Minor: Rejected for LAX Flagship Lounge Access
#76
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 512
Thanks for the link but I don't need to read it.
Parents may buy and allow their minor child to consume alcohol in a bar or restaurant in Texas. Parents may buy and allow their minor child older than 16 to consume alcohol in a restaurant in Louisiana. That's two that I know of personally.
Parents may buy and allow their minor child to consume alcohol in a bar or restaurant in Texas. Parents may buy and allow their minor child older than 16 to consume alcohol in a restaurant in Louisiana. That's two that I know of personally.
#77
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: LAX
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold but PlatPro thanks to LPs
Posts: 4,438
Let's cut to the chase. The 16-year old passenger was correctly denied access to the Flagship Lounge in Los Angeles. AA does not provide vouchers for passengers denied access for reasons of their age.
If the employee was rude, then that's inexcusable, but it's also inexcusable for the passenger to be similarly rude and demand what he or she is not entitled to receive.
Fortunately, this is an issue that will cure itself in approximately 5 years.
Until then, enjoy your youth. Be patient. Someday you, too, will have arthritic joints, a bad back, wobbly knees, memory loss and grey thinning hair. Access to the Flagship Lounge will be the least of your worries.
If the employee was rude, then that's inexcusable, but it's also inexcusable for the passenger to be similarly rude and demand what he or she is not entitled to receive.
Fortunately, this is an issue that will cure itself in approximately 5 years.
Until then, enjoy your youth. Be patient. Someday you, too, will have arthritic joints, a bad back, wobbly knees, memory loss and grey thinning hair. Access to the Flagship Lounge will be the least of your worries.
#78
Join Date: Apr 2009
Programs: American EXP; British Airways Gold
Posts: 1,896
Let's cut to the chase. The 16-year old passenger was correctly denied access to the Flagship Lounge in Los Angeles. AA does not provide vouchers for passengers denied access for reasons of their age.
If the employee was rude, then that's inexcusable, but it's also inexcusable for the passenger to be similarly rude and demand what he or she is not entitled to receive.
Fortunately, this is an issue that will cure itself in approximately 5 years.
Until then, enjoy your youth. Be patient. Someday you, too, will have arthritic joints, a bad back, wobbly knees, memory loss and grey thinning hair. Access to the Flagship Lounge will be the least of your worries.
If the employee was rude, then that's inexcusable, but it's also inexcusable for the passenger to be similarly rude and demand what he or she is not entitled to receive.
Fortunately, this is an issue that will cure itself in approximately 5 years.
Until then, enjoy your youth. Be patient. Someday you, too, will have arthritic joints, a bad back, wobbly knees, memory loss and grey thinning hair. Access to the Flagship Lounge will be the least of your worries.
#79
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: SNA
Programs: AA EXP, UA 1K (until it expires then never again), *wood Plat, Marriott Gold
Posts: 9,236
Let's cut to the chase. The 16-year old passenger was correctly denied access to the Flagship Lounge in Los Angeles. AA does not provide vouchers for passengers denied access for reasons of their age.
If the employee was rude, then that's inexcusable, but it's also inexcusable for the passenger to be similarly rude and demand what he or she is not entitled to receive.
Fortunately, this is an issue that will cure itself in approximately 5 years.
Until then, enjoy your youth. Be patient. Someday you, too, will have arthritic joints, a bad back, wobbly knees, memory loss and grey thinning hair. Access to the Flagship Lounge will be the least of your worries.
If the employee was rude, then that's inexcusable, but it's also inexcusable for the passenger to be similarly rude and demand what he or she is not entitled to receive.
Fortunately, this is an issue that will cure itself in approximately 5 years.
Until then, enjoy your youth. Be patient. Someday you, too, will have arthritic joints, a bad back, wobbly knees, memory loss and grey thinning hair. Access to the Flagship Lounge will be the least of your worries.
#81
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: The FT AA forum, until it no longer wants me.
Programs: CK or bust
Posts: 1,913
#82
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: LAX
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold but PlatPro thanks to LPs
Posts: 4,438
You are 16 and I am 64. Permit me to give you a bit of Life Advice from the perspective of someone who hasn't seen 16 in decades.
Enjoy being 16. Seriously. Enjoy being 16 while you can.
If I could wave a magic wand and get my 16-year old self back for a day and I had to spend some layover hours in LAX, sitting around a stuffy lounge with a bunch of old people would be the LAST thing I would want to do. Boooooooring.
I would go explore the airport as much as possible staying airside. I would go all over TBIT, checking out Umami Burger because at 16 I could eat like a pig and never gain weight. I'd browse through the shops, perhaps buying a little gift for parents and siblings. Once I saw everything there was to see in TBIT, I'd go through the connector to T4, visit the Homeboy Industries cafe (great food!) and see all I could in T4. Then the tunnel to T5, perhaps doing a little jog in the tunnel if possible and burn off some of those calories.
Explore T5, etc.
With luck, you might see a group of teenagers at a departure gate, sitting on the floor playing cards, waiting for a delayed flight. Join them for a few minutes, find out where they are from, where they are going and share your story with them.
Exploring the airport and meeting other teenagers sounds like MUCH MORE FUN than sitting in a lounge, even a very luxurious lounge, to my 16-year old self. At that age, I would have hated having to just sit in one place for hours. Even in my 30s, connecting through DFW, I used to walk through the entire A-C concourses, especially enjoying the bouncy foot massage feeling of the moving sidewalks in the connector.
Now, at 64, sitting in one place in a comfy chair doing Sudoku is more attractive than walking around on creaky knees. Lounges were made for folks like me. The rest of the world is open to folks like you.
Enjoy being 16. Seriously. Enjoy being 16 while you can.
If I could wave a magic wand and get my 16-year old self back for a day and I had to spend some layover hours in LAX, sitting around a stuffy lounge with a bunch of old people would be the LAST thing I would want to do. Boooooooring.
I would go explore the airport as much as possible staying airside. I would go all over TBIT, checking out Umami Burger because at 16 I could eat like a pig and never gain weight. I'd browse through the shops, perhaps buying a little gift for parents and siblings. Once I saw everything there was to see in TBIT, I'd go through the connector to T4, visit the Homeboy Industries cafe (great food!) and see all I could in T4. Then the tunnel to T5, perhaps doing a little jog in the tunnel if possible and burn off some of those calories.
Explore T5, etc.
With luck, you might see a group of teenagers at a departure gate, sitting on the floor playing cards, waiting for a delayed flight. Join them for a few minutes, find out where they are from, where they are going and share your story with them.
Exploring the airport and meeting other teenagers sounds like MUCH MORE FUN than sitting in a lounge, even a very luxurious lounge, to my 16-year old self. At that age, I would have hated having to just sit in one place for hours. Even in my 30s, connecting through DFW, I used to walk through the entire A-C concourses, especially enjoying the bouncy foot massage feeling of the moving sidewalks in the connector.
Now, at 64, sitting in one place in a comfy chair doing Sudoku is more attractive than walking around on creaky knees. Lounges were made for folks like me. The rest of the world is open to folks like you.
#83
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: New York, NY
Programs: AA EXP Plat, Mariott Gold, Hilton Gold
Posts: 165
You are 16 and I am 64. Permit me to give you a bit of Life Advice from the perspective of someone who hasn't seen 16 in decades.
Enjoy being 16. Seriously. Enjoy being 16 while you can.
If I could wave a magic wand and get my 16-year old self back for a day and I had to spend some layover hours in LAX, sitting around a stuffy lounge with a bunch of old people would be the LAST thing I would want to do. Boooooooring.
I would go explore the airport as much as possible staying airside. I would go all over TBIT, checking out Umami Burger because at 16 I could eat like a pig and never gain weight. I'd browse through the shops, perhaps buying a little gift for parents and siblings. Once I saw everything there was to see in TBIT, I'd go through the connector to T4, visit the Homeboy Industries cafe (great food!) and see all I could in T4. Then the tunnel to T5, perhaps doing a little jog in the tunnel if possible and burn off some of those calories.
Explore T5, etc.
With luck, you might see a group of teenagers at a departure gate, sitting on the floor playing cards, waiting for a delayed flight. Join them for a few minutes, find out where they are from, where they are going and share your story with them.
Exploring the airport and meeting other teenagers sounds like MUCH MORE FUN than sitting in a lounge, even a very luxurious lounge, to my 16-year old self. At that age, I would have hated having to just sit in one place for hours. Even in my 30s, connecting through DFW, I used to walk through the entire A-C concourses, especially enjoying the bouncy foot massage feeling of the moving sidewalks in the connector.
Now, at 64, sitting in one place in a comfy chair doing Sudoku is more attractive than walking around on creaky knees. Lounges were made for folks like me. The rest of the world is open to folks like you.
Enjoy being 16. Seriously. Enjoy being 16 while you can.
If I could wave a magic wand and get my 16-year old self back for a day and I had to spend some layover hours in LAX, sitting around a stuffy lounge with a bunch of old people would be the LAST thing I would want to do. Boooooooring.
I would go explore the airport as much as possible staying airside. I would go all over TBIT, checking out Umami Burger because at 16 I could eat like a pig and never gain weight. I'd browse through the shops, perhaps buying a little gift for parents and siblings. Once I saw everything there was to see in TBIT, I'd go through the connector to T4, visit the Homeboy Industries cafe (great food!) and see all I could in T4. Then the tunnel to T5, perhaps doing a little jog in the tunnel if possible and burn off some of those calories.
Explore T5, etc.
With luck, you might see a group of teenagers at a departure gate, sitting on the floor playing cards, waiting for a delayed flight. Join them for a few minutes, find out where they are from, where they are going and share your story with them.
Exploring the airport and meeting other teenagers sounds like MUCH MORE FUN than sitting in a lounge, even a very luxurious lounge, to my 16-year old self. At that age, I would have hated having to just sit in one place for hours. Even in my 30s, connecting through DFW, I used to walk through the entire A-C concourses, especially enjoying the bouncy foot massage feeling of the moving sidewalks in the connector.
Now, at 64, sitting in one place in a comfy chair doing Sudoku is more attractive than walking around on creaky knees. Lounges were made for folks like me. The rest of the world is open to folks like you.
#84
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: SLC/HEL/Anywhere with a Beach
Programs: Marriott Ambassador; AA EXP 3MM; AS MVP, Hilton Gold, CH-47/UH-60/C-23/C-130 VET
Posts: 5,234
You are 16 and I am 64. Permit me to give you a bit of Life Advice from the perspective of someone who hasn't seen 16 in decades.<br /><br />Enjoy being 16. Seriously. Enjoy being 16 while you can.<br /><br />If I could wave a magic wand and get my 16-year old self back for a day and I had to spend some layover hours in LAX, sitting around a stuffy lounge with a bunch of old people would be the LAST thing I would want to do. Boooooooring.<br /><br />I would go explore the airport as much as possible staying airside. I would go all over TBIT, checking out Umami Burger because at 16 I could eat like a pig and never gain weight. I'd browse through the shops, perhaps buying a little gift for parents and siblings. Once I saw everything there was to see in TBIT, I'd go through the connector to T4, visit the Homeboy Industries cafe (great food!) and see all I could in T4. Then the tunnel to T5, perhaps doing a little jog in the tunnel if possible and burn off some of those calories.<br /><br />Explore T5, etc.<br /><br />With luck, you might see a group of teenagers at a departure gate, sitting on the floor playing cards, waiting for a delayed flight. Join them for a few minutes, find out where they are from, where they are going and share your story with them.<br /><br />Exploring the airport and meeting other teenagers sounds like MUCH MORE FUN than sitting in a lounge, even a very luxurious lounge, to my 16-year old self. At that age, I would have hated having to just sit in one place for hours. Even in my 30s, connecting through DFW, I used to walk through the entire A-C concourses, especially enjoying the bouncy foot massage feeling of the moving sidewalks in the connector.<br /><br />Now, at 64, sitting in one place in a comfy chair doing Sudoku is more attractive than walking around on creaky knees. Lounges were made for folks like me. The rest of the world is open to folks like you.
Through all those times, I've met some incredible people, rich, poor, powerful, refugees, and in between. Somewhere along the way, I've tried to understand that age and experience overlap with but are not the same as wisdom, evolution, and understanding the environment around you. For example, I remember finding a report from 1968 written by someone in their 20's that provided excellent insight and approaches to situations I was dealing with 40 years later and thousands of miles away. I've also had people in their 30's from top schools make recommendations that suggest they are completely out of touch with today's technology, business, and cultural environment.
So ... if I could wave that same magic wand and go back to 16, I might wonder about the TWA Flight Center and the PanAm Worldport or be clueless about them. But when it comes to airports outside of CDG, FRA, HKG, LHR, and SIN, I'd say skip the cookie cutter stores and franchised restaurants with overpriced trinkets. When at LAX, the Flagship Lounge and the Qantas First Lounge are today's Flight Center or WorldPort. Get a glass of champagne and watch the aircraft from all over the world taxi in and out of the gates at TBIT, listen to the vibe around you from those boring corporate types on their laptops and cell phones heading to Kuala Lumpur, Buenos Aires, or a sandbox somewhere, each of whom have their own experiences and stories which may have started from wealth or poverty, and check out the departures board and google places like Hartford, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City.
I'm certainly not saying don't wander ... and you should experience life in a hostel or on RyanAir, always carry your own luggage so never bring more than you can handle on your own, and think about whether that crowd on the floor looks interesting ... but, all things being equal, there's a mix in life so when I'm at LAX this week, I'll wander around TBIT for a few minutes (creaky knees and all from the excess of takeoffs over landings) and then hangout in the Qantas First Lounge, and have some calamari and champagne.
And next time I see a wayward and polite One World Emerald outside a flagship lounge, who obviously decided experiencing the world was a priority, I might guest them in.
#85
In Memoriam, FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2000
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#86
Join Date: May 2015
Location: LAX
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Posts: 179
#87
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