I beg to differ, Guava

1. Does an AAdmiral's Club membership get you into all the business class lounges across all member airlines? NO. You do with a Red Carpet Club membership from UA.

2. Does being AAdvantage Plat or EXP get you any better lounge previliges when travelling exclusively domestic than United? NO, you don't get lounge access in both cases.

3. Does being Star Gold get you into every single business class lounges across the Star network bar the SQ lounge in SIN, plus some First Class lounges? YES

4. OW does NOT have less exclusions than Star about lounge access. Most of the restrictions on Star is about access to certain First Class lounges, and nothing prevents any *G members travelling internationally from getting into any of its member's Business Class lounges.
Of course, SQ is an exception, but I'm not sure if they even want to be in an alliance in the first place. They are the most arrogant airline on the planet (well, they do have a right to be, just not when they're in an "alliance").

5. When you mention that *G doesn't get access to lounges in some airlines' hub airports, like ANA in NRT and Varig in GIG/GRU, I hope you did finish reading the guide and found that they were actually restrictions on access to their First Class lounges at their hub airports?

6. Airlines that have F class lounges: Air NZ, ANA, Lufthansa, Singapore, Thai, United and Varig. Now, being *G gets you access to 3 of these airlines' F Class lounges (except at their home-base airports), even when only flying 35000 miles per year. Point: You don't get into ANY F class lounges when being Sapphire on OW.

7. Lounge quality: Mainly personal opinions, but when you go to the Maple Leaf lounges in AC hubs, or to SK's Scandanavian lounges in CPH/ARN, with only being a middle tier on Star, I don't think you have much of a cause of complaint.

I'm sure you notice my conclusion already...

[corrected for UBB codes ONLY]

[This message has been edited by stargold (edited 01-03-2001).]