rjn21

One of the perennial occurrences. J redemption, International BA J inbound to LHR, connecting same day to domestic BA. I haven't had this for a few years, and never at LHR, but today was back to the bad old ways.

Story:

Beep and green light (I assume that means lounge access ok, but I could be wrong and just means OK to fly.

"Whose guest are you?"

"Good morning, I'm not a guest"

"Do you have a card?" Assume meant silver/gold.

"No, I'm inbound in business from [international J destination]

"Sorry you don't have access"

Sigh.

Another dragon at a neighbouring desk then said yes he does, it's fine.

So entry on 3 counts - (i) green light beep, (ii) international J redemption with a domestic connection all on one ticket so effectively a J redemption which should include business UK, but they don't offer that redemption fare class, (iii) oneworld connecting flights rule.

Just tiresome to have to go through the faff. Anyway. In GC, ice cream less, temperature ok, no available power sockets I can see other than at the PC desk stations.

pazza2000

I suspect it was a new member of staff unsure of the rules, T5 must deal with these entry scenarios often.

I'll be trying to take a guest into a domestic lounge soon using my onward F ticket. That's another degree of separation and at a domestic lounge, I don't expect much joy though will be armed with the YouFirst tel# for clarification if required.

Foltan

If you're already aware that you're not booked into domestic J, why not make sure you hand them your inbound BP and make it clear to them, to save the aggravation?!

Admittedly they didn't sound very polite, informed or helpful, but it'd at least prevent you from getting so annoyed that you need to write it on a forum.

rjn21

For what it's worth I asked a MAN dragon about that exact scenario as I also have an upcoming F booking looking to guest 1 in at MAN. She said no problem, all fine. However that's one view, on the day may be different and the rules don't cover that scenario.

rjn21

I had an iPhone app boarding pass and the last time I showed the arriving pass, the agent said, nice but need to have your onward pass.

ENTP

Which class did the domestic segment book into?
(X perhaps? It's a shame they can't get the system to give U)

rjn21

I think it's X, being 'the highest ticket class available on your selected flights' with the international being U.

HIDDY

I'm pretty sure we had U for both GLA-LHR and LHR-MAD sectors. The domestic BP had C printed on it. Just showed them that at GLA and had no problem getting into the lounge.

Globaliser

But I thought that every domestic BP has C printed on it, as it's the cabin code for "single cabin domestic"?

JMurray

They're great with this at MAN, always seem to know the rules/ use a bit of common sense.

Not even had a problem taking a late MAN-LHR the night before my connecting CE flight (redemption so X).

FlyerTalker6245

Firstly the green light is not a reflection on lounge access- this reflects that the system has scanned a valid boarding pass for departure from that terminal on that date.

Secondly, when booked as one ticket my experience is that domestic connections from business class book into X by default, but when X is not available they book into U. This means that even the reminder on the BA staff brief (which says that domestics in U class availability permits access) does not even fully solve the issue.

What this doesn't get away from the is the issue here. Despite terminal 5 beings some 7 years old, we still are plagued with lounge staff who don't seem capable of remembering some basic rules. I started a thread last year where I was refused a guest as a gold into Galleries North.

There seems to be a reluctance from BA to address these issues, and my experience with customer relations afterwards wasn't positive - along the lines of "we are sorry, life goes on".

HIDDY

So I believe which makes me think that having the domestic sector ticketed in U is the important thing to have.

Skipcool3

The C printed on the DOM flights was I thought a throw back to the super shuttle days when the Super shuttle routes showed as C and the remaining DOM services showed as M on the boarding pass....

This lounge issue happened to me too in May, ticketed C (U) Fra-LHR C (U) Lhr - Abz....
It was only when I stood my ground and explained it that I was let in.....

ba_cityflyer

It always amazes me thats lounge dragons don't even know the basic elements of their job.