now signing up for credit cards to get back the privileges they lost over the years.