ttama

Is guesting a stranger into a lounge, brokered via this or other forums, legitimate?

jerry a. laska

Are you charging a fee or receiving something in return(other than thanks or goodwill) for the guesting? If not, where is the barter or selling of benefits?

ttama

I didn't mention bartering or selling. I asked if it was legitimate.

xooz

I'm underqualified compared to the many BA veterans here, but though this strays somewhat off topic to the original post, some comments:

• I would believe that virtually all programs have some stated prohibition from simply selling points, BA certainly prohibits this as noted by KARFA.
• Beyond breaking the rules of the FF program, giving some unknown person access to your account would be the last thing I would do. The number of bad things that could happen border on infinite, particularly losing all your points either from fraud or by having the FF program cancel your account
• I also believe these restrictions would apply to taking money for booking a trip with your points for someone else, but the fog starts rolling in for the cases where you use your points to make bookings for someone else. I do this frequently for in-laws, but my usual approach is to book a trip with my points but get reimbursed for the fees. Did I sell it? Maybe I'm a bad boy... never thought about it until just now.
• Finally, my original comment was regarding the Coupon Connection rules and whether some of the trades proposed there adhere to BA rules, and if not should they be dealt with. I've never used that forum, but given the Forum rules, in conjunction with BA rules, it seems questionable that the various posts looking to swap Avios one way or the other adhere to the Coupon Connection rules.

As to lounge access, jerry a. laska correctly notes that there is no problem just inviting someone in as a guest. Selling an instrument that allows access would be at the mercy of the business that provides the access and their usage terms and conditions. Seems like there is a thread or 2 somewhere where people post their expected lounge times and may agree to guest someone in but perhaps that went the way of the dodo with the curtailment of many free guest options.

orbitmic

I think that summarises it well. If you are just inviting some random stranger for nothing, you are not doing anything that contradicts your T&Cs, and your only "risk" is that if they behave badly (which obviously can happen) you'll be held responsible for it by the airline and then all hell can break lose.

If you are selling or exchanging your lounge invitation getting something in return, then the airline will not be happy if they find out, which they might well do, not least from the person they have tried to help (it's amazing how much people underestimate the likelihood of being denounced by the very people they think they are doing a favour to but who might not see it that way).

golfmad

While nothing to do with BA's terms and conditions, please note that the FT BAEC Forum policy does not to permit posts or threads that explicitly request or offer to guest in others.

This forum does not facilitate guesting.

golfmad
Moderator: BAEC Forum

jerry a. laska

Why would it be illegitimate? If you are allowed to bring a guest is the guest access limited to only relatives within the 4th degree of consanguinity or persons youve known a certain number of years? I've never seen any limitations like that in regards to guesting based upon BA status so I guess I don't see how guesting someone (really anyone) into a lounge could be considered illegitimate when you are not receiving payment or some other benefit in return. If you are guesting someone in and then leaving them there while you go somewhere else that of course would be a different matter and is oft debated here including in the last week or two.

orbitmic

Very good point - here, I assumed guesting some random stranger met at the airport, certainly not using FT for it.

scottishpoet

There used to be a guesting thread on this forum.

it got taken down. I am not sure an official reason was formally communicated other than a change in forum policy, but informally i believe there were concerns some people were abusing the facility.

There are people on here who i have bumped into on occassion at dos and if we are travelling through lhr I they have guested me into a higher level lounge than i am entitled to.

So i guess yes it can arguably be 'arranged' on ft, but not in this forum.

there are various platforms where members of the forum share their travel plans.

the810

If you do it for free, it is legitimate as far as I'm concerned but indirectly it may cause further "ehnacements" if done on a large scale. Running a lounge has costs, both in terms of space and F&B. The guesting benefit is intended for people who travel with you (even if they're on a different flight, e.g. you go home after a meeting and host a colleague travelling somewhere else) and thus it's assumed that only a certain percentage of passengers will bring a guest. If more people start doing it by hosting strangers, this will increase these costs, but since there's no increase in revenue, the loss has to be recuperated some other way. This may mean worse offer in the lounge, less frequent renovations, or cost cuts somewhere else. Therefore, while legitimate, it will have negative effects on you and other passengers somewhere down the line.

A good example of negative effects of hosting strangers is Star Alliance, which already restricted guesting to people on the same flight. People who want to host "real" guests on other flights lost this ability because of people who were abusing the benefit.

ffI

I have never had a good turn go unpunished in life!
I guess that wisdom comes with age and bitter experience.

CarefreeBA

Let's bring the guesting policy into consideration here. oneworld airlines extend a common courtesy (via means of a published benefit) to Sapphire and Emerald holders to guest people into lounges. They understand that a lot are solo travellers and sometimes fly with those who aren't.

Airlines therefore can assume that not everyone uses said guesting benefit at all time. Us BA folk know that the lounges are crowded as it is, and that's with a large number of us not guesting.

Point is: some forums on here offer guesting/requesting into lounges and I have been fortunate to get into a couple across the years thanks to some lovely people on here. However, once money is exchanged the 'game' turns into a whole new realm. 50% of the time I travel by myself. A handful of those times I have offered someone random lounge access. One example was someone travelling AMS-LHR-JNB for the first time in a couple of years and seemed pretty stressed about the whole thing.

aktchi

Imagine an irate "guest" complaining to the airline customer service just how bad the lounge experience was for what he had paid his guesting host.

irishguy28

Yet you quoted a post about bartering, having copied it over from an entirely different thread to start this new thread....which seems more like an attempt to link the two issues, rather than a mere misclick of a mouse....

ijgordon

This was split out from the original thread on selling miles by the moderators.