Originally Posted by drseagrass

We had some pushback in Philadelphia last week while waiting for the AA flight to Madrid. I am One World Sapphire via Alaska Air and had used AS miles to acquire a mileage ticket in premium economy on AA. I had thought that One World elite status was sufficient on a transatlantic flight to arrange for lounge access, and expected the boarding pass reader, which showed elite status on it, would get us in, but the receptionist was not having any of that. She said that access was not allowed on such a "cheap" ticket and that was the word she used. My spouse, who was traveling with me on a paid PE ticket also has the same elite status via Alaska, but I had to fire up an ipad and show an Alaska Lounge + membership card (in my name) to eventually get us into the underwhelming lounge. Afterwards, I looked up the entrance rules, but couldn't find an exclusion for a mileage ticket held by an elite traveler. For the future, just wondered if this was a real policy I had missed.