Lounge access - what happened?
 

Flew from TLS to EDI in CE yesterday. It was a reward booking made over the phone. En route to LHR I noticed that my boarding pass to EDI didn't say business. Thought that was a bit odd but too late to do anything about it then. As I feared, when I tried accessing the Galleries lounge I was told I didn't have lounge access. I said the flight to EDI was part of a CE booking and showed my boarding pass for the TLS-LHR part. The guy checked with his colleague and then let me in so it was all good in the end but just wondered what the problem was. Any ideas?

This just seems to be the way with domestic connections on reward flights - they are not booked into Business UK (maybe there is only one domestic reward booking class?); it shouldn't matter though - arriving on in an eligible class gives you access to the appropriate lounge on the departing connection regardless of the class of that flight; it just seems that not all of the lounge staff know that.

If the domestic leg was not booked into Business UK, you just need to show your inbound CE BP for lounge access.

Cool, thanks for the useful info guys.

I purchased a full fare ticket at the airport from Edinburgh to LHR and walked up to the lounge. Even though the ticket was full fare, it didn't have 'Business UK printed on it'. The dude at the door was a bit of a weapon, so I let him give me the speech about not being able to use the lounge and let him 'shame me' in the way only these people know how to; 'sorry about that' etc etc

Once a suitable amount of time had gone by, I put my BAEC card down in front of him and let him apologise for 10 minutes before finally correcting him and saying he should have let me in anyway.

Edit: The point I'm making here is most of you know the access rules much better than they do.

How come the number and status wasn't showing on the BP already?

My wife purchased the ticket on my behalf in the terminal, while I parked the car. I did ask her to come back to the car and get my card but she refused because it was - in her opinion - an unnecessary inconvenience.

A 45 second walk would have been too much trouble, I agree.

It would seem to me the lounge staff were going by the rules if you just showed them your domestic boarding pass.

As for the story from thedoctor.....:confused:

[QUOTE=Genius1;19080684]If the domestic leg was not booked into Business UK, you just need to show your inbound CE BP for lounge access.[/QUOTE
No need. I just show the domestic BP on redemption CE booking and never have a problem.

Yes he does seem to need to work on his bedside manner a little. Why anyone would waste their own time like that is beyond me, especially when he is so avowedly determined to spend time in the lounge... :rolleyes:

I just like to inject some fun into my day to ease extreme boredom of travelling.

In my experience you actually have to ask for business UK when you buy the domestic ticket at the airport; otherwise its just booked in one of the expensive fare buckets, not flexible and no lounge access (boarding card should say 'J' if its business UK, Y and the other expensive ones won't give you the lounge access).

Domestic Full fare Y gives you lounge access as it's a fully flexible fare, I've been booked in that class many times and the iPhone app always reflects Business UK as it does with J class

Purchased at airport from reservations desk LHR, fare was £180~ each way to MAN and back, asked for it to be flexible. I was returning early the next day so got my inbound boarding pass at the same time.

Both boarding passes said 'Y'; no access to the north lounge at T5. When I decided to return late the same day, clerk at MAN said there is a £60 change fee. She informed me that the only flexible tickets would have J or C as the class on the boarding pass and state "Business UK" and that these also include lounge access.

Maybe it didn't say Y; maybe I had double vision at the time, maybe it was because I was already checked in, don't know, but it was a pain putting it all through expenses :P

Only tickets in J or Y fare buckets qualify for Business UK/lounge access. C, D, I, R, whatever do not have lounge access.