Originally Posted by
platbrownguy
Check-in. The line on the left is for walk-ins, the line on the right is for reservations. The reservations line moved faster. As is to be expected, a lot of folks in the walk-in line were confused. A lot of folks also walked up asking what it was. Staff were plentiful and very friendly but they didn't have a sense (at all) that there should be a different answer to (1) an eligible Amex cardholder's question "how does this work / how do I get in" than to (2) a random tourist's question "what on earth is this"... instead they just responded to everyone with something like "it's a 60-minute experience with a full bar and fun surprises, there's a QR code there for reservations, but we take walk-ins" but only haphazardly clarified that it was open only to Platinum and Centurion cardholders and their guests. That answer only further confused the random tourists who were mostly just trying to figure out whether it was a hotel bar, a restaurant, or something else.
I don't know if the main purpose was to provide some extra benefit to random Amex cardholders who happen to find out about it, but it certainly doesn't seem like they were using this to market their credit cards to people stumbling over the lounge. Perhaps the "hired help" was poorly trained...