Edgerfly

Why? Who cares if it's been stamped? You're allowed to visit multiple lounges per policy when flying J. You're not stuck in the one lounge you choose to enter for the eternity of that waiting time.

irishguy28

In a location where airberlin has gone outside the alliance in order to conclude lounge access arrangements with a third-party operator, the oneworld operators will be aware that they are probably not going to be able to bill airberlin for your visit, if your visit is purely on the basis of a J ticket. [In case you are not aware, airberlin is loss-making and in the middle of painful restructuring. They are unlikely to wish to pay multiple operators for each of your visits]

If you have oneworld status, your options are likely to be greater.

Edgerfly

I don't have OW status. But being in OW alliance doesn't mean they pay someone per visit. They pay AF, but not the airlines in OW.

In any event, I'm still curious about the other lounges. I've never been to SFO I don't know if AB departs from where the other lounges do.

irishguy28

Each of British Airways, Cathay Pacific and JAL have lounges in the international terminal at SFO, as you can see on the oneworld website - but note the limited opening hours for the latter two lounges.

However, I would advise you to expect that you will only be able to visit one lounge - most likely the Air France lounge - and adapt your expectations accordingly.

A J ticket is never a license to lounge-hop - granted, there are places and occasions where this is possible, but there are also many cases where it is not allowed. (Skyteam, in particular, tends to clamp down and insist you use the appropriate lounge, even where several are accessible).

Bear in mind, again, that airberlin is a bit of an "outsider" in oneworld, having been all but taken over by Etihad shortly after they decided to join oneworld. AB does not participate in the oneworld Transtatlantic Joint Venture.

And if you think that airberlin won't be charged by each lounge for your attempted/actual visits - then you are mistaken. If they could have their passengers access the BA, CX and JL lounges for no cost to themselves, they certainly wouldn't have gone and arranged to pay Air France for the use of their lounge - which one can only conclude they arranged to do because AF were offering cheaper access than any of the oneworld partners.

When is your flight? Please return and let us know what happened And enjoy your trip to Germany!

Edgerfly

Thank you. Are you certain AB leaves SFO from where these SFO lounges are located?

SK2751

btw. a common "trick" that often works is to use an electronic boarding pass if you want to do lounge hopping. I never tried it myself, as I consider lounge hopping a waste of time, but it has been reported several times on this forum that it works.

Edgerfly

I don't know. I've never had a problem lounge hopping within alliances, ever.

And this is speaking off of 20 years of FF.

Rowyourboat

Is your flight in the evening? The BA lounge is open at noon and closes after their last departure, which is 7:30 I believe. CX lounge is only open between 9pm-11pm, and JL lounge is open noon-3PM (or something like that).

So if you're flying on the 8PM AB flight, you need a contract lounge and AB contracts with AF/KL. Qantas does the same thing for their evening flight. Note that you can still go to another lounge if you have status - I have gone to the CX lounge but was OWE, even though my BP said AF lounge. The CX attendant told me to go to AF, but he saw my status and then let me in.

Edgerfly

I'm on the 1:45pm to Berlin. So if I try to enter the JL lounge on a paid business class ticket, they'll deny me entry? This is against OW policy.

Rowyourboat

I agree with you, but I think they will. Please try it out and let us know. FWIW, the AF/KL lounge is fine.

safari ari

This isn't 100% true, maybe just for OW, but the CX lounge is (partially) open, from the morning 5 am until past midnight, because Alaska uses their lounge for their members, I have been there multiple times during the afternoon and it is empty, but still open. It is also recorded on the CX website. So I wonder what they can say if we show up at 11 when there aren't many Alaska flights going out at that time.

Yoshi212

Seems you aren't liking the answers you're getting more than them not being sufficient.

Edgerfly

Well I'm just not liking the answers because they don't fit with the oneworld alliance policies so that doesnt make any sense to me.

No offense intended to anyone.

Edgerfly

Are you also flying out of SFO on AB?

I see in your profile that you have an extensive travel profile. And all before the age of 24! That is very impressive and I think the whole community should take a moment to commemorate this.