JohannSebastianBach

You are indeed correct. It takes incredible organisation for BA outstations to achieve this. They have to ensure that there is only one check-in agent for the priority queue and several for the economy queue, all of whom are carefully trained never to deal with anyone from the priority queue. Finally, it is a condition that everyone in the priority queue ahead of me should either be a large family, with limitless numbers of suitcases, ski equipment, child buggies etc., all of which require last-minute repacking, amid long discussions about what will or won�t go in the cabin, be checked at the gate etc; or a series of businesspeople, with complex queries about rebooking an onward connection in First via Zurich.

pmcg

Had half a dozen Americans coming from downstairs to upstairs at the North security decide they were in too much of a hurry to wait.
They showed a boarding pass to the agent at the front who told them to join the "line", going down to the end then back again.

Half way down they got talking to another American in front of us and he invited them to skip under the barrier which they did.

When i protested I just got shouted at.

Pointed this out to the agent when I got forward that they had skipped in front and they were duly taken to one side.

Turns out one of them had lost their boarding pass which I did find rather funny given the circumstances.

RockyRobin

Can I just point out that Prince Andrew does not sweat

JohannSebastianBach

Can I just point out that I, of course, knew that Prince Andrew allegedly does not sweat, and had judged that he was lying through his teeth (about that and possibly other matters); hence my ironic reference to this in my post. Anyway, I shall now get back to my day job of writing baroque music in the first half of the 18th century. Best wishes, JSB

Fatdickie

Any chance you can finish your Fugue?

orbitmic

Not a big one, but in my view an inexcusable one. In a third party lounge now, and guy with BA gold card travelling LX Y has made a fuss that he is allowed in because of his BA Gold card "which is Star Alliance". I don't tend to interfere in those cases as I don't think it is my prerogative to do so and haven't (after considering it seriously), but I feel for the poor lady at reception who will get told off when the transaction is ultimately declined by LX and the lounge managers are billed for the stay, and I just don't like cheat, let alone those who try to put psychological pressure on those they try to cheat with.

Erwin10

Pretty sure there is a large oneworld sign on the BA gold card.. Oh well, once people believe in their own stupidness..

carrotjuice

And likewise on the digital card in the BA app.

IAN-UK

It seems odd that blaggers are able to succeed with such ropey ploys, unless BA operates a policy aimed at avoiding confrontation at the entry desks. I'd have thought the gate-keepers would have a hotline to management/security to deal with such issues while the miscreant is lounge-side.

It would be harsh in the extreme to bill staff for the cost of an unauthorised visit. If the will for retribution were there, it should be aimed at the perpetrator: they could probably chase it up through Swiss/M&M - though i imagine these things just wash through the system.


There again, maybe the chap was stuck in a time warp. I believe there was a time when the BA lounge at BHX was contracted to welcome Swissair's top-tier QualiFlyers.

SKT-DK

According to the post, the lounge in question was a third party lounge and not a BA one - so that limits their influence.

Sadly, in many situations, people acting like bullies often get their way thanks to their terrible behaviour

IAN-UK

Ah, right: my mistake - i was thinking we were talking T5.

At third-party lounges I imagine all sorts of mistakes happen.

There's a rich and current history of ITA card carriers blagging their way into lounges operated by and for SkyTeam carriers, although ITA is still very far from being a full and active participant in the wider alliance,

GuyWMD

Based off the Skyteam website, ITA are full members and ITA card holders (only looked at Volare) fall under Skyteam Elite Plus.

LCY8737

Indeed, my ITA card in the ITA app has a very prominent Sky Team logo...

IAN-UK

The belief that the logo on Volare plastic entitles the bearer to SkyTeam status privileges across the alliance network, and that ITA is a full member of, and participant in, SkyTeam is somewhere close to cloud-cuckoo territory.

Sadly the logo means vanishingly little beyond the world of ITA. ITA and Volare (its frequent flyer programme) are not recognised as partner carriers by other SkyTeam members. Those airlines mulling over entering into a deeper financial partnership with ITA have an ad hoc acceptance of Volare members: we're talking AF and KLM, principally at their hubs and occasionally elsewhere. ITA doesn'r generate miles for alliance partners, nor do trips with those partners put miles in your Volare account. You can't use Volare miles to redeem flights on ST member airlines. There's the suggestion that Korean is now a true partner......but who knows?

SkyTeam itself recognises that Volare is a euphemistic work in progress: ITA faces negotiations with each ST member to establish bilateral recognition under the alliance's umbrella. So far progress has been, well, limited . The future of the airline is indeed murky, so potental ST partners are not falling over themselves to align with a carrier that might be a Star affiliate tomorrow, or simply fail.

There are reports that glitches in the system meant that Volare membership numbers were able to be tweaked to generate phantom Alitalia credentials, still recognised by some ST systems. And certainly some members have blagged entry to lounges and other airport benefits on the strength of the logo and their persistence wearing down agents.


This is the best polish the Skyteam website can give to the situation ......


and here's the LoyaltyLobby analysis of the fiasco:

https://loyaltylobby.com/2022/10/26/...s-one-year-on/

13901

I had a very brief experience as 'lounge dragon' and 'Million dollar door bouncer' back in my days in Heathrow Customer Services and it was an insight in how low so-called grown ups can sink.

I saw all kinds of subterfuges, ranging from the inventive to the utterly miserable, to gain entrance to a lounge. I heard sob stories of breakups and accidents that, somehow, could only be rectified by gaining entry to the lounge and sipping a glass of average champagne. I've had women trying to flirt with me, including one who parked her rather prominent, erm, front bumpers on my desk as if a peep could justify her sauntering in Galleries North, the palace of stale croissants and people on conference calls. Then there were those - and they were legion - who paraded the AA 'Gold' card as something akin to Tolkien's Rings of Power, thus giving them the right to a seat in Galleries B and the first born of any lounge attendant (while, it's worth noting, that card is just a oneworld Ruby). There were those who pretended to be coming in looking for the loo, or so engrossed in a call that they couldn't stop, or the 'I've just gotten out, I'm coming back in' crowd, or those who tried to hide behind a queue of people. Finally there were those who insulted me, said that me and my colleagues were harlots (or words to that extent), effin' bureaucrats, wished us to die and so on.

The pinnacle of this pyramid of human misery happened at the 'million dollar door'. I remember a man - a grown man from someplace, USA, with the backpack adorned by the logo of some software company - going so ballistic at me for not being allowed through the Concorde room door that the security team nearby stopped doing what they were doing and stood by in case he went for it. The abuse was torrential, and the second worst of my life, though over time it got a bit repetitive. Apparently, having to go downstairs and up again (sure an inconvenience) was the pits and, to quote George Bush Sr, an aggression that would not stand. Then he saw the little podium with the 4 faces that you can use to send feedback about something, remember that? You know, the one with the smiley green face, the so-and-so greenish one, the 'meh' amber and the frowny red? Well, he saw that and he pounded that thing. I mean, he properly slammed his meaty feast on the red button while his puffy face went crimson and he screamed "NOT HAPPY" at the top of his lungs. The sad thing was that the little faces were there to provide feedback on the security queue and not me.