Originally Posted by
serfty
Actually, the default oneworld agreement is that the Marketing carrier pays for such lounge access. Carriers within oneworld may vary this with their own separate agreements but I am pretty sure with QF jilting MH for EK last decade, QF and MH would not have such.
In which case, Qantas were forgoing revenue from MH in denying you access.
Actually no. Assume you have OWE status offered by an airline other than MH (say, hypothetically, BA) and flying MH.
If you’re flying MH J and you go to the QF J lounge, MH pays for your access - because your flight class entitles you to access a J lounge. Your OWE status doesn’t feature in the economics at all.
But if you’re flying MH J or Y and you go to the QF F lounge - your flight class alone doesn’t entitle you to access an F lounge, access is granted solely by your status, so BA (that gave you OWE status) pays for your access.