PDXPremier

Just a heads up....while the United Club at DCA is indeed open for Alaska Lounge members (with a UA or AS boarding pass), they no longer allow immediate family members of the lounge member entry. I got denied entry this evening since I had my wife and two kids. The UA Club agent said the policy is now 2 adults or 1 adult/1 child. We ended up walking down to the AC and enjoying some fresh guacamole so it wasn't a big deal but next time I won't waste my time walking down to the United Club if I'm traveling with my family. There is nothing on the Alaska Lounge information page about this exception to their general access policy so I dropped a note to their Twitter team. Is this the only partner lounge that limits access to 2 guests only?

Eastbay1K

Sounds like UA jacked up the price of additional guests and AS said "um, no."

PDXPremier

Lol...yeah, sounds about right.

Mahogany

I was there this morning, nothing but some badly burned coffee, yogurt and fruit cuts. It’s located at a hidden corner of the terminal. I wouldn’t want to trek there in the future.

how about the Admiral Club?

DCA connects all but 1-9 gates post-security, starting Nov 8.

PDXPremier

We found the AC Club in the B Concourse not too far of a walk from the AS gates...plenty of seating and great snacks including the previously mentioned gucamole. It's location is a bit hidden so it's easy to miss if you've never been there before.

Mahogany

haven’t been to United club for a few years, it is still the same disappointment.

jsguyrus

The United Club at DCA isn’t great, but what I do like is it’s very unique location and history. It’s an oval shaped structure on top of the old terminal building, apparently in its hey day it was a pretty fancy restaurant. Despite it being very average I still like it.

jrl767

for anyone who appreciates DCA nostalgia, it’s a great venue … but I’ll agree that the convenience factor pretty much disappears when comparing to an AC now that everything at DCA is connected airside

econ

Is entry with UA boarding pass to the UCs also a recent development?

I see it mentions that on the website now for the few UCs that AS partners with, but for some reason I thought before one had to be flying AS to get access with an AL membership.

Collierkr

A same day boarding pass has been a UC access requirement for quite some time.

ccna101

This could be somewhat good for me, DCA had no AMex lounge, no PP (Select / the one with Amex) and, no Alaska lounge ...

I have few AS lounge passes that I need to burn ... Hope it works .. checking with AS now

Check with AS: no AS day pass

econ

Yes, but I thought that until recently it might have been AS boarding pass only when accessing the partner UCs with an AL membership.

PDXPremier

Maybe that's a way UA can try to steal away some AS flyers by allowing AS Lounge members to access some of their United Clubs with the AL membership....just a thought....it is an odd policy again. Honestly I probably won't return to that UC at DCA since the AC a better option in my book.

MSPeconomist

At one point, you could use any same-day boarding pass to access US lounges with the AmEx Plat/Centurion charge card, despite other airline lounges (DL and at least one other at the time) requiring boarding passes for their own flights. The latter requirement was strictly enforced even for a codeshare partner arrangement that even permitted free elite partner upgrades between MSP and IAH, with MSP having PMNW lounges while IAH had only CO lounges--I became an expert in these technicalities for a while.

Your comment is causing me to reflect on the pros and cons of admitting your competitor's passengers into your lounges, presumably for a fee paid by either your competitor or some third party.

Since it's US doing business as UA, maybe US is bringing back a strategy from the past.

jrl767

we're discussing Alaska Lounge member access to the UA club, which is near the AS gates at DCA ... same-day AS BP worked fine for me last month